-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Dead horses
Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 20:26:41 -0600
From: "Virginia Dollahite" <virginia@teleometrics.com>
To: "Virginia Dollahite" <virginia@teleometrics.com>

Dakota tribal wisdom says that when you discover you are riding a dead
horse,  the best strategy is to dismount.  However, in managing any
business
we often try other strategies with dead horses, including the following:

 1.  Buying a stronger whip.

 2.  Changing riders.

 3.  Saying things like "This is the way we always have ridden this
horse."

 4.  Appointing a committee to study the horse.

 5.  Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.

 6.  Increasing the standards to ride dead horses.

 7.  Appointing a "tiger team" to revive the dead horse.

 8.  Creating a training session to increase our riding ability.

 9.  Comparing the state of dead horses in today's environment.

 10. Changing the requirements, declaring that "This horse is not dead."

 11. Hiring contractors to ride the dead horse.

 12. Harnessing several dead horses together for increased speed.

 13. Declaring that "No horse is too dead to beat."

 14. Providing additional funding to increase the horse's performance.

 15. Doing a Cost Analysis Study to see if contractors can ride it
cheaper.

 16. Purchasing a product to make dead horses run faster.

 17. Declaring the horse is "better, faster and cheaper" dead.

 18. Forming a quality circle to find uses for dead horses.

19. Revisiting the performance requirements for horses.

 20. Saying this horse was procured with cost as an independent
variable.

 21. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.

 22. .Involving employees in resuscitating the horse.

 23. Re-engineering the horse into a dead camel.

 24. Appointing a Kaizen team to remove three redundant legs from the
  horse.

 25. Having the horse ISO certified as dead.

 26. Asking the Union to cooperate with Management in propping up the
  horse.

 27. Using the equity in the saddle to finance the purchase of a dead
cow.

28. Splitting the horse into two smaller pieces to increase agility and
   speed.

 29. Threatening to kill the horse again if it doesn't get up and try
  harder.

 30. Sending the herd owner off to Executive Rider Development.

 31. Mapping the death process to determine potential improvements.

 32. Leveraging the value of the horse to acquire a glue factory.

 33. Shipping the horse to China to reduce the cost of riders.

 34. Investing in an IT overhaul to support a Resuscitation Relational
   Database

 35. Launching an IPO for DeadHorse.com

 36. Offering a buy-out package to riders 55 and older to reduce the
 horse's burden.