The dead horse theory
A dead horse does not move anymore!
Indians have a very famous proverb that says:
When you see a dead horse, get off!
This proverb became so famous that it even entered the management theories of a new theory under the title:
The dead horse theory
You may think this statement is very obvious, but it is not, we all have too many dead horses.
Let’s start with some examples:
For example, you see many companies and organizations that are officially bankrupt
Or they sell a product that is no longer in demand
Or we ourselves buy a share in the stock market that we lost and we have no hope of profiting from it.
Here, instead of getting off a dead horse, we do strange things.
Those with dead horses have common characteristics and do common things, including:
1. They buy a new whip:
They believe that if the horse does not move, it is because of the whip, the whip should be changed and hit harder to make the dead horse move.
For example, we constantly buy on a stock that is not going to grow, or we equip production for a product that has no market for sale.
2. We change riders:
Those who have a dead horse believe that we always used this method and got answers, so now the rider must be changed.
For example, in companies, instead of improving the process, they fire employees
Or, for example, in the stock market, instead of analyzing and learning, they go to vip channels, and when they lose, they go to another vip channel.
3. A committee to investigate how to improve the performance of the dead horse determines:
For example, in the company, they form pointless brainstorming sessions that have no specific outcome, or sometimes in family gatherings, they see someone doing immoral things, they get together and decide that person should get married in order to be guided to the right path, and not only that, it is not right. It also makes one person miserable.
4. The standards are lowered to include the dead horse and the dead horse is placed in the live still class.
Usually, to justify the poor performance, we find a case worse than ourselves and we say, look, there is someone worse than me, for example, in the stock market, for a losing stock, they say, I bought this stock with a long-term view.
5. We consider the performance of a dead horse to be normal and the performance of other horses to be ideal.
For example, in the automobile industry, they say that the automobile industry is in a good condition and is in normal conditions, the performance of European automobile manufacturers is special and exceptional. So why should we change?
6. We increase the salary of the dead horse board to keep the motivation of the managers:
For example, we force our child to study medicine and when he does not study due to lack of interest, we give him a reward to motivate him, or for example, we put a wrong person in a certain position and when his poor performance is revealed, now instead of firing him, we increase his salary.
Stop justifying and be realistic. A dead horse does not come back to life.
The cost of keeping a dead horse is too high, not only does it not give us a ride, but it sets us back altogether.
Take a look at the structure of companies to see how many dead horse units are in the company.
Leave the dead horse in your personal life as well.
Pouria Bakhtiari
This post is written by shadmanamini