“If the horse is dead, dismount.”
I’ll give you a second to process that. Yes, exactly. If you are riding around on a dead horse, you need to get off.
As we encourage clients to RETHINK their shows, exhibitions and long-held beliefs – indeed, as we have been looking inward on the same premise – a lot of dead horses have shown their faces.
Sometimes our horse is so beloved, and has served as such a trusty steed that we are wont to let it go. We put a lot of time, energy and resources into our relationships and our work product. So when a partnership isn’t working out or an employee is no longer the right fit for the job or the way we’ve always done it no longer produces fabulous results, we tend to hang on tight.
We should hang on tight, to a point. Once we have committed ourselves to a partner or a process they deserve our best. If an employee is struggling, I am not encouraging you to throw them overboard. No, please don’t make any rash decisions simply based on this blog post. But please do think about whether you are riding any dead horses.
RETHINK why you are staying on board if there’s no way that horse is going to carry you forward.
That’s what I have been doing ever since our local PCMA Leadership Day, when Erick Burton, CSP (http://burtonleadership.com/services) first uttered those words. As the Leadership Accelerator, Burton pushed out to the group to change the way we view ourselves, our own leadership qualities and some long-held beliefs.
What are your dead horses? Is it time to dismount?