The Real Deal by Alan Smith, Stephen White, and Robin Copland - HTML preview

Flogging a Dead Horse

There comes a time in some negotiations when you know that a deal is not going to happen. The parties have no common ground, there is no Bargaining Arena on the principal issues, there are too few other variables to make difference, the chemistry isn’t right, or whatever.

Dakota Indians have a wise saying: When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.

Many public sector negotiators don’t see it that way. They have alternative ways of dealing with the dead horse syndrome. Here are some of them:

• Change riders.
• Buy a stronger whip.
• Do nothing: “This is the way we have always ridden dead horses”. Visit other countries to see how they ride dead horses.
• Perform a productivity study to see if lighter riders improve the dead horse’s performance. Hire a contractor to ride the dead horse.
• Harness several dead horses together in an attempt to increase the speed.
• Provide additional funding and/or training to increase dead horse’s performance.
• Appoint a committee to study the horse and assess how dead it actually is.
• Re-classify the dead horse as “living-impaired”.
• Develop a Strategic Plan for the management of dead horses. Rewrite the expected performance requirements for all horses. Modify existing standards to include dead horses.
• Declare that, as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overheads, and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line than many other horses
• Hold a review or assign a task force to enact any or all of the above action plans.

We wish Bernard Grey, appointed last week to the position of MOD’s Chief of Defense Materiel the best of luck in the New Year. Our tip for him is not to try to resuscitate any horses he comes across – instead move into the age of the Mondeo. It may not be the most exotic vehicle, but it does the job, you can usually get a deal, and if it all goes wrong you can ca