Leading Horses to Water
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. This proverb has always puzzled me. People say it as a lament, as if it’s frustrating that you can’t make a horse drink water.
Here’s what I don’t get: Why the heck do you want the horse to drink? Horses are pretty smart about water. When they’re thirsty, they drink. When they’re not thirsty, they don’t drink. If they aren’t drinking, it’s probably because they’re not thirsty. Why do you want a horse to drink if it’s not thirsty?
The proverb is a metaphor. What does the metaphor map to? “You” is the change agent. The water is some good idea that the change agent thinks would benefit some people. The horse is the people that the change agent thinks would benefit. “Lead” is what the change agent does by offering or advocating the obviously good idea. “Drink” means to apply the idea.
So “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink” means “We smart change agents can tell people about our brilliant ideas, but we can’t make them adopt the ideas.”
And this is offered as a lament, as if it’s frustrating that we brilliant change agents can’t make people adopt our brilliant ideas.
Horses are pretty smart about whether to drink water. Maybe, too, people are pretty smart about whether to adopt the ideas we’re offering. Maybe they know when to adopt them and when not to. Lamenting the fact that people don’t adopt our ideas seems to me to be about as useful as lamenting that horses don’t drink the water we’ve led them to.
Here’s an idea: Try leading a thirsty horse to water and see what it does. If the horse is tired, lead it to shade and a soft place to lie down. If the horse is hungry, offer it hay and oats. If the horse doesn’t need anything, maybe leave it alone.
August 17th, 2007 at 11:35 am
I agree. Where I work, we are really pushing collaboration and wikis and blogs internally. Several people have come to me with things like, “Hey, we can put this new thing up on the wiki. But how can we get (force) people to join in?”
I tell them, “Put it up, talk to people, encourage people, and set what happens. If no one uses it, then it will die on its own. If people use it - good.”
September 21st, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Hi Dale,
Interesting analogy, but with horses you’re talking about their instinctive responses. If we limit people to their instinctive responses too, for many that means staying in their comfort zones…resisting change. I’m sure you agree that as leaders (formal or informal) we have the responsibility to help people recognize when they are thirsty or tired or hungry for a value-add change in the way they do business.
best regards,
bob frelinger
a former Sun co-worker and SDRA Council member who has always greatly respected your intellect
December 2nd, 2007 at 3:15 am
Hi Dave,
Nice blog
I just used the same proverb this last week, although in the danish version. As Bob, I don’t think it’s about forcing people into changing. It’s about making changes happen by communicating the need for changes, rather than by instructing people to change.
Regards,
Jakob
January 4th, 2008 at 9:42 am
Horses do not always drink enough water. I have one picky, picky horse, she snots in the water then won’t drink it, so she never drinks enough water. If the water is cold on a cold day, they may not drink enough water to wash all the roughage through their bodies. They get a stomach ache or colic (gas/constipation). Then they begin to roll, the rolling can twist their intestines very easily. Once this happens the horse will die in great agony if not taken to surgery. Surgery costs lots of money so most people put the horses to sleep. But it’s still painful and deadly…and very, very common.
When the horse exhibits signs (very subtle) he’s in pain, you have to begin walking him. Drinking water at this point would be very good, but he won’t because he’s in pain and worried about rolling on the ground and killing himself. So, you pump his tummy full of about 2 gallons of oil (mineral, vegetable) to lube his gut up. Then you must walk him until he begins to poop regularly (this may take days) indicating his bowels are again moving. Too much grain or strange/new food can also cause this problem.
My friends horse just died from this over christmas, 3 days of a belly ache then he died, even with veterinary care and constant monitoring. It’s very important to know how much water your horse is drinking. If he’s not drinking enough even though it’s available, you have a problem. And the more highly bred a horse is, the more stupid he is about what he needs.
Sad, serious problem.
Elyce