Leadership story: How to train a donkey the right way

There was once a very frugal man who was always looking for ways to cut costs. One day he noticed that his hired hand was feeding the donkey more than he really needed. He called the hand and told him, “We’re wasting money feeding this animal more food than it needs. If we keep this up, the donkey will grow fat, it’s productivity will go down, and we’ll lose even more money! I’m going to take over the feeding of the donkey for a while and train it properly. I will reduce the donkey’s food supply a little each day and wean him off this excessive diet.”

So the man took over the chore of feeding the donkey and did as he said he would do, cutting back the donkey’s food supply just a little each day. This went on for a couple of months until, finally, one day the donkey died. The man said to his hand, “It’s such a shame. If that donkey hadn’t suddenly died, I think I could have trained him to eat nothing at all!”