A reader wrote with that question this week and it’s been haunting me since. Like one of those annoyingly sticky songs you hear and keep repeating over-and-over-and-over.
Please Mrs. Avery, I just want to talk to her,
I’ll only keep her a while.
Please Mrs. Avery, I just want to tell her,
Good-bye.
What makes something a sacred cow?
We can all name something we consider untouchable, bolted to the floor, in the way of progress. But what earns it a place on the menu?
Personal preference plays a role, of course.
But are there other factors?
Can some empirical measurement standard be applied?
Is there a matrix that clearly proves membership in the Sacred Cow line up?
I need your help with this one.
How do you define Sacred Cow? I’m not interested (really NOT interested) in your examples of them, just in your thought process for deciding what should stay and what should go?
”A sacred cow is . . . . . . “
A sacred cow is also usually the elephant in the room.
A sacred cow is an organizational practice or regularity that is exposed with the response, “We’ve never done it THAT way before.”