“When you’re through changing, you’re through.” – Bruce Fairchild Barton
One of the most challenging things leaders have to deal with is what I call a “legacy of success”. Leading an organization with a long history of high achievement sounds like it should be a great thing. It usually means a solid foundation of people, customers, products & services, etc. What could be wrong with that?
The challenge of all of that past glory is that it usually doesn’t do anything to ensure success in the future. An organization’s past leaders might have made great decisions, executed well on fantastic plans, and essentially done everything right. And yet, all of those things that were great over the past years might be completely wrong in the years to come.
Think about people, for example. An organization might have been considered a great place to work for years. They might have been thought to have great benefits, great pay, great culture, great everything else an employee might look for. They might still have the same benefits and pay and culture today, but now they might be a place no employee wants to be part of.
That’s the nature of change. It isn’t just that we change. It’s that everything around us changes, too. People change, society changes, technology changes, expectations change, and on and on and on. The strategies and tactics that might have been perfect five or ten or twenty years ago may be completely wrong in today’s world.
You’re probably nodding your head thinking, of course that’s true. It certainly isn’t rocket science. And yet, so many leaders either don’t want to or can’t make changes to the way things have been done in the past.
There are some situations where current leaders feel like they can’t change what was done before, almost as though it’s disrespectful to previous leaders. Sometimes it’s just fear of change in general. Whatever the case, nothing that’s been done in the past can be considered sacred. Nothing can be considered off-limits to change.
Think about the organization you lead. What is considered untouchable? What are you doing because it’s been done that way for years, regardless of the results? The reality is that every leader and every organization has some thing or some behavior that is almost considered off limits.
Nothing can be off limits. Everything has to be on the table. Your job as a leader is to create an organization that will be wildly successful in the future, not to maintain an organization that was wildly successful in the past. Time to get to work.
