It was an organization wide celebration of the completion of the foundation for a new facility. The governing board was there, everyone in leadership, the staff and many family members. It was a party with speeches, music, photos, plenty of food and drink. At a special ribbon cutting there was a loud noise with half of the crowd shouting with joy, the other half weeping. It was so loud that no one could distinguish if there were more shouts for joy or more weeping.
Wait, joy and weeping at the same time? Isn’t this supposed to be a celebration story? Yes, but it’s an example of what happens in an organization when the past and the present clash.
This story is paraphrased from the book of Ezra, at a time when the Children of Israel returned from exile. The glorious temple of King Solomon had been destroyed, and they were building a new temple, but smaller and not like the old one. Those who had seen the old temple wept that it wasn’t the same, everyone else rejoiced because there would be a temple. It was the collision of old ways and new ways.
While the story is from the past, it’s not uncommon for our world today. The world changes and sometimes organizations fail to adapt while clinging to the past and fall on hard times. The success they once had is now the glory of the past and they are stuck.
Often when this happens, new leadership is brought in to make changes that are necessary to make them successful again, to create new ways.
If you are a leader, please lean in and learn something so many leaders miss. The past and the future can and must exist together for a while, to successfully move to the future. Here are two frequently made mistakes about people that will hinder progress.
Avoiding the Past
The typical playbook begins with an assumption that the past is history, it’s bad and needs to be buried. It is quickly made clear its taboo to talk about the past and anyone who does will be labeled as “resistant to change”. No one wants that label, so it gets everyone to shut up and keep quiet. Why is that a problem?
People need time to grieve the past, the loss of their success, before they’re ready to move forward. It’s an emotion that can’t be fixed by telling them not to talk about. And new leaders come in with knowledge built on past experiences but still don’t know what they don’t know about the new organization. The people who can help fill in gaps in knowledge, provide context, have been made to keep quiet. They won’t share critical information that can prevent mistakes and instead will stand quietly by and watch them happen. And those mistakes are often costly in dollars and credibility of the new leaders.
Underestimating the staff
New leaders often bring in their “own people” immediately, making minimal efforts to work with current staff. Rarely are the staff the problem, but they pay a price for previous leadership mistakes. Remember talent can’t rise above the level of leadership.
I encourage you to take time to engage the current staff, seeking out their insights into what went wrong. If you ask, they’ll tell you. It may confirm what you suspected or provide new information that will be helpful in the turnaround.
If you find staff are stuck on old processes, blindly doing it same way, you know, the “we do it this way” answer to your questions, dig deeper. Push them for why and push them to discover better ways. Getting them involved in making necessary changes shifts the ownership of those new ways to them, not to you. With ownership comes pride and commitment to the new, and you’ll be amazed at what can be done.
Be comfortable with the uncomfortable clash of old and new ways and you’ll move forward to amazing things.
When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments and with trumpets, and the Levites (the sons of Asaph) with cymbals, took their places to praise the Lord, as prescribed by David king of Israel. With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the Lord: “He is good; his love toward Israel endures forever.” And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away. Ezra 3:10-13
