A lingering question for me is how to honor the past while creating the future. What is the past? It’s a loaded question. The past is our history, culture, successes, failures, unsaid words, and untaken actions. The past is littered with progress and failure. After all, the past is our story.
Similar thoughts weave through another question: What is the future? The future is our hopes and dreams. It is an opportunity to leave our families, communities, and businesses better than before our work and efforts. The future is cluttered with competing individual values and differing expectations of what is good and what is not.
The haunting question in the middle of the past and future is: How do we honor the past while creating the future?
The answer lies in paradoxical thinking and actions. The future and the past are not either/or considerations. We cannot stay in the past and ignore the future. Likewise, we cannot build for the future and forget the past. We need both/and.
Honoring the past translates to reading history and engaging in conversations about what and why certain events, cultural norms and traditions, and relationships developed or failed. Honoring the past means engaging stories from individuals with direct experiences to share. Perhaps most importantly, honoring the past transforms lessons learned into practical insights to create a better future for those who come after us.
Creating the future is not either/or, too. It isn’t the future at the expense of the past. Again, we need both the past and the future. Crafting a better future involves a necessity to understand the past with the lessons learned. We cannot alter the past, but we can learn from it when building a future path. More to the point — we cannot get stuck in the past at the expense of leaving something better for the next generation.
We need to pay attention to the past and hear what it has to say to work together for the future.
Living in a community with rich traditions and diverse cultures can be challenging. The continuing tension between the past, present, and future seems unending. It can appear to be an overwhelming spiral. However, navigating the tension between honoring the past and creating the future requires being in the arena with an eye and ear toward betterment. What words can we rally around by what we understand and what we build? Are we willing to move from sniping on the sidelines to engaging in conversations with those different than ourselves?
Getting stuck in the past or the future is not where we should reside. Instead, we must dive into both and find the common ground to work from and toward.
In Good Leader | Bad Leader this month:
Applying the virtue of prudence in AI and life. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is front-and-center in business and society, and we cannot afford to sit on the sidelines of what it means today and in the future. Moral dilemmas exist, along with ethical concerns that need to be discussed actively. Adam Smith may guide us in using prudence as a virtue in AI, business, and life.
How leadership development is fading but not hopeless. Many corporations are selling or eliminating their leadership centers. While measuring the impact of leadership development programs may be difficult, we know we need good leaders who can learn, adapt, and grow. There is a path forward, and we must be mindful of developing programs with depth and meaning.
Thank you for reading! Please take care of yourself and those around you.
Understand the past while you build a better future.
