{"id":3938,"date":"2014-06-28T08:06:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-28T13:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/?p=3938"},"modified":"2014-06-28T10:57:28","modified_gmt":"2014-06-28T15:57:28","slug":"how-to-turn-there-was-a-day-into-i-have-a-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2014\/06\/28\/how-to-turn-there-was-a-day-into-i-have-a-dream\/","title":{"rendered":"How to turn \u201cThere was a day\u201d into \u201cI have a dream\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe may be small now, but there was a day\u2026\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe may not have a lot of impact now, but there was a day\u2026\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe may be struggling now, but there was a day\u2026\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

When a leader begins to make these kinds of wistful, nostalgic reflections it\u2019s a warning sign that vision has been replaced by a memory.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s often an indicator that the organization is slipping into irrelevance.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The challenge for leaders is that accomplishments of the past are very often the \u201chappy place\u201d for people in the organization.<\/p>\n

People love to relive achievements of a former time and they\u2019ll cling to these memories at the expense of grasping a new, forward-looking vision.<\/p>\n

So how do you move people past their former glories and towards a fresh, exciting new vision? Effective leaders handle this transition sensitively and masterfully.<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 <\/strong>Don\u2019t blast the past<\/strong><\/p>\n

It can be frustrating for a forward-looking leader to have to deal with all of this nostalgia. But resist the temptation to cast aspersions on those former glories.<\/p>\n

If you begin ridiculing or ignoring earlier accomplishments you\u2019ll only alienate those you need to bring forward with you.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 <\/strong>Celebrate the values<\/span>, not the accomplishments<\/strong><\/p>\n

Remind people of the important values that were represented in those former achievements.<\/p>\n

A leader I knew couldn’t get his people to stop wallowing in the memory of how they had rallied to provide community aide during a natural disaster\u202615 years ago!<\/p>\n

Wisely, he began to remind people that what was worth celebrating was not the activity itself, but the value of community impact it had represented.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 <\/strong>Leverage this value to create forward energy<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe lived out that value before\u2026It\u2019s time to live it out again!\u201d<\/p>\n

That was the rallying cry my friend used to build a bridge between the former memory and the new vision. He created discussion forums where people could openly share their own perspective on what an updated, relevant expression of that value might look like today and in the future.<\/p>\n

The point is, effective leader harness the energy of the memory to provide fuel for a new vision.<\/p>\n

And when that happens, \u201cThere was a day\u2026\u201d will soon become \u201cI have a dream!\u201d<\/p>\n

How have you been able to turn a memory into a vision?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe may be small now, but there was a day\u2026\u201d \u201cWe may not have a lot of impact now, but there was a day\u2026\u201d \u201cWe may be struggling now, but there was a day\u2026\u201d When a leader begins to make these kinds of wistful, nostalgic reflections it\u2019s a warning sign that vision has been replaced…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,769,738,478,577,7,744,584],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-action","category-community","category-culture-2","category-effectiveness-2","category-featured","category-focus","category-leadership","category-team-2","category-vision-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3938"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3950,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3938\/revisions\/3950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}