{"id":5170,"date":"2016-03-21T19:30:27","date_gmt":"2016-03-22T00:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/?p=5170"},"modified":"2016-03-22T09:24:19","modified_gmt":"2016-03-22T14:24:19","slug":"when-leaders-must-confront-there-was-a-day-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2016\/03\/21\/when-leaders-must-confront-there-was-a-day-thinking\/","title":{"rendered":"When Leaders Must Confront “There Was a Day” Thinking…"},"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When a leader begins to make these kinds of wistful, nostalgic reflections it\u2019s a warning sign that vision has been replaced by a memory.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

It\u2019s often a sign that leadership is slipping into irrelevance.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Man-looking-through-binoculars-600x256\"<\/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. 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?<\/p>\n

Effective leaders handle this transition sensitively and masterfully.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t blast the past<\/strong><\/h2>\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 scoffing at earlier accomplishments you\u2019ll only alienate those you need to bring forward with you.<\/p>\n

Celebrate the values<\/u>, not the accomplishments<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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

A leader I knew couldn\u2019t 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

Leverage this value to create forward energy<\/strong><\/h2>\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.<\/p>\n

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 leaders 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 confronted “There was a day” thinking in your leadership?<\/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":5172,"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":[734,4,738,478,577,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-change-2","category-community","category-effectiveness-2","category-featured","category-focus","category-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5170","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=5170"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5180,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5170\/revisions\/5180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}