Focus Forward

How do you as a leader balance tradition and forward progress?

I work for an 80 year old organization with a rich history. There is often the temptation to rest in the past.

But we work on a rapidly changing culture. We deal with mind-boggling technology changes. As much as we cherish the past, we can't live there. We must move forward to avoid irrelevance, if not extinction.

We value the past, but we don't live in the past.

We build on the past with a direction to the future.

We hold to our core values, while adopting a willingness to change.

And the paradox is that consistency of values plus a willingness to change preserves the core values and stimulates progress in the future.

Paul the apostle in the 1st century said: "Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead.”