Do Business Well

Managers today must be forward-looking, but there’s a danger that a work group’s past can gradually be eroded in the process. Your department’s past is important for a number of practical reasons:

It provides a sense of stability and perspective that makes people envision a good career future.

It is the foundation of a sense of group identity—a cohesiveness of people working toward common goals.

* The past can be a sound basis for current decisions; one can learn the probability of success for many new ideas from a group’s unique history.

* It is the source of the work group’s reputation within the rest of the organization and among suppliers or customers. These groups bank on your traditional knowledge and expertise.

But all of these values of the past can be rapidly lost if there is a sudden turnover of personnel. Today, there are forces that encourage such turnover: the trend toward early retirement; the lack of stigma in job-hopping; even a deliberate policy of shifting employees around rapidly.

To enjoy the benefits of your work group’s past (even if you were not a part of it), consider the following:

• Make an effort to retain some high-seniority workers. Sure, you want fresh blood in the group; but if it’s all fresh, a sense of direction may be lacking. So make a point of keeping some old-timers around. Offer them incentives like retraining or work restructuring so they can make full use of their vast experience.

• Demonstrate your own interest in the past. In this, as in many other facets of your department, your attitude sets the tone for others. If you take the past seriously (by paying attention to old- timers rather than showing irritation with them, for example), others will follow your lead.

• Institute changes gradually. Abrupt breaks with continuity unsettle people, and can create work crises. In this sense, respect for the past means not breaking too suddenly with the way things are now, so that today’s experience will stay useful tomorrow.

• Fill in gaps in your own “memory.” If you are a newcomer, find out as much as you can about your department. You might revive some good ideas, or discover some that failed before but might work now under different circumstances.

Observation: None of this means you should dwell on the past, or use it as an excuse to avoid necessary change. Rather, it means recognizing that the past of your work group is the foundation on which you have to build its future as you continue to function well in the present.

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