Yesterday, I wrote about how I keep forgetting about the loss of institutional memory – and how it leads to more difficulty in many situations. There can also be an upside to losing institutional memory.
My friend wrote me today, saying, “The loss of institutional knowledge has allowed me to make changes in how our chess club learns. The people who participated before have gone on, letting me make changes with minimal resistance. I’ve been able to implement ideas to teach chess more effectively.”
Institutional memory is a great tool for maintaining practices you want to maintain: veterans teach newcomers, knowledge is passed on. But institutional memory is a great tool for maintaining practices you don’t want to maintain, for the exact same reason.
As you deal with the institutional memory loss that is so palpable in so many locations, then, there are two questions:
- How do you reestablish the practices you want to retain?
- How do you move your organization onward, without the expectations imposed on you by the past?