Balancing legacy and evolution to set the tone
Sometimes the most useful thing you can do is step away.
A day in Venice during Carnival is a clear reminder of what it means to live alongside history rather than escaping from it. Masks, ritual, flamboyant performance.
A wonderful cacophony of colour and style. A spectacle repeated for centuries, yet never identical and never losing its magic. Tradition is not solely preserved in glass, nor forgotten in a museum to gather dust. It is worn, interpreted, and performed in the present.
Walking through the calle with gondoliers gliding by, I find myself looking at Venice with fresh eyes. Venice does not attempt to outrun its past. It embraces and carries it visibly. Through the architecture, the stories, and traditions it embodies every day.
History sets the tone long before any modern decision is made.
Organisations are no different. They inherit reputations, founding principes, and ways of working that were once deliberate and are now simply, "how we do things here".
The question is not whether history matters. It does. It is, however, questioning whether it is guiding you forward, or quietly making decisions for you.
How the past quietly shapes today's decisions
History does not sit in an archive and it is not just a memory. It brings with it momentum.
For organisations that have existed for decades, history not only provides credibility, but standards, reputation and trust that cannot be forced or manufactured. It gives shape to identity and clarity to purpose. Customers often value that continuity more than organisations realise.
However, legacy can also create a structural drag.
It lives in the very systems, structures, and expectations that are set and used every day.
Decisions made years ago around positioning, markets, pricing, partnerships, brand, or ways of working rarely disappear entirely. They become embedded in the fabric of the organisation. A choice made once for good reason that starts to shape what feels possible now. Expanding into adjacent markets may feel harder as organisations are built around an earlier definition of itself.
In some cases, leaders become acutely aware of the tension, recognising that ambition is stretching against inherited structures. In others, the tension is handled differently. Rather than examining the foundations, the instinct is to distance from history altogether. To speak as if the past is the problem. Yet without changing the underlying habits, assumptions, or ways of working, removing references to legacy changes very little.
The challenge here requires a fine balancing act. It is not whether to respect or undo the past, but to recognise when past decisions are setting the tone for the future more forcefully than perhaps they should. Questioning whether the past is being examined with the same discipline as the future.
The discipline of innovation and evolution
There is a quiet difference between respecting and learning from history, and living or being governed by it.
Some organisations treat legacy as proof that what worked once will work again. Others attempt to shed it entirely, as if history itself were the constraint. Both approaches miss the point.
The past is not a strategy, it is the context.
When legacy becomes the template, innovation feels overtly risky. Decisions are filtered through questions like would we have done this before, rather than does this serve our customers now. Growth slows not from the organisation lacking capability, but rather from the lack of permission to reinterpret itself.
At the same time, abandoning legacy entirely is ineffective too. Customers do not separate a brand from its track record (unless you decide to change the brand entirely). Removing references to the past while keeping the same thinking intact not only creates confusion, it limits renewal.
Organisations that navigate this delicate balance well do something much subtler. They preserve the values, standards, and purpose, of course, but they are also willing to evolve expression, markets, and methods.
They learn from their customers in the present rather than relying solely on the interpretations of the past. They treat history as confidence as opposed to constraint.
It is this small distinction in language and ethos that creates significance in practice.
Carrying the past consciously
Venice works for many reasons, but predominantly because it is not attempting to escape the past. It embraces it 100%. The Carnevale di Venezia still exists today thanks to centuries of history. Stories that all set the tone. And yet, it is never static.
Each year, it is interpreted again. Costumes change, expressions evolve, yet the very core and essence of what makes it magical stay the same.
It is the balance that keeps it alive.
Organisations face the same choice. History can provide confidence, credibility, and continuity. It can help to open the door. It can also however, quietly decide what feels permissible, safe, or ambitious. The difference lies not in the weight of the past, but in how consciously it is carried.
The past should set the tone. It should not write the script.
When legacy becomes confidence rather than constraint, evolution stops feeling like a risk and starts feeling like a responsibility. The challenge is to honour the foundations without becoming governed by them. No matter the number of years an organisation has been in business.
That is how history propels forward instead of anchoring down.
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