Summary: How can teams stop letting the past shape the future? In this article, Mark S. Kenny explains the hidden organizational cost of unresolved history, what he calls the Grace Toll, and why grace can help teams move forward without ignoring accountability.
Several years ago I had an insight: when teams feel fragmented, when there is ongoing conflict, or when departments won’t work together, there is often a reason that isn’t obvious.
Every organization has a past. Every organization accumulates history.
Someone dropped the ball. A department didn’t come through. A leader handled something poorly. A change was forced through. Someone said something they shouldn’t have.
That’s inevitable when people work together.
The problem is that some organizations keep paying for the past. They let the past run the future.
For example:
- A mistake that happened two years ago can still be sitting in a meeting today.
- A conflict between two leaders can affect people who weren’t even there when it happened.
- An old departmental failure can shape how people approach the next initiative.
- A former leader’s behavior can determine how people respond to the next leader.
The event ends, but the cost doesn’t. You pay repeatedly.
Another decision gets questioned. Another meeting takes longer. Another conversation gets avoided. Another email gets copied to three unnecessary people. Another idea doesn’t get shared. Another cross-functional project starts with suspicion.
This is the organizational cost that often goes unrecognized.
I first had this insight several years ago when I was working with a team that felt fractured. During one session we had together, a past wrong came rushing back into the room, just like it had happened that morning. Several members of the team were still frustrated by something one team member had done months earlier.
What I began to realize is that the team wasn’t reacting to what was happening that morning. They were reacting to the past.
Sometimes the problem is that situations like this were never addressed. But sometimes they were addressed. People just remember what happened and adjust their behavior:
- They include a department a little later.
- They share a little less information.
- They stop giving someone the benefit of the doubt.
- They become more guarded in meetings.
- They assume motives based on what happened before.
- They stop asking for help.
We tend to diagnose this as a trust problem, a communication problem, or a collaboration problem. And sometimes it is.
But I’ve come to believe that sometimes we’re dealing with something else:
We’re withholding grace.
Grace isn’t being kind or polite. It’s not pretending the past didn’t happen. It’s not excusing bad behavior.
Grace is not letting the past run the future, both for ourselves and for others.
There is an important distinction here: there is a difference between letting the past inform the future and letting the past run the future.
Sometimes the past should inform the future. We may need better boundaries. We may need greater accountability. Trust may need to be rebuilt. A pattern of behavior may need to change.
Grace doesn’t require us to forget what happened.
It requires us to stop making every new interaction pay for an old experience.
When we don’t, there is an organizational toll. I call it the Grace Toll.
Mistakes never die. We keep score. We hold grudges. Old stories show up in new conversations. Meetings, decisions, relationships, and new opportunities all pay a little more because of something that happened before.
Eventually, the Grace Toll becomes expensive.
So here’s a question worth asking:
Where are you, your team, or your organization still paying for something that has already happened?
The answer may reveal a trust problem or an accountability problem that needs to be addressed.
But it may also reveal something less obvious.
Someone needs to give grace.
Of course, giving grace while maintaining healthy boundaries, accountability, and appropriate expectations isn’t necessarily simple.
And that sounds like a great topic for my next article.
