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.

Summary: How do you build trust on a team or across an organization? In this article, Mark S. Kenny explains why trust isn’t built directly, but accumulated through the small, everyday interactions between people.

 

We all know how important it is to build trust. Without it, teams lose the ability to execute together, unnecessary friction and turbulence become all-consuming, and great ideas and solutions get lost.

But you can’t actually “build trust” directly. What I mean is that you can’t walk out of your office thinking “I’m going to spend time building trust today.”

You can host an offsite. You can conduct a team-building activity. You can create more opportunities for people to connect. Those things can help.

But none of them builds trust on its own. It’s what people give each other while they’re there that matters.

Trust isn’t built directly. Trust is accumulated through thousands of small interactions.

I think of those interactions as passes: small moments when we choose what we will give to one another and what we will withhold.

Trust is built when we give someone our presence, stepping into their world, without trying to fix them.

Trust is built when we are willing to share important truth with healthy candor and courage. It’s built when we invite truth in the form of feedback, and respond to truth with vulnerability instead of defensiveness when it shows up.

Trust is built when we decide not to let past wrongs run future interactions.

Trust is built when we believe in someone by setting clear expectations and giving them room to figure it out themselves, without hovering and overcorrecting too quickly.

All of these are small interactions that happen every day when we choose what we will give to each other and what we will withhold from each other. It’s the result of those choices, in the thousands of interactions we experience, that build trust.

So instead of heading into your day trying to “build trust,” pay attention to the interactions in front of you.

Give someone your presence. Tell an important truth. Extend grace. Show someone you believe in them.

You don’t build trust all at once. You build it one pass at a time.

Even great teams eventually come to an end. This is happening right now here in Tennessee.

Across Tennessee state government, executive leadership teams are preparing for a transition. After this fall’s gubernatorial election, many agencies will welcome entirely new leadership teams.

It’s a unique season, but it’s not unique to government. Every organization eventually experiences the same thing: CEOs retire, organizations merge, leaders move on.

Every leadership team is temporary. Someday, the organization you inherited will become someone else’s responsibility.

The question isn’t whether your team will someday end. The question is what condition you’ll leave the organization in when it does.

The greatest temptation during a known transition is to begin leading for yourself instead of leading for the organization.

It’s natural and completely human. We become more protective. We postpone. We begin thinking about what’s next.

Without even realizing it:

• Tough decisions get postponed for the next team.
• Investing in future leaders becomes less urgent.
• Stewardship slowly gives way to self-preservation.

Without intending to, we stop investing in the people and the organization we’ll eventually leave behind.

Great leaders don’t serve because they’ll be here. They serve because the organization will be here.

Before your team hands the organization to the next leadership team, ask yourselves these six questions:

1. What conversations need to happen before the team disbands?
2. Who in the organization do we need to invest in?
3. Where is grace needed so that the organization doesn’t let the past run the future?
4. What decisions are we putting off just because it’s easier, when the organization needs clarity now?
5. Who needs our encouragement and praise?
6. How could we infuse belief and confidence into others that carries into the next team?

Your legacy isn’t what you accomplish before leaving. It’s the condition of the people and the organization you leave behind. Leave the next leadership team a legacy they can build on.