Coaching Insights - The Past

I wish “we have always done it that way” wasn’t such an overused trope.  Everyone uses it in interviews and anecdotes and management stories and mishaps. No one likes “we have always done it that way,” of course, and it always elicits a “of course, we know what you mean” response. I was talking with a coaching client (City Manager), new to the role of CAO, and she mentioned this but stated an interesting situational scenario for me.  This municipality had a “tradition” that the retiring/outgoing department head was always involved (interview panel, selection process etc) for the process of naming their successor. “We have always done it this way,” they told him.  Well, he stopped that and I agreed.