Traditions are the intergenerational exchange of values, beliefs, customs and important elements of culture. Traditions provide a storehouse of wisdom, anchor people to time-proven principles and serve as an important adhesive that binds people across the ages. Traditions, at their best, provide lighthouses that illuminate pathways, teach philosophies and truths that strengthen both individuals and groups, and provide a shared understanding and context for making sense of life.  

Acknowledging tradition recognizes there is something to be learned from our elders. The struggles and triumphs of previous generations offer powerful insight into how to deal with contemporary challenges. However, tradition is not enough — innovation, creativity and learning are not held by a single generation, but rather are ongoing processes where each generation can leave its mark and legacy.  

The Janus Effect is a concept that suggests while looking backward offers incredible lessons to guide future decisions, individuals and organizations must simultaneously look forward in making their decisions. The key is to have the capacity for both viewpoints — to learn from the past and to see around the corner into the future.  

 I believe that the tradition that follows a family through eight generations is extremely powerful, quite tangible and very relevant. The secret is to not let your tradition unreasonably burden you.” — John Lyman III, eighth-generation executive vice president of Lyman Orchards in Middlefield, Conn.

Traditions, while an anchorage to wisdom and truth, only remain relevant through the process of examining the assumptions and conditions under which they were formed. Traditions that morph from guiding principles into habits must be stringently tested. 

Habits — behaviors and practices that have become embedded into routine — may prove to be ineffective in a world of rapidly changing conditions. When habits become practices undertaken without a second thought, there is the risk of lost opportunities due to inflexibility and rigid thinking arising from low commitment to the continuous process of assumption testing.

Just as faith is strengthened by being tested, so should our traditions and habits be tested in a vigorous process of sorting out the assumptions that underpin them. The most important question we can use to initiate this process is to ask why. The power of “why” demands we pause amid a hectic life and reassess both position and direction. The follow-up question that moves us forward is to ask, “Is there a better way?”

Simon Sinek gets to the heart of the matter: “When we know WHY we do what we do, everything falls into place. When we don’t, we have to push things into place.”  

Of all the roles undertaken by a leader, the single most important of them is to create clarity and confidence about why the organization exists; why it functions as it does; and the foundations of its values, behaviors and vision. 

Leaders uncover the answers by studying their forebearers, learning from the past — the good, the bad and even the ugly — while simultaneously looking beyond the horizon in search of new paths, innovations both transformative and incremental, experiencing the wonder of discovery, and understanding upon which our cherished traditions were founded.

There is one final step of importance when it comes to tradition. Each generation of leaders makes a remarkable contribution to the future by taking the time to develop and share the stories of those who initiated, sustained and advanced cherished traditions as well as describing the legacy created by those who failed, pivoted, innovated and blazed new trails. 

Humans are informed, inspired and strengthened through the power of story. Of all the legacies that can be gifted to the future, none is more important than to leave an authentic record that provides guidance to the next generation while empowering them to take action in their own time and circumstance.