Transformation programmes often treat existing practices as obstacles from an earlier age. Some deserve to be replaced. But an old process may also contain knowledge about failures, customer expectations or risks that are no longer visible to the people redesigning it.
I have learned to ask why a practice existed before deciding that it no longer belongs. Perhaps the answer is simply habit. But perhaps the process protected a relationship, prevented an error, or responded to a lesson the organisation once learned at considerable cost.
AI can help us challenge unnecessary complexity. It should not encourage us to erase institutional memory before understanding it.
The future is not built by preserving every old method. Neither is it built by assuming that whatever came before has nothing left to teach. Progress becomes more reliable when we understand what must change — and what wisdom should be carried forward in a different form.
The past should not control the future — but a future that refuses to learn from the past may repeat the cost that created its lessons.