Burn It To The Ground

courtesy: Wikicommons

In the Book of Exodus, it tells us that the Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years.

This was not because they were lost.

(Or that the men refused to ask anyone for directions).

The Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years so that anyone with a memory of slavery would die off.

The new nation would be created by those with only a memory of freedom.

This seems a bit harsh, perhaps, but it does make the point.

We are often handicapped by the memory of our previous experiences. And change is hard.  There were those Israelites who longed, at some points, to go back to Egypt.  “It wasn’t so bad, really. At least there was food and a place to live!”

Faced with the challenges of a new digital world, many people, particularly those who have ‘lived’ in the ‘old world’, are often drawn back to it, to its memory.  “Who needs all this aggravation, all this difficulty of having to learn new technologies, new ways of working, new software. Even to have to think in new ways?”  They long for a return to a simpler, more comfortable time.

There is a reason that many companies prefer then, to hire more pliable 23-year olds.

They don’t carry with them the institutional memory of the past.

If you are in your forties or older, you may not really like the idea of having to die off to make room for the ‘untarnished’ young.

Fortunately, you don’t have to.

But you do have to let those memories die.

Actually, you have to kill them.

Today, I was a guest on a business podcast,  run by Phoebe Chongchua, a journalist with KGTV in San Diego.

She asked me the best piece of advice that I could give to a company facing the question of whether or not to move into video online.

My answer was, of course, do it.

But the best piece of advice I can give any company or individual in that position is, ‘burn it to the ground’.

That is, rid yourself of the infection of clinging to old, well worn and well established ways of working.

They won’t do you any good, and in fact, they are going to be a hinderance.

Like the Israelites leaving Egypt, you don’t want to take any memories of your life as a slave into the new world.

And given the option between ‘burning it to the ground’ and ‘waiting until you die’, I think the former begins to look a whole lot better.

Copyright 2015 Michael Rosenblum