How to Screw Up Anything New, a Tip from a Neanderthal

Happy New Year! Happy New Job! Happy New Project! Happy New Opportunity!

We celebrate New and rightfully so. It is a chance to mark progress. It is a chance to make a mark. It is a chance to leave old habits behind. It is a chance to wipe the slate clean. It is a new chance. So how can we screw up anything new? While there may be lots of answers, there is one sure way to screw up the New: Trash the Old. "Out with the Old in with the New?"

I have had many an occasion in my 35 years in the workplace to witness leaders coming into new positions and decrying the approach, work, efforts, accomplishments and culture of the last leader. I regret and I am sad to admit that I have done this myself. In fact, as I reflect on what new leaders do when they come into a leadership position, they always seem to pivot around what the last leader did and always in a negative way.

There are two problems with this approach. First, what I always found and what new leaders find, is that there is a reason why the previous leader did what they did. They are more like us than we want to admit. We are less of a genius than we think. Sooner or later, we will eat our own words, generally sooner. Go ahead, make fun of the last guy and say he played too much golf. Now every time you golf, guess what, it is a bigger deal because you made it a big deal. Maybe you are golfing because the job turned out to be a lot harder and more stressful than you thought. Maybe you are golfing because it is the best way to clear your head and chat with friends.

Second, when you trash the past, the last leader, the last year, the last accomplishment, you hurt your ability to build incrementally on the past. I know, we live in a time where we worship "disruption." Disruption is the ultimate "New." Disruption is the New with a smirk at those of us perceived as dinosaurs or the human equivalent, Neanderthals. When you trash the past you paint yourself into a corner so everything you do has to be a pivot. You alienate the team that worked with that last leader or made that last decision or achieved that last accomplishment. Unity of effort will be more difficult. By trashing the past, you become a tool of divisiveness instead of a tool to pull all together for greater achievement.

I took the 23 and Me test recently and found that I have a high percentage of Neanderthal in my genes. I mean I am like in the top 10% of all people tested for Neanderthal genetic variants. When I was young, if you wanted to really make fun of someone and imply they were stupid, you called them a Neanderthal. They died out after all. They were the Old and Homo Sapiens were the New. Were Neanderthals stupid? Did Neanderthals die out because they didn't work together? Not according to modern research. Studies over the past several years beginning in 2014 have shown Neanderthals were at least as intelligent and advanced as their counterpart Homo Sapiens and planned, communicated and brought down herds of game through complex strategies. I read one study that credibly posited that Neanderthals were critical for Homo Sapiens' survival in Europe as the Neanderthals had survived in Europe for 200,000 years before Homo Sapiens arrived from Africa. Homo Sapiens needed Neanderthals and interbred with and learned from them.

New doesn't mean superior to the Old. To be a leader of the New, superiority is not your friend because it restricts your views and inhibits your ability to learn. Superiority, ego and listening are inversely proportional. When you start that new job, new opportunity, new venture, new year, don't think and speak in terms of all the bad things the last leader did or all the failures of the past. So many claimed disruptions are just improvements on the past. Progress comes from understanding history. Instead of shaking your head at the last team, instead of assuming your survival means the previous species were a group of idiots and morons, interview members and set yourself to the task of asking and listening. There will be plenty of time for healthy questioning of the previous team's assumptions. Remember, some of your best friends, like me, might be Neanderthals.