That's How We've Always Done It

“That’s how we’ve always done it.” Such a common phrase. One that so many leaders say they hate… and then use their own version of it anyway. The problem isn’t phrasing; it’s a fear of being viewed as inexperienced. It’s performative theater – and leadership isn’t theater.

Experience becomes dangerous the minute it stops being curious. And even more dangerous yet is faked experience; the avoidance of listening or learning in order to appear the most knowledgeable and confident person in the room. Let’s step back and look at a few versions of this:

• An organizational leader that’s been at a company since it opened 12 years ago says, “That’s how we do it here. It’s the Smith Company way.”

• A new leader from a long background of similar companies comes in and says, “I’ve worked at three different companies over the last 16 years. This is the way it works best.”

• An industry executive sitting in a group of peers says, “This is how it’s been done for over 30 years. Anyone that thinks otherwise is out of touch.”

Three slightly different phrases and three very different backgrounds to it. What is each missing? The first leader is missing experience from the outside world. The second leader is not showing value to the uniqueness of their new property. And the third leader is not understanding how every field develops and grows over time. All of them are missing the most important thing that they can do in this situation: listen to the ones operating on the front lines every day.

The Shift

Let’s talk baseball. For decades, defensive positions in baseball were set to traditional positioning because that’s where they had always stood. In 1946, Hall of Fame shortstop Lou Boudreau studied Ted Williams and did something unusual for the era: he created his own version of modern-day spray charts, tracking where baseball’s most dangerous hitter consistently did his damage.

The pattern was undeniable. Williams drove the ball to the same area of the field consistently. So Boudreau moved his defense there. The alignment looked wrong to traditionalists, but the results were immediate. Hard ground balls became routine outs, damage was reduced, and the great Ted Williams was visibly frustrated. The change came from someone close enough to the work to see what others ignored. And then disappeared. Because that’s not how it was always done.

Baseball returned to tradition for the next half-century. Infielders stood in their expected spots. The idea of extensive shifts resurfaced in the early 2000s when forward-thinking organizations like the Houston Astros embraced aggressive defensive positioning, helping drive competitive advantages, postseason success, and eventually league-wide adoption. Within a decade, defensive shifts transformed how run prevention worked across Major League Baseball. The change in approach eventually became too effective. In 2023, Major League Baseball implemented a ban on infield shifts, defining where infielders can stand. A change in traditionalist thinking worked so well it changed the game itself.

The leadership lesson is clear: innovation often begins with frontline expertise long before institutions are ready to accept it. Leaders who dismiss new ideas with “that’s how we’ve always done it” risk overlooking the very adjustments that could redefine success.

When Experience Stops Learning

Almost every leader grows from the frontline. Meaning they were once in the trenches, where they were likely noticing inefficiencies, questioning processes, and believing things could be done better. So what changed when that person became a leader?

The answer isn’t experience. It’s distance. If you’ve followed my writing, you’ll notice a consistent theme: organizations spend far more time promoting leaders than developing them. I’ve written about it from the hiring side (experience vs. coachability) and from the pressure side (leaders don’t rise— they revert), but it shows up most clearly after promotion: we reward performance, then act surprised when the new leader can’t handle judgment, conflict, and change.

When we haven’t trained the idea of approachability, developed comfort in a new role, and created someone that is confident in their past success, but determined to grow, then we create someone that defaults to “what I did worked, I need to enforce that with others.” Leadership isn’t meant to live in the black and white; it’s meant to support the frontline that operates there. A leader’s role is to navigate the gray and use their experience to seek out better long-term solutions, rather than preserve the old ones.

Experience should guide exploration, not enforcement.

But that only happens when groundwork is laid with initial promotion onboarding and coaching.

Not Bad Leaders – Untested Traditions

Most organizations aren’t suffering from bad ideas or processes. They’re suffering from a lack of continually evaluating and improving their processes. The leaders that created processes and policies before them weren’t wrong. They worked with the knowledge they had and developed from their experience. It’s up to us to do the same, not regurgitate the past. Learn from our time at the front, but, more importantly, learn from those still there. Find where friction exists. Evaluate the traditions in place that create it.

Maintain a true Open Door Policy. Listen to your people with a desire to improve both yourself and your processes. Support your people to those above you. You're in a place now to inspire change for the better.

Remember –

Leadership Isn’t Theater

Leaders aren’t paid to preserve tradition. They’re paid to evaluate it.

Every process in your organization exists because someone once believed it was the best answer available. That doesn’t make it sacred. It makes it temporary. The moment a leader stops listening to the people closest to the work is the moment experience turns into ego. And when leaders protect tradition instead of testing it, organizations don’t stay stable, they fall behind.

Leadership isn’t about appearing experienced or having the right answer ready at all times. It’s about curiosity, adjustment, and the willingness to admit that improvement often comes from places hierarchy forgets to look.

Because the most dangerous phrase in leadership isn’t spoken by bad leaders.

It’s spoken by good leaders who stopped learning.