Don’t let rosy retrospection hold you back

The definition of the word anemoia is ‘the poignant, often bittersweet, feeling of nostalgia for a time, place, or era that you have never personally experienced.’

As humans, we have a predilection for remembering the good things from our past, a condition known as rosy retrospection, which often distorts our views of the current day or expectations of the future.

In his play The Tempest, William Shakespeare wrote that ‘What’s past is prologue’ by which he meant that everything that has gone before sets the context for our future and it’s something I always get leaders to focus on. 

Pining for a time past may serve your immediate emotional needs, however, it might mean that you'll stay there - and in organisations, nothing is more dangerous than a leadership team governing for a world that no longer exists.