The Person Returning Isn’t the Person Who Left
Updated: Sep 15
I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about memory.
Not just my own memory, but the idea of organizational memory, which is how organizations determine what information matters, what deserves to be retained, how past decisions should influence future ones, and what happens when different perspectives of the same event don’t completely agree.
I’ve been exploring these questions as part of some research I’m considering taking further, and the deeper I’ve gone, the more complicated the questions have become.
What is information?
What becomes memory?
Who determines what is important?
What happens when two people remember the same event differently?
How much should yesterday influence tomorrow?
At some point, I realized I wasn’t only thinking about organizations anymore. The research had turned the mirror around. I started thinking about myself.
Two People. One Experience. Two Memories.
My wife and I can experience the same situation and later tell two noticeably different versions of what happened. I’m sure we’re not alone. Maybe I remember what someone said. She remembers how they said it. I remember what happened before a particular moment.
She remembers what happened afterward. Sometimes one of us will say:
“That’s not how I remember it at all.”
Neither person necessarily has to be wrong. We were standing in the same place, but we weren’t necessarily having the same experience.
We noticed different things.
We assigned significance differently.
We interpreted intentions differently.
We retained different details.
Thinking about organizational memory has made me appreciate this more. Imagine ten people sitting in an important leadership meeting. The meeting ends. What becomes the organizational record? Is it:
The PowerPoint?
The meeting minutes?
The final decision?
What about the executive who reluctantly agreed?
What about the risk someone raised that never materialized?
What about the assumption everyone accepted that later proved incorrect?
What about the person who interpreted the conversation completely differently?
Maybe memory isn’t always about finding one perfect version of the past. Sometimes the differences are part of the memory. And maybe the same is true in our lives.
You Can’t Always Pick Up Where You Left Off
I’m learning that lesson physically right now. I recently transitioned from a walking boot to an ankle brace following Achilles surgery. That transition felt significant. After spending so much time limited in what I could do, naturally I wanted to get moving again.
Walk around. Get out. Talk to people. Exercise. Experience things. Get back to normal.
Basically: Pick up where I left off. Except my body had other plans.
I’m learning that returning to something isn’t necessarily the same as continuing it.
There are things I could do before my injury that I can’t immediately do now. Movements that once required no thought suddenly require intention. Strength has to be rebuilt. Confidence has to return. My body has to relearn certain things. And I’ve had to accept something that sounds obvious when written but hasn’t always felt obvious while experiencing it:
The person returning isn’t the person who left.
Time passed. My body changed. My circumstances changed. And I changed. So why would I expect to resume from the same starting point?
Growth Changes the Starting Point
The more I’ve thought about that, the more I’ve realized the same principle appears everywhere.
Relationships.
Careers.
Learning.
Leadership.
Technology.
You can step away from something for six months and return believing you simply need to remember what you knew before. But the world didn’t stop while you were away. And neither did you. The knowledge that worked before may still be useful. Some of it may be even more valuable because you now understand it differently.
But other pieces may no longer fit. That’s why I increasingly think growth changes the starting point.
We tend to think of growth as movement along a straight line:
Start here.
Learn.
Improve.
Accomplish.
Move forward.
But sometimes growth means returning to something familiar and discovering that your relationship with it has changed.
The starting point moved because you moved.
What Happens When There Isn’t a “Next Assignment”?
I’ve experienced another version of this recently. About a month ago, I completed my doctoral degree. For years, there was always something next. A class. A paper. A deadline.
Finish one thing. Move to the next. That rhythm became normal. Then I finished. And suddenly there wasn’t another assignment waiting for me.
I should probably tell you that I’ve handled all this newfound freedom by sitting peacefully on the couch and appreciating everything I’ve accomplished. I haven’t.
I’ve been creating projects.
Exploring ideas.
Writing.
Thinking about organizational memory.
Researching potential opportunities.
Considering an NSF grant.
Going down rabbit holes. Basically, I’ve found creative ways to give myself more homework. And I’ve had to ask myself: Why am I so quick to create the next destination instead of experiencing the one I just reached?
I don’t think ambition is the problem. I love learning. I love asking questions. I love building things. I don’t want that part of me to disappear.
But perhaps maturity means learning that forward movement and constant movement aren’t the same thing.
There are moments when the next productive action may actually be reflection.
Gratitude.
Recovery.
Being present.
Looking backward long enough to understand how far you’ve traveled before deciding where you’re going next. Sometimes completing something deserves more than a checkmark. Sometimes arrival deserves to be experienced.
The Old Instructions May Not Fit the New You
This is where these different parts of my life have started connecting. I am still Adam. But I’m not the same Adam who started this doctoral journey. I’m not the same person I was before my injury. I’m not the same professional I was five years ago. I’m now 35.
I’m raising three children. My responsibilities are different. My body is different. My experiences are different. My understanding of leadership, technology, relationships, business, and myself continues to change.
Yet it’s incredibly easy to carry instructions from an earlier version of ourselves into a completely different season.
Work harder.
Keep moving.
Don’t stop.
Do what worked last time.
Return to where you left off.
But what if the old instructions were written for circumstances that no longer exist? That doesn’t make them bad instructions. It may simply mean they have expired.
And, Somehow, This Brought Me Back to AI
I’ve spent the first two issues of Building Beyond the Prompt exploring organizational memory and enterprise intelligence. And strangely enough, these personal experiences have helped clarify part of that thinking. One of the mistakes we can make with memory—human or organizational—is assuming that because something worked before, it should dictate what happens next. But that’s not learning. That’s repetition.
Memory should inform the future without trapping us in the past.
I think the same principle applies to AI. We’re constantly looking for the best prompt. The best workflow. The best model.The best implementation strategy. The best way to adopt AI.
But I’m becoming increasingly skeptical that there is always one “best” method. What works incredibly well for one person may frustrate another. What transforms one department may create unnecessary complexity for another. What works in a startup may fail inside a heavily regulated enterprise. What worked for an organization two years ago may not reflect its current technology, employees, customers, risk tolerance, or objectives.
Maybe the better question isn’t:
What’s the best way to do this?
Maybe it’s:
What’s the best approach for this person, this organization, this objective, at this moment, given these circumstances?
That requires context.
It requires memory.
But it also requires adaptation.
AI Doesn’t Eliminate Perspective
There’s another reason my conversations with my wife keep coming back to me. We sometimes talk about AI as though enough information will eventually eliminate ambiguity. Feed the system enough data, and eventually it will know the answer. I’m not convinced organizational life works that way.
Two intelligent, well-intentioned people can examine the same evidence and reach different conclusions. Two executives can evaluate the same investment and assign different importance to the risks. Two employees can experience the same organizational change differently. Two customers can interact with the same product and walk away with completely different perceptions.
AI may help us see more of those perspectives.
It may help reconstruct what happened.
It may identify contradictions.
It may remember details humans forgot.
But human judgment still matters because information doesn’t interpret itself. And sometimes the disagreement isn’t noise that needs to be removed. It’s context that needs to be understood.
Maybe Organizations Need to Recalibrate Too
The same idea applies to organizations. Think about how often leaders talk about restarting an initiative, revisiting a strategy, returning to a transformation effort, or going back to something that worked in the past. There is nothing inherently wrong with looking backward for guidance.
The challenge is recognizing that the organization returning may not be the same organization that left.
Employees have changed. Leadership may have changed. Customers have evolved. Markets, regulations, technologies, and organizational capabilities continue to shift. And with the pace of AI development, even a strategy created a year or two ago may have been designed for a very different environment. What worked before may still hold valuable lessons, but that doesn't automatically mean it should be repeated in the same way.
Perhaps this is another role organizational memory can play. Instead of simply telling leaders, “Here’s what we did last time,” it can help them understand what has changed since last time. Which assumptions still hold? Which no longer apply? What did we learn from the previous experience? What conditions contributed to its success or failure, and do those conditions still exist today? Most importantly, what are we carrying forward because it remains valuable—and what are we carrying forward simply because it is familiar?
That may be the difference between an organization that remembers and an organization that actually learns.
Becoming
I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about how organizations might preserve their past so they can make better decisions about their future. I’m beginning to realize that people have to do something similar.
We carry:
Memories.
Lessons.
Successes.
Failures.
Relationships.
Assumptions.
Habits.
Expectations.
And earlier versions of ourselves.
Some deserve to come with us. Some need to be reconsidered. And some may have served us incredibly well while still no longer belonging where we’re going. My Achilles recovery is teaching me that returning requires patience.
Finishing my doctorate is teaching me that accomplishment doesn’t always require an immediate successor. My research is teaching me that memory isn’t as simple as recording what happened. My family continues teaching me that perspective matters. And AI is reinforcing something I’ve increasingly come to believe:
There are often multiple ways to reach a meaningful outcome.
The challenge is understanding ourselves, our circumstances, and our objectives well enough to determine which path makes sense now. I’m still learning how to do that. I’m still Adam. But I’m not the Adam who started this doctorate. I’m not the Adam from before this injury.
I’m not the Adam from before three children, new experiences, new responsibilities, failures, accomplishments, and everything else life has added along the way. And maybe that’s the realization I’m sitting with today. Maybe the goal isn’t always to get back to where I was. Maybe I don’t need to immediately race toward wherever I’m going next. Maybe there’s value in appreciating where I am, understanding who I’ve become, and allowing that person to determine the next starting point. Because sometimes growth isn’t about picking up where you left off.
Sometimes growth changes where you begin.
A question I’m sitting with
For anyone else who has experienced a major accomplishment, recovery, career transition, new stage of life, or simply a period that changed you: Have you ever tried to return to your old normal and realized it didn’t quite fit anymore? What helped you recognize that it was time to recalibrate rather than simply pick up where you left off? I’d genuinely love to hear how others have navigated that experience.
Thank you for reading. Be blessed and have an exceptional day.
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