A Monumental Reckoning

Real legacies are made of more than stone; they're sealed in our hearts

Pulling Down the Statue of George III at Bowling Green, N.Y. July 9, 1776 by William Walcutt, 1857 (public domain - Wikimedia Commons)

“Si monumentum requiris, circumspice.” — Christopher Wren, 1723

There’s a very human tendency to cling to what’s familiar — to keep up a process or tradition because “we’ve always done it that way.”

The notion is so powerful that in many boardrooms and whiteboard sessions, it’s used as a reflexive force field, to shield the team and the corporation from looming change.

A new approach is greeted with “Nope, sorry. That won’t work. We’ve always done it this way.”

Consider our attachment to monuments and the current debates happening about them, as we reassess what they stand for. One camp is interested in removing any object or representation that doesn’t square with our modern sensibilities and the other is steadfastly clinging to the past, right or wrong.

Does a physical object determine our beliefs? Can it teach us history?

A statue or monument certain…