One of the most common challenges practitioners face is helping people overcome their tendency to dwell on the past. Teams and individuals often replay old mistakes, rehash frustrations, or become anchored in what has already happened. This fixation prevents them from adapting, discourages forward momentum, and undermines the ability to achieve meaningful outcomes. This result is not conducive to leadership outcomes.
Practitioners need practical ways to reframe perspective. One effective method is to employ the metaphor of driving. Driving is something that most people are familiar with, but it also illustrates the necessity of preparation, vision, patience, and forward focus. Moreover, it highlights the risks associated with excessive attention to the rearview mirror, reckless speeding, or neglecting maintenance. This metaphor can be taught, discussed, and reinforced with clients, teams, or organizations to move them from a past-oriented mindset to one centered on vision and proactive progress.
This article presents the driving metaphor not merely as an analogy for leadership but as a practical teaching framework practitioners can use to instill future-oriented thinking in others.
Preparing the Vehicle – Foundations Before Movement
Driving begins long before entering the road. A responsible driver ensures the car is fueled, the tires are properly inflated, and the engine is well-maintained. Leaders likewise must prepare before advancing. Preparation includes clarifying objectives, equipping teams with the right tools, and ensuring the organizational “vehicle” is capable of sustaining the journey.
Practitioner Application
When working with individuals who resist change or lack motivation, practitioners can point out that no journey succeeds if the vehicle is neglected. Asking reflective questions such as, “What have you done to prepare for this next phase?” or “How do you know your systems are roadworthy?” reframes preparation as maintenance rather than drudgery. By teaching clients to see preparation as essential to progress, practitioners reinforce that future focus begins with readiness.
The Destination – Vision as Orientation
Few people drive without a destination in mind. Even casual driving implies a general direction or location. Even “cruising” typically has a general location. The exact path to our destination may twist and turn, but the driver trusts that each turn leads us closer to our destination. Leaders need the same clarity. Without vision, individuals default to the familiar terrain of the past, even if it leads nowhere productive.
Practitioner Application
Practitioners can use the metaphor of the “destination” to emphasize vision. When teams lose focus, the question becomes, “Where are we going, and how will we know when we get there?” Just as a GPS recalculates but never loses sight of the endpoint, vision provides orientation even when detours arise. Helping clients articulate a clear, compelling vision makes it easier to redirect them when they become bogged down in past problems.
Pacing the Journey – Patience and Timing
Reckless speeding is a recipe for an expensive disaster. In driving, it increases the likelihood of collisions, costly tickets, and rising insurance rates. In leadership, rushing decisions or over-accelerating projects can lead to mistakes that drain resources, damage credibility, and erode trust. Effective drivers plan sufficient time to arrive without panic, and effective leaders recognize that meaningful progress requires disciplined pacing. The journey is not won by haste, but by steady, deliberate movement toward the destination.
Practitioner Application
When clients express frustration with the pace of change, practitioners can draw on the metaphor of speeding. “If you push this too fast, will you reach the destination, or will you pay the price in breakdowns and costly mistakes?” This framing reinforces that patience is not passivity, but rather disciplined pacing; the kind that prevents expensive setbacks while sustaining forward motion. Practitioners can help leaders by incorporating milestones, such as planned rest stops, that provide measurable progress points and encouragement without resorting to reckless acceleration.
The Rear-View Mirror – Lessons Without Fixation
Drivers typically glance at the rear-view mirror for context but keep their eyes primarily on the road ahead. That’s because excessive attention to the mirror distracts from immediate hazards and the path forward. In other words, too much time looking in the mirror can lead to a crash. Leaders can also learn from this. Leaders must reflect on the past without allowing it to dominate the present or the future.
Practitioner Application
Many clients remain anchored to past failures, grievances, or even victories. Practitioners can use the rear-view mirror metaphor to challenge this fixation. When a team dwells on what went wrong, the question becomes, “How long can you stare in the mirror before you collide with what is directly ahead?” This reframing normalizes reflection but makes clear its limited utility. The past cannot be altered; it exists only as reference. What can be shaped is the future, and that requires eyes forward, attention on the road ahead, and disciplined commitment to progress.
Steering and Action – Moving Beyond Planning
A well-maintained car and a clear map mean little if the driver never turns the wheel. Leaders must translate preparation and vision into action. Action means making decisions, taking responsibility for the route, and maintaining composure when unexpected obstacles appear. Rarely is the drive to our destination a straight shot. Detours, traffic, and delays are inevitable, but the driver still moves forward. In leadership, action is the decisive step that prevents stagnation. Practitioners can remind clients that vision without execution is only wishful thinking and that progress comes only when leaders choose to steer, even when the road bends unexpectedly.
Practitioner Application
Practitioners can emphasize that action validates preparation. Teams that remain stuck in discussion or blame can be reminded, “No one ever reached their destination by sitting in the driveway.” The metaphor helps break cycles of analysis paralysis or backward focus. Practitioners should encourage incremental action (driving one mile at a time rather than attempting to control roads not yet reached) while keeping the ultimate destination in sight or mind.
The Cost of Neglect – When Journeys Fail
Not all journeys succeed. Drivers who fail to prepare, ignore maintenance, or focus too much on their mirrors risk arriving late, frustrated, or not at all. Likewise, leaders who avoid vision, refuse preparation, or rush recklessly create cultures of blame, resentment, and underperformance.
Practitioner Application
For practitioners, this cautionary angle is essential. By describing the predictable outcomes of neglect (breakdowns, collisions, missed arrivals), practitioners help clients see that their current frustrations are not unique but are natural consequences of misdirected focus. The driving metaphor depersonalizes critique, shifting attention from blame to the structural choices that determine outcomes.
Addressing Resistance Through Metaphor
A key challenge practitioners face is epistemic rigidity, which refers to the resistance to new perspectives due to entrenched beliefs or repeated patterns. The driving metaphor provides a neutral and relatable framework for challenging this rigidity. Instead of confronting clients directly with their fixation on the past, practitioners can introduce the metaphor: “Imagine trying to drive by staring only in the rear-view mirror. What would happen?” This question enables clients to reach their own conclusions, reducing defensiveness and opening the door to future-focused thinking.
Final Thoughts
For practitioners seeking to reorient individuals and organizations from past-fixated to vision-focused, the driving metaphor provides both clarity and practicality. It emphasizes preparation, vision, pacing, reflection without fixation, and decisive action. It also illustrates the predictable failures that occur when these principles are ignored.
Ultimately, leadership (like driving) is not determined by where one has been, but by the commitment and audacity to move forward. Practitioners must equip leaders to prepare their vehicles, trust their destination, and keep their eyes on the road ahead. By embedding this metaphor into practice, they can help individuals and teams shift their focus from the past to disciplined, vision-focused progress.
Author(s): Dr. David M Robertson
Board Insights | Open Source | ORCID iD
Published Online: 2025 Sept – All Rights Reserved.
APA Citation: Robertson, D. (2025, September 29). A Practitioners Framework for Shifting Focus from the Past to the Future. The Journal of Leaderology and Applied Leadership. https://jala.nlainfo.org/shifting-focus-from-the-past-to-the-future/