Heritage is usually spoken about in terms of preservation: the histories, cultures, languages, traditions and stories we have inherited and have a responsibility to carry forward. And rightly so. But Heritage Day, celebrated annually in South Africa in September, also gives us an opportunity to ask a slightly less comfortable question: does everything we inherit deserve to survive?
This consideration arises frequently in professional contexts, as organisations have a heritage too. It may be less visible, but it is no less real. It lives in the stories people tell about a place, in institutional knowledge, relationships and rituals, and in the particular things that make an organisation feel like itself. But it also lives in old structures, unwritten rules, leadership habits, assumptions about how work should happen and, inevitably, in that familiar phrase: “that’s how we’ve always done it.”
There is enormous value in knowing where an organisation has come from. People build organisations over time. They learn things, make mistakes, establish relationships, develop expertise and leave foundations for others to build on. That history along with institutional memory and continuity matter. However, longevity, on its own, is not evidence that something still serves us. A practice does not become good simply because it is old, and a way of working should not become immune to challenge simply because it has worked before.
At Just Share, questioning what has become normal is central to what we do. Our work across corporate accountability, climate action, governance and social impact asks difficult questions about systems: how they operate, who they serve, what they enable, and whether established ways of doing things remain good enough. That scrutiny does not stop at our front door.
An organisation’s heritage is seen most clearly in its everyday, unglamorous details: in who gets stretch opportunities and who doesn’t, in whose institutional knowledge lives only in their head, in what gets rewarded in a performance conversation, in what a new starter is quietly taught to accept in their first month. Culture is not something we set once, laminate into a values statement and preserve indefinitely. It moves because people move. Roles evolve, expectations shift, and new people bring different experience into the room. The job is not to chase every new idea, nor defend every old one. The job is to know the difference between what anchors an organisation and what is simply weighing it down.
Sometimes the job is to protect the culture. Sometimes it is to disturb it. There are things worth protecting fiercely: purpose, trust, strong relationships, institutional knowledge, high standards, and the values that genuinely show up in how people treat one another and do their work. And there are things worth disturbing: structures that no longer fit; knowledge that sits with one person because that’s how it’s always been; opportunities that depend too heavily on who speaks loudest or happens to be in the room; ways of working that made perfect sense once but no longer do.
Disturbing culture doesn’t mean dismantling it. Often, it starts with a simpler act: asking better questions. Why do we do this? Does it still serve us and our people? Who does it work well for, and who might it make things harder for? If we were building this today, knowing what we know now, would we build it the same way?
Those questions matter because culture, like heritage, is passed on. We pass on what we reward and what we tolerate. We pass on whose voices are encouraged, how disagreement is handled, how knowledge is shared, and whether people are given genuine room to grow. We pass on what leadership looks like in practice, not on paper. We pass on whether our values live in a document or in people’s actual experience of coming to work.
South Africa understands, better than most, that inheritance can be both precious and complicated. We have inherited extraordinary cultures, histories, languages, knowledge, resilience and community. We have also inherited systems and patterns whose consequences have lasted far longer than they should have. The same is true of our economy and our companies. Businesses inherit assets, relationships, practices and business models from those who came before them. Some create lasting value. Others carry costs that are borne by workers, communities, consumers or the environment. The fact that those costs have been around for a long time does not make them inevitable – or acceptable.
Whether we are thinking about an organisation, a company or a country, the question is not only what we have inherited. It is what we are willing to challenge – and what we will leave for those who come next.
Heritage is not only what we preserve. It is also what we choose to leave behind.
Protect what deserves protecting. And have the courage to disturb what doesn’t.
Carmen Hilser is the head of people and culture at Just Share.
