When the Old Instructions Outlive the Change

A useful lesson from thinking through workplace change: approval is not the same as a usable transition.

Imagine a team changes an approval process, but the old instructions remain easy to find. People may follow them—not because they resist change, but because the new path is unclear or the old one still looks official.

Keep the old record as history: it can explain why the process changed. Release it as active guidance. Make the new owner and next step clear, then ask the people using the process to try that handoff and flag what is still ambiguous. Set a review point after that first round of use.

A change is easier to work with when it preserves the reasoning but retires instructions that no longer apply. No grand restart required; sometimes the crucial repair is making the current path unmistakable.