Reader,

"History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes." – Mark Twain

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Hindsight can be described as the ability to understand and draw lessons from events after they have happened. It’s not about remembering the facts – it’s all about finding the lessons. While hindsight doesn’t change the past, it can shape better decisions in the future by converting experience into wisdom.

Failure to Use Hindsight – Some Famous Examples

Kodak Ignoring the Shift to Digital in the early 2000s. They might have learned lessons from RCA and vacuum tubes vs. transistors in the 1950s. Disruptive technologies can upend even dominant market positions.

Blockbuster's Rejection of Streaming. They might have learned from Western Union rejecting the telephone. Incumbents must adapt to changing delivery models (like railroads failing to adapt to air travel).

2008 Financial Crisis. Banking leaders might have learned from the Great Depression and the Savings & Loan crisis of the 1980s. Stupidity and foolishness gets punished.

Our Underestimation of Misinformation (2016–present). We need to study the radio propaganda in the 1930s–40s and the era of “yellow journalism.” The erosion of public trust is not new.

Brexit (2016). The breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire about 100 years earlier showed that complex economic unions are hard to exit without major disruption. They always result in trade uncertainty, political division, and economic strain.

Boeing’s 737 MAX Crisis (2018–2020). The Challenger disaster, where management pressure overruled engineering concerns, should have taught Boeing leadership that safety and engineering must come before profit.

U.S. Invasion of Iraq (2003). The Vietnam War and even the British Empire's withdrawal from Middle East colonies gave lessons that regime change creates power vacuums and long-term instability. The late historian, Rufus Fears, explained a lesson from history – that “the Middle East was the graveyard of democracies.”

The Response to COVID-19 (2020). We collectively ignored the lessons that pandemics repeat and require early, coordinated public health response. We should have paid attention to the 1918 Spanish Flu, and SARS in 2003. Additionally, there are lessons to be learned from cholera, yellow fever, tuberculosis, polio, smallpox, measles, and even the plague. Valuable lessons were ignored because “this time is different.”

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Improving Hindsight

Reflect Regularly – Ask “What just happened, and why?” Document successes and missteps with context, not just outcomes.

Run After-Action Reviews (AARs) - Borrowed from the military and ask:

o What was supposed to happen?

o What happened?

o Why were there differences?

o What did we learn?

Look for Patterns Over Time – Look for recurring dynamics. Ask: “Where have we seen this kind of issue before?”

Learn from Others’ Experience - Study case studies, industry failures, postmortems, and memoirs. Capture specific "lessons learned.”

Create a “Lessons Archive” – Don’t trust your memory. Keep a list of important decisions and what was learned from both successes and failures. Convert lessons into updated procedures, checklists, or policies.

Bottom Line

Not only can we learn from the past, but we must. This is true for governments, businesses, and you, and me.

Next

We need to use a combination of hindsight, insight, and foresight if we are to navigate these challenging times. The next post will address “Insight: Making Sense of the Present.”

By the way, if you’d like some more interesting history lessons, you can grab Ten from Then which has ten short history snippets and some comments about “what causes the future.” The link is HERE.

Finally, I’m launching a free 5-day #dragonchallenge to help you identify the dragons in your work and build some skills to deal with them. If you’re navigating disruption or complexity and trying to make sense of rapid change – this is for you. It starts April 21^st on LinkedIn. Watch for the announcements.

Bill