Thinking historically about business
The world did not begin this morning.
Business has become very good at measuring the present. It has become less good at understanding it.
A companion to Chris Thurling’s advisory practice, making the case that the habits of mind historians develop belong in the room where business decisions get made — for founders and leaders of creative and digital agencies.
The method
Five habits historians bring to a decision.
The five Cs: the working tools of the historian’s craft — and the ones business reaches for least.
- 01CausalityWhy things happen — and why they might have happened differently.
- 02ContextThe conditions surrounding any decision.
- 03Change over timeWhat shifts, and how fast.
- 04ContingencyHow prior choices constrain present options.
- 05ComplexityResistance to single causes and tidy conclusions.
Explore
The argumentA discipline business hasn’t learned to think withWhy historical thinking belongs alongside economics, law and technology — and what it adds that a dashboard cannot.Read →
WritingHistorical thinking, appliedFour essays that turn the five Cs on real agency decisions — pricing, disruption, post-mortems, memory.Read the essays →
ReadingWhere to startTwelve books on history, judgment and decisions made under genuine uncertainty.See the list →