Check If History Rhymes
Where have I seen this movie before — and how did it end?
When facing a novel strategic situation, ask: Has this pattern played out before in a different context? Write down one historical or cross-domain parallel. Then ask: What happened next in that case? What's different about my situation that might change the outcome? Use the parallel as a starting hypothesis, not a conclusion.
You're in unfamiliar territory and need a starting framework for thinking about what might happen next.
You're forcing a historical parallel that doesn't genuinely fit — false pattern matching is worse than no pattern at all.
Why it works
Novel situations are rarely as novel as they feel. Cross-domain pattern matching gives you a hypothesis to test rather than starting from zero — as long as you check where the analogy breaks down.
Most situations that feel unprecedented have played out before — in a different industry, era, or domain. The company facing disruption has a parallel in every industry that’s been disrupted. The leader managing a merger can learn from every merger that preceded theirs. The power of historical reasoning isn’t prediction — it’s hypothesis generation. A parallel gives you a starting point: ‘in similar situations, X tends to happen next.’ The critical second step is identifying where the analogy breaks. Every parallel is imperfect, and the differences are where the real insight lives. Used well, historical reasoning gives you a head start. Used lazily, it gives you false confidence.