When we ask a leadership team how they arrived at their current position, we tend to hear the headline moments. A product launch that exceeded expectations. A competitor that left the market. A sudden dip after a policy change.
What is often missing are the links between those moments, the subtle decisions, the timings, the changes in the environment that tipped the balance. Without those, you are left with fragments rather than a complete map. And if you do not have the map, you are guessing at the best route forward.
This is more common than many people realise. Most organisations are too busy focusing on the next move, the quarter ahead, the pitch tomorrow, the product shipping next month. The past becomes a blur. Yet research on “after-action reviews” shows that teams who make time to study their own history perform better, precisely because they capture what actually happened and turn it into shared knowledge. The lesson is simple: the companies most likely to succeed are those that actively learn from their own experience.
Why the past is a competitive advantage
The hard truth is that not all companies move forward at the same pace. A “power curve” exists in every industry. A few firms capture most of the economic profit, a handful break even, and the rest struggle to keep up. The difference between those categories is rarely luck. It comes down to making, and sticking to, deliberate and evidence-based choices.
If you ignore your history, you are more likely to make diffuse plans. You spread effort across too many fronts and dilute the impact. When you mine your history for what has worked, you can make bolder and sharper moves that give you the best chance of moving up the curve.
This is why, when we build a strategy, we do not jump straight to the future. We start by mapping the route to the present. That means looking at markets that responded well to you, campaigns that converted customers efficiently, and partnerships that generated value. We also look at what dragged you back, such as underperforming channels, wasted spend, and slow-moving prospects.
The past holds this evidence. Without it, the future rests on guesswork.
How we map a journey
The process is part investigation, part storytelling. We gather numbers and track trends, but we also listen to the people who lived it.
Revenue might spike at the same time a marketing campaign runs, but was that the cause? Sometimes it was a change in distribution, or a competitor pulling out, or an industry regulation tipping demand in your favour. Only by piecing together the context do you see the truth.
It is not nostalgia. It is clarity. And that clarity is what lets you make confident and defensible decisions about the road ahead.
The game, the field, the win
Once the past is mapped, it has to be placed in context. You need to know the game you are playing, the field you have chosen, and the way you are going to win.
Every industry has its rules. They might not be written down, but they shape what is possible. They might be created by regulation, by customer expectations, or by the speed of innovation in your space.
Where you play is about focus. Which customers, regions, or problems do you solve for? Are you in crowded markets or under-served niches?
And then, the most important question: how will you win? This is not about vague differentiators. It is about pinpointing the strengths you can defend and amplify, whether that is speed, quality, deep expertise, brand authority, or something else that rivals cannot easily match.
What happens if you skip this step
We have seen companies skip straight to future plans without looking back. It is tempting to charge forward, but it often means repeating mistakes or chasing the wrong opportunities.
One client arrived convinced that social advertising had driven their last period of growth. The data seemed to support it, until we overlaid the timeline with distribution changes. It turned out the growth was largely driven by a new partner bringing better-qualified demand. The ad spend looked productive only because it happened at the same time.
If they had gone ahead without checking, they would have doubled down on the wrong lever. Instead, we replicated the partnership model in other regions and achieved growth at a lower cost.
Learning from both ends
History is not only about looking back. It can also be applied prospectively through a “premortem”, imagining the project has failed and asking why. This technique helps teams identify risks that might otherwise be ignored. When those risks connect to things that have tripped you up before, you close the loop between past lessons and future decisions.
Couple that with a review rhythm, revisiting both the plan and the outcomes regularly, and you create a culture that keeps learning alive. This is what makes history an active tool, not an archive.
From X to Y
Getting from where you are (X) to where you want to be (Y) is not a leap of faith. It is a considered sequence of moves based on evidence from your own journey.
Your history shows you which levers have driven profit, loyalty, or efficiency. It also shows you where the returns have been thin. By building on that, you reduce waste and increase the odds of winning in the arenas that suit you best.
Moving forward with purpose
At Shareable, we make this the first step in any engagement. Before we commit to a roadmap, we commit to understanding the path you have already taken. We use that insight to answer three simple but powerful questions: What game are you in? Where will you play? How will you win?
That is how you turn experience into momentum, and momentum into results.
Further Reading / References:
Learning from after action reviews – Harvard Business Review
The power curve of economic profit – McKinsey & Company
Playing to win: Where to play and how to win – Harvard Business Review
Organizational learning: A review of theory and research – Academy of Management Review
Experience curve effects – Boston Consulting Group
Resource-based view of the firm – Journal of Management
Market orientation and performance – Journal of Marketing
The premortem: A prelude to failure analysis – Harvard Business Review
