Learning from experience:
why history matters in organisational life
In a recent publication, I muse on why one comes across so little history in organisational documents today. In my view, it has something to do with the subtle influences of communication technologies, including writing, printing and more recently computers. Added to those is blanket application of scientific thinking and managerial ways, especially in the public sector.
In my own small way, I try to redress the balance by writing narrative accounts to describe and evaluate organisational activities that have evolved over time and are hard to measure. I take pains to incorporate process thinking and emergence in the narratives I write, using people’s own words as much as possible and paying attention to detail.
“In order to see more clearly, here as in countless similar cases, we must focus on the details of what goes on; must look at them from close to” (Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 1953)
Writing case studies and organisational histories does not just involve looking backwards. It is also about understanding how we came to be where we are today and what that might mean for the future.
“Good historians, I suspect, whether they think about it or not, have the future in their bones. Besides the question ‘Why?’ the historian also asks the question ‘Whither?’.” (Carr, What is history? 1961).
why history matters in organisational life
In a recent publication, I muse on why one comes across so little history in organisational documents today. In my view, it has something to do with the subtle influences of communication technologies, including writing, printing and more recently computers. Added to those is blanket application of scientific thinking and managerial ways, especially in the public sector.
In my own small way, I try to redress the balance by writing narrative accounts to describe and evaluate organisational activities that have evolved over time and are hard to measure. I take pains to incorporate process thinking and emergence in the narratives I write, using people’s own words as much as possible and paying attention to detail.
“In order to see more clearly, here as in countless similar cases, we must focus on the details of what goes on; must look at them from close to” (Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 1953)
Writing case studies and organisational histories does not just involve looking backwards. It is also about understanding how we came to be where we are today and what that might mean for the future.
“Good historians, I suspect, whether they think about it or not, have the future in their bones. Besides the question ‘Why?’ the historian also asks the question ‘Whither?’.” (Carr, What is history? 1961).
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