Action vs. Reflection

I move back and forth too, but I am stuck sometimes in the the reflection phase, and when that happens, I try to convince myself that reflection *is* action…

PS I like that you used a serif font for reflection and a sans serif for action :P

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Personally, I think this is a false dichotomy: reflection is necessary for purposeful action, and action is the best basis for grounded reflection. So I try to do both.

People who really think that you can do either without the other tend to inflict a lot of damage.

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Brendan Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 10:37 am

Not entirely sure I agree (although eager to hear more).
I didn’t mean that the two were mutually exclusive, or that the balance of action v reflection bias is the same in every situation.
If I place myself at 1/3 reflection and 2/3 action, let’s say, then I could be saying that in most situations I reflect with 1/3 of energy and act with 2/3 of energy. Or I could be saying that in 1/3 of situations I reflect, whereas in 2/3 of situations I act. Or that I’m twice as likely to act by reaction as reflect.
Would this shift your answer?
I left it ambiguous on purpose, as some cool perspectives tend to emerge.
Interesting discussion.
B

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Michael Keizer Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 10:59 am

Definitely and interesting discussion!

What I am trying to bring across goes a bit further than that they are not mutually exclusive: I feel that they are mutually reinforcing, and even mutually indispensable. I would say that I always try to reflect-and-act (or, to use your words, spend 100% of my energy to reflect-and-act; or base my reactions on my reflections and vice versa).

To quote Freire: “reflection without action is sheer verbalism or armchair revolution and action without reflection is pure activism, or action for action’s sake.” The two necessarily need to go hand in hand to be able to make real progress in whatever real-life field you are working.

Does that explain my (admittedly very terse) earlier response?

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Brendan Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 11:16 am

Love the quote.
As I think a few answers here have hinted that a certain balance of action and reflection are vital to the best course of action. I’m happy to continue fleshing that out.

Another angle is to say that an organization’s effectiveness may require actors with complementary biases in this regard: they need people to consider policy/strategy/big picture stuff and people who inherently just tackle the tasks.

The other, perhaps less philosophical answer is one of self reflection. So: given my roles, there’s probably a nice balance of action vs reflection. The desired balance would be different for a researcher or an entrepreneur. For me? On average I’m probably at 60% action, 40% reflection, but want to shift more to the action side, given my goals and methods of achieving them.

Now that I’m thinking about this, it reminds me of how I felt in my masters vs my role as a consultant. In academia, I felt like your armchair-sitter, talking about things but never doing them. In a consultancy, I felt there was no time to reflect, because profitability is all about getting deliverables out efficiently. I have yet to find the role with the perfect balance for me.

Thanks for triggering this,
B

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Michael Keizer Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 11:47 am

This getting better and better!

“Another angle is to say that an organization’s effectiveness may require actors with complementary biases in this regard …”. Definitely true!

On a more individual base, I would say that almost all people whom I admire exhibit exhibit huge flexibility in their focus; IOW, they don’t have a real bias but easily and comfortably exhibit more action-based or more reflection-based behaviour, whichever is needed in a specific situation and setting. But even more interestingly: when you dig deeper and ask about their behaviour, it almost invariably turns out that what looks as very action-focussed behaviour is actually rooted in deep reflection, and that their seemingly reflection-focussed behaviour is very often linked to questions of real-life action. IOW: they embody this complementarity within themselves instead of between people in an organisation.

Which comes nicely back to your master’s/consultant example: these people (on whom I try to model my behaviour) ensure that, even when they almost get rushed of their feet by the demands of their job, they still find time to stand still and reflect (and hence improve on the effectiveness and efficiency of their actions) — or that when they are involved in a higher study or academic analysis, they still assay their studies or analyses on real-life action and experience. There aren’t many of these people around, but you will definitely know when you find one.

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Brendan Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 1:58 pm

I’m going to look around for such people from now on. Well put.
One of the ways I think this can be framed as well is: how do you learn?
EWB Canada and the Skoll Centre here foster a culture with a bias to action. For EWB (which I know better than the SC at this point) see that as meaning that’s how we learn about the right course of action. So they give a new idea a quick screen, try it out, and then evaluate it’s effectiveness after. Although evaluation (/reflection) is integral to the process, I’d still say that shows a bias to action.
B

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Brendan Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 2:00 pm

Of course, there needs to be a broader insitutional learning/reflection over time to make this type of system work. But even this is strongly influenced by feedback from individual actions. Or at least any theory must be confirmed by feedback from actions.
B

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Michael Keizer Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 9:53 pm

Totally agree there. Although I would also say that EWB’s learning method might not always be appropriate, and one should be careful not to want to apply one method whatever the situation. ‘If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.’ Don’t know who said it, but it is an important word of caution.

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Brendan Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 11:48 pm

I agree. There’s definitely more strategy consideration in that org than I’ve communicated, and in that sense I’m a little off. Good comment.

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Interesting discussion! We certainly have people at all ranges of the spectrum where I work - from the rapid innovators who use a fail and adapt approach, who never seem to take the time to reflect, whom we are running after to try to capture and share what they have learned for the benefit of others and on the other end of the spectrum those who feel we shouldn’t act or recommend anything until we have all the facts, and only after doing a couple more peer reviewed studies will we be ready to take the next steps. Luckily for the most part these balance each other out - but put them in a room rogether and it is like talking among aliens.

Maybe a digression, but the interestin question this brings up in my mind is how much do/should you need to know about a situation, and what you are trying to do before you start taking action. Often you need to start acting before you really know as much as you should - but when is this practical bravery and when is it potentially harmful folly?

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Brendan Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 12:43 pm

As a trained engineer moving more into management and development, the issue of acting on incomplete information is certainly a big one.
B

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