Theory and practice are not at odds with each other

There's a clear reason why I call this substack page The Conceptual Leader, and that doesn't imply at all that I don't have an appreciation for practice, quite the contrary. I believe that theory-informed practice is the way to being highly adaptive to whatever contexts are thrown at you.

Let me put it in a rather blunt way: you can't practice your way out of a novelty scenario, or at least it would likely be painful to do so. Practices are typically only good as long as circumstances are fairly coherent with the context where the practices were successful before (concept of bounded applicability).

You don't need to rely upon my words only. Take the late Clay Christensen who used to point out that past success and even historical data are only good at predicting the future for as long as conditions are the same or sufficiently similar. And that, to deal with uncertainty, leaders need good ‘theory’ which helps us to understand ‘how’ and ‘why’. Or take David Snowden's notion of theory based practice (in the specifically linked talk it's in the context of transforming culture, but he does use it more broadly than that).

Or maybe you want to go a bit more into literature and philosophy, where the British writer and philosopher GK Chesterton can come in handy with his observation in "What's Wrong with the World":

"There has arisen in our time a most singular fancy: the fancy that when things go very wrong we need a practical man. It would be far truer to say, that when things go very wrong we need an unpractical man. Certainly, at least, we need a theorist. A practical man means a man accustomed to mere daily practice, to the way things commonly work. When things will not work, you must have the thinker, the man who has some doctrine about why they work at all. It is wrong to fiddle while Rome is burning; but it is quite right to study the theory of hydraulics while Rome is burning."

So, if you are a little like me and perhaps were pointed out, as I was, as being somewhat too conceptual, for having a deep appreciation about theory… Then you might find some leverage in learning this insight which I am sharing today:

Theory and practice are not meant to be at odds with each other, but rather we should rely upon practice when things are roughly "business as usual", and borrow from theory when that's not the case any longer, being able to more easily connect dots and adapt to new circumstances as they emerge. That's the essence of what I am referring to here as theory-informed practice (or theory-based, if we want to use Snowden's definition).

By Rodrigo Sperb, feel free to connect, I'm happy to engage and interact. If I can be of further utility to you or your organization in getting better at working with product development, I am available for part-time advisory, consulting or contract-based engagements.