Thought, Action, Praxis

What comes first – thought or action? Ask most people and the responses would indicate the primacy of thinking. Thinking is believed to come before action in a way similar to a cause determining its effect. After all, many times each day, we think about something and then we do it. It seems pretty straightforward, doesn’t it?

There are numerous examples, however, where people react to situations, especially threatening ones, without apparent feeling or thinking. When the survival instinct kicks in, speed is often more important than accuracy. Under these conditions, most people tend to act first, develop an emotional response next and think last. So there are just as many examples suggesting the primacy of action.

However, correlation does not prove causation. What happens if mental processes that are not consciously perceived cause both the thought about action and the action itself? There is clinical evidence from the experiments of Benjamin Libet that the experience of consciously willing an action begins after neurological events that set the action in motion. This suggests that parts of the unconscious create both the thought and action and we infer that our thoughts caused our actions. Does this mean that no conscious thought causes action? No, but it does indicate that a linear cause and effect relationship is an oversimplification.

Scientists believe that people make sense of their world through various cognitive structures, referred to as mental models. These mental models are believed to operate in the unconscious mind, so most of the time we don’t even realize they exist. Almost every aspect of our lives is shaped by our mental models, including all our thoughts and actions. In addition, there is substantial evidence that training and education can affect our mental models, although to a less extent than meaningful experience obtained through purposeful action. Consequently, our thoughts can affect our mental models, which can influence our actions, and our actions can affect our mental models, which can influence how we think. Neither thought nor action have primacy. Thought and action are dialectically related, mutually constitutive in a continual process of interaction.

This is the essence of the meaning of the word praxis. The etymology of the word can be traced to the Greek praxis, which unfortunately has no English equivalent, but which is usually translated as practice. Practice is often unreflective activity – doing what you’ve been taught to do under the circumstances, which is not the true meaning of praxis. Praxis is a transformational process resulting from a synthesis of thought and action where each constitutes and informs the other through the experience of reality.

We have adopted Strategy Praxis™ as our trademark reflecting our unique approach to strategy. Strategy Praxis™ is multidisciplinary, pulling knowledge not only from the field of strategy, but fields as diverse as economics or cognitive psychology when such knowledge can provide insight. Our approach emphasizes a systems perspective, attempts to transcend the current paradigms and bridge the ever-widening gap between strategy theory and practice. Strategy Praxis™ elevates the importance of the cognitive development of the strategist and adopts a very pragmatic view with the prime metric being success in action.