You know that I intentionally work in two very different worlds.  As a consultant by day, I live in the business world, rich with the knowledge of practice and experience.  As a teacher by night, I live in the academic world, rich with the knowledge of theory and concepts.  I work in both worlds intentionally.  That is because a quick scan of opinions about theory and practice often finds these worlds in a philosophical conflict.  No doubt you have heard the old saying “Those who can – do; those who can’t – teach”.  This conflict arises because; for the most part we invest our beliefs in one world or the other.  Unfortunately, less than 30% of our population has attended at least one course from an institution of higher learning.  That means the majority of our population has not had the opportunity to explore and discover that we as individuals cannot really “understand” one without the other.

The late, great Dr. William Edwards Deming once wrote - "Rational prediction requires theory and builds knowledge through systematic revision and extension of theory based on comparison of prediction with observation.  It is an extension of application that discloses inadequacy of a theory, and need for revision, or even new theory.  Again, without theory, there is nothing to revise.  Without theory, experience has no meaning.  Without theory, one has no questions to ask.  Hence without theory, there is no learning."  In the most fundamental of truths, theory and practice are partners that form knowledge.  Without knowledge there is no learning.  Without learning there is no wisdom.  Without wisdom there is no progress.

Because of theory, we have evolving models of systems and their behavior; which includes weather systems, economic systems, and even organizational systems.  These models help us predict future behavior and therefore, outcomes.  As with the recent hurricanes, while what actually happens in a system may not happen exactly as predicted by the model or the theory, what does happen is very important.  Over time we learn to embrace the quote from Dr, Olaf Isachsen – “For whatever happens, all the conditions were present”.  That is because; a well developed theory often includes variation common within the system, but we cannot include variation from causes outside the system.  Even though there may be influence from the outside, we can analyze what happened and we can evaluate the quality of our theory and improve it.