To make a difference we need to take action in public life, but the way we act and what we learn from taking action is informed by reflection. Our tribes tend to lean into action, motivated by a sense of urgency to remedy injustice, but reflection is needed to sharpen and shift how we act in a forever uncertain and changing public life.
These reflective questions offer a way to re-examine our own practice and rethink how the paradoxical relationship between action and reflection might be useful for how we act with others and understand our own agency.
The first group are focused on making sense of the paradox, the second group offer ways of thinking about how it might connect to your tribe and work with others.
Sitting in the tension
- When you face a pressure or problem in public life, do you tend to reach first for action or reflection?
- How does the idea that action should generate a reaction change how you think about public action?
- When have you seen action become repetitive? What stopped people from pausing, learning or adapting?
- What becomes possible when reflection is treated as part of action, rather than something that happens afterwards?
Navigating action and reflection in your practice
- Where does the connection between action and reflection break down for you or your tribe?
- What helps you move between the two more consciously?
- Where do you currently make space for reflection — in your own time, with others and with your tribe — and how could you be more intentional about it?
- Can you think of a time when action changed not only the situation you were trying to shift, but also you or your tribe?
- What everyday habits would help your tribe learn more consciously from what it does?
