Theory v. Practice: bridging the gap

It was Kurt Lewin, pre‐war pioneer of applied psychology, and inventor of the term group dynamics, who reputedly said: There is nothing so practical as a good theory. How right he was. In these days when action learning is all the rage, such a saying is a timely reminder both of the need for and the value of theories in the execution of practice. For we all have theories; we use them constantly, and managers are no exception. Consciously or unconsciously we employ them to guide our actions: theories about the world and the way it works, about men, money, machines and materials, about management, and the different ways of “handling” people and things.