Introduction
Have Theory, Will Travel
GIVE ME A GOOD THEORY OVER A STRATEGIC PLAN ANY DAY of the week. A plan is a tool—a piece of technology only as good as the mind-set using it. The mind-set is theory, flawed or otherwise. Theory is not abstract conjecture, and it is not about being cerebral. The biologist David Sloan Wilson (whose productive use of evolutionary theory we will take up later) captures the meaning best: “a theory is merely a way of organizing ideas that seems to make sense of the world” (2007, p. 16). Theories, in other words, make sense of the real world and are tested against it. The best theories are at their core solidly grounded in action.
Theories that travel well are those that practically and insightfully guide the ...
