What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice I have received may be this: Better slightly uncoordinated action than fully coordinated inaction.
I am a pragmatist at heart. I often begin with a hunch rather than a plan. I have a glimpse of something that might be worth exploring, even when I cannot yet explain why.
These daily prompts are a good example. I often take the first thought that comes to mind and begin writing. I do not always know where it is headed. Sometimes I do not even know exactly what I think. I work that out in the process.
Writing is not always the expression of a finished thought. Sometimes it is the means by which the thought is discovered. One sentence leads to another. A memory reveals a theme. An idea that seemed incidental turns out to be the centre of the piece.
If I waited until everything was fully planned, nothing would happen. I would be asking myself to know the conclusion before beginning the process that might reveal it.
I have seen the same thing in organisations. Committees can do painstaking work, produce careful plans and achieve complete coordination, yet nothing changes. The plan sits on a shelf.
Action brings an idea into contact with reality. It exposes weaknesses, creates possibilities and teaches things that planning alone cannot reveal. The act of doing becomes a source of knowing.
I did my doctorate on a hunch. I had an idea I wanted to explore, without knowing where it would lead. Following it opened new vistas for me.
Of course, not every impulse is wise. Action still needs reflection, humility and a willingness to change direction. But we do not always need complete certainty before taking the next step.
Sometimes the path becomes visible only after we begin walking.
The Afterword 
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