The activist is to be found in many contemporary organizations. The activist dwells in a world of ideas and action. Things are to be done immediately. The motto for the activist is: “Why put off till tomorrow what we can do today!” For the extreme activist, cautious deliberations are frustrating and demoralizing. She declares: “Let’s get on with it!” The extreme activist tends to define the world in terms of courage and risk-taking. A second motto may be offered: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” The extreme activist often suspects that the real problem of those who urge more deliberation is an unwillingness to take risks. This activist believes that action must be taken, even though not all the information is in and even though the proposed solution is not perfect. She would defend her precipitous actions: “Something is better than nothing.”
By contrast, those who tend to dwell more on reflection than action are oriented either toward realism or idealism. Whereas the activist tends to dwell in the domain of ideas, the realist prefers the domain of information and the idealist the domain of intentions. The extreme activist views the idealist as hopelessly romantic. She is likely to describe the idealist as someone “who would rather build castles in the air than construct a durable bungalow on earth.” Similarly, the extreme activist often perceives the realist as being an immobile, often obsessive person. He might declare that the realist “never lifts up his head high enough or long enough to see what is actually happening in the world.”
Members of organizations are often pulled, not only between reflection and action, but also between realism and idealism. The extreme realist is careful and cautious, because of concern that new ideas may be enacted through wishful thinking (the failure of idealism) or without anticipating the consequences (the failure of activism). “Too many people,” according to the extreme realist, “go off half-cocked, with very little sense of the resources needed to solve a problem and without a clear understanding of the current situation to anticipate all of the consequences associated with a particular solution.”
