Taking Action
Action can be said to happen in cycles.
- A person observes something about the world
- They make sense of what they observed
- They decide what to do about it
- They act
The result of your action becomes something new to observe.
This cycle repeats continuously as a person navigates toward objectives in a changing environment.
This pattern was formalized by military strategist John Boyd as the OODA Loop:
- Observe
- Orient
- Decide
- Act
Boyd recognized that whoever completes this cycle faster (and with better quality) can gain a decisive advantage toward achieving a desired outcome.
This cycle is also fundamental enough to have broad application to activities in life: whether a person is flying a fighter jet, having a conversation, or running a business, or trying to develop an excellent sandwich-making technique.
Observe / Intake
The cycle begins with observation: taking in information about the current state of things.
- Word pointers:
- Sense, Notice, Perceive, Monitor, Scan, Detect, Gather, Register
This is the input phase.
Something changes in the environment, and a person navigating that environment registers that change.
What a person observes depends on what they are paying attention to — which is shaped by everything that came before.
This phase connects to the Cognition map, which breaks down how raw sensory input becomes meaningful information.
Orient / Integrate / Analyze
Once a person has observed something, they must make sense of it.
- Word pointers:
- Interpret, Contextualize, Frame, Synthesize, Understand, Assess, Position, Process
This is where a person brings everything they know — their experience, their models, their Nature and Nurture — to bear on the observation.
Boyd called this "Orient" and considered it the most critical phase. A person's orientation shapes what they observe, how they decide, and what actions are even conceivable to them.
This phase connects to the Processing map, which shows how information gets routed to different outcomes: ignored, stored, integrated into a person's worldview, or flagged for action.
Decision
Once a person understands the situation, they must choose what to do about it.
- Word pointers:
- Choose, Select, Commit, Resolve, Determine, Judge, Conclude
This is the compression point — where multiple possibilities collapse into one.
Economist Herbert Simon showed that people do not optimize; they satisfice. People search until they find something "good enough," then stop.
This phase is explored further in the Making Decisions map.
Action
Finally, a person executes the chosen option.
- Word pointers:
- Execute, Implement, Perform, Manifest, Apply, Enact, Do
Action changes something in the world. That change becomes new information to observe, and the cycle continues.
Multiple cycles of action create a path toward objectives — though as explored in the Achieving Objectives map, that path is rarely straight.
Broader Context
The Action Cycle is the basic unit of goal-directed behavior.
It connects to Doing Things: each cycle is an attempt to create Good Fit between Form and Forces in a Context.
The quality of action depends on:
- What a person observes (awareness)
- How they integrate (understanding)
- How they decide (judgment)
- How they execute (capability)
And critically: speed matters. The faster a person can complete quality cycles, the more adaptive they become in changing environments.