What does it mean to be an expert in motion?

Donald Schön: Knowing the rules, and knowing when to break them.

This week we’re revisiting Donald Schön. His idea of reflection-in-action is a lens on why some professionals freeze when the plan fails, and why others pivot in the moment.

I’m Nate Sowder, and this is unquoted, Installment 7.

What are these looks?

You’re five minutes into a talk and it just isn’t landing. The room is quiet. People are checking their phones. You’re only on slide six, and already, it’s obvious: this isn’t what they need.

In a split second you feel the weight of everything that brought you here — the planning, the rehearsals, the pressure of representing your team, your company… your reputation. And then the harder question: At this point, can you change course?

But the energy’s off. Their faces say it all.

So you’re left with a choice. You can keep presenting… or you can respond.

That ability, to catch the shift, make sense of it in the moment, and take the next step while the window is still open is what Donald Schön spent his career studying. Expertise, to him, wasn’t what you knew or planned. It was how you adjusted when the plan stopped working.

The theorist who watched people work

Donald Schön wasn’t interested in what professionals said they would do. Instead, he watched what they did when situations changed.

While some stuck to the plan, even when it stopped making sense, others made choices midstream — scrapping work, redirecting effort, even rebuilding what they’d already invested a lot of time and effort in. That second group is where Schön focused.

What separated them wasn’t their preparation or their communication. It was what happened in the instant something unexpected appeared. When this happened, they seemed to “wake up.” They had an ability to abstract themselves, step back, spot patterns others were missing, and act on them or offer guidance before the window closed.

Sometimes that looked like targeted creativity or innovation. Other times it looked like rule-breaking — not rebellion for its own sake, but a deep understanding of the rules that let them know exactly when to bend them for the good of the situation.

At the time, most institutions still treated expertise as a method: pick the right framework, apply the steps, move on. Schön called that mindset technical rationality — and showed why it collapses the moment a problem gets messy.

In its place, he introduced reflection-in-action: a way to describe how real expertise works when there is no clean path forward… and no time to go back.

What is reflection-in-action?

Reflection-in-action is what happens when you’re in the middle of the work and something shifts… new information blows up your plan, a competitor moves faster than you thought, or you’re too deep in to quit but too late to win.

In what Schön observed, it isn’t panic or hesitation. It’s the practiced calm of someone who knows how to read the room, the personalities, the situation, the likely outcomes — and adjust without clinging to anything that has happened up to that moment.

Schön called it a “conversation with the situation.” You act, the situation answers back, and you respond.

The people who do this well don’t look flustered. They look almost detached. I call that detachment “the lived cost of experience.” They’ve been burned before by sticking to the script, so they’ve learned when to let go.

The mark of reflection-in-action: knowing exactly when to release, rather than hold tighter.

And you see it beyond the conference stage. You see it in the long projects that drag on for months. Everyone seems to know the direction isn’t working, but nobody wants to be the first to say it. Too much time sunk. Too much money burned. Too much pride on the line.

Reflection-in-action is the person who finally says, “This isn’t it,” and has the judgment (and timing) to redirect before the hole gets deeper.

Where is it not showing up?

I’ve made it a point in this series to ground these ideas in design, strategy, and AI. The following three examples are obvious ones, but there are plenty more.

When goals are vague, process rushes in to fill the space. And once process takes over, reflection-in-action has no room left to breathe.

Responsible AI. Its principles are written so broadly they can mean almost anything. That vagueness makes them great for publishing white papers but useless for live judgment. The gap gets filled by oversight bodies and compliance checklists — and the result is paralysis. Everyone is “accountable,” but no one is empowered to act in the moment.

Design Thinking. It began as a way to stay close to the customer and test ideas in motion. But once it was packaged into a branded workshop, the rituals became the point. Teams can run a textbook-perfect session and still dodge the hardest question of all: are we even solving the right problem? The workshop ends, the photos go up, but the decision still waits outside the room.

Six Sigma. It promised certainty, and organizations loved the promise. But certainty came at the expense of flexibility. The tighter the control, the less space there was for professionals to adapt when conditions shifted. In chasing precision, it stripped away the very judgment it was supposed to systematize.

Schön would have said each of these scenarios is missing something — a Schön in the room. Someone introducing just enough ambiguity to keep judgment alive. Someone watching for patterns, sequences and opportunities the recipe doesn’t cover. (Design Thinking folks will get the recipe reference)

Without that, process doesn’t measure progress. I think it just checks boxes.

Why does it matter?

Reflection-in-action is easy to overlook because it doesn’t leave much evidence. There’s no certification for it, no framework to point to, or sticky notes left behind. It shows up only in the moment, and once it’s done, the work moves on.

I think that’s why it’s important. The systems we’ve built reward visible effort (plans, processes, presentations) at the same time that the problems we face demand responsiveness.

AI isn’t slowing down to match your roadmap.
Markets aren’t pausing for you to apply your framework.
People won’t wait while an organization explains why its process is still catching up.

Schön’s point was that expertise isn’t stored in a method. It’s revealed in the moment. The professional who can reflect while acting and can notice the shift and respond are the ones who earn trust. Not because they predicted everything, but because they stayed present enough to meet the shift as it happened.

So what?

Donald Schön matters because he showed us something most systems ignore: expertise isn’t proven in preparation, it’s revealed in the moment.

Reflection-in-action is the difference between clinging to the script and staying awake to what’s unfolding. It’s not rebellion. It’s not panic. It’s judgment … live, present, and accountable.

That’s why Schön still matters. He gave us language for the kind of expertise we all recognize but can’t name: the professional who knows when to hold, when to let go, and how to keep the work alive when certainty has slipped away.

Note: “Expert in motion” is my extension of Donald Schön’s idea of reflection-in-action. Schön described how real expertise shows up when professionals notice a shift, interpret it, and act while the work is still unfolding. I’m using “expert in motion” to name that posture — the professional who doesn’t cling to the plan, but adjusts in real time to keep the work alive.

What does it mean to be an expert in motion? was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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