The Triumvirate of Action - Book Review
The Triumvirate of Action explains how knowledge, belief, and faith jointly drive human action: knowledge guides decisions through justified experience, belief supports judgment from partial evidence, and faith enables committed action despite uncertainty. The framework helps leaders choose the right basis for action, learn from outcomes, and navigate complexity with greater wisdom.
The book “The Triumvirate of Action” refers to an old Roman term - the triumvirate, a threefold joint leadership. The book, written in 2026 by Alex Bennet, deals with knowledge, beliefs, and faith, the differences between them, the web of connections between them, and how they drive us, separately and together, to action.
Main topics raised in the book:
The book's central contribution is not a redefinition of knowledge, belief, and faith, but rather the understanding that each serves a different type of action, and that professional and managerial maturity stems from the ability to move consciously between them according to the situation. I admit that I am surprised anew each time by how Bennet deepens our understanding of knowledge from yet another angle, time and again. And once more, it offers fresh ideas for how to act in our world in an even more beneficial way. Thank you.
Knowledge
Knowledge is more than information. It is defined as the ability to act effectively in a given context based on justified understandings. Knowledge is born of experience, tested through experiences, and sharpened through reflection.
Key ideas:
In the changing, uncertain, complex, and anxious world (CUCA) in which we find ourselves, existing knowledge is never complete; therefore, what we do have often serves as a compass that helps us make a decision.
We rely on explicit knowledge and even more on implicit knowledge and tacit knowledge. Since the knowledge that serves us is mainly implicit or tacit, the more we recognize that we do not possess (explicit) knowledge, the greater our chance of reaching knowledge that is not in our awareness, and of succeeding in acting effectively. The more we understand how much of our knowledge is tacit, implicit, or inaccessible, the more our professional humility grows.
The lesson is unambiguous: to improve knowledge-based action, we must recognize the limits of our knowledge, and be more humble, ready to learn and to listen.
Beliefs
Beliefs are the collection of opinions that we hold about what is right, valuable, and possible.
Beliefs are a form of knowledge based on assessment, interpretation, or partial experience. Some develop over time into more established knowledge, some remain beliefs, and some are disproven.
Key ideas:
A belief can exist at different levels of certainty, and in light of our experiences, it may strengthen, weaken, or even be disproven and drop out of the set of beliefs we hold. Beliefs with a higher level of certainty will move us more strongly toward action; others allow more room for negotiation, or, if weak, may cause hesitation and open a window of opportunity for the opposite influence.
Paradox: beliefs with a low level of certainty create greater openness of mind for absorbing new information.
Surprisingly, emotions also have a significant influence on the beliefs that we hold:
People will be more open to examining beliefs based on pieces of information that arouse positive emotions in us, such as curiosity, excitement, and comfort; and conversely, relatively closed to examining the validity of pieces of information that arouse negative emotions.
The intensity of the emotion affects our willingness to examine information and form beliefs, as mentioned above.
The emotional state we are in at a given moment affects both the process of examining a belief and its outcomes (think, for example, of our unwillingness to adopt new beliefs in certain states).
Beliefs are a precondition for the development of our knowledge base, and allow us to act under conditions where information is lacking.
Faith
Although Bennet presents the three components as a Triumvirate - a kind of joint leadership that drives action, the topic of faith extends across several chapters.
Faith is a willingness to act despite uncertainty and risk: an internal state in which we are willing to act, even - and precisely - when we lack certainty; when we lack proof, and our knowledge base is incomplete.
Key ideas:
Faith is based on our personal and cultural values, and is influenced by the people around us and their own beliefs. In a way that may sound paradoxical, it is also based on knowledge we are not aware of, and faith allows us to access tacit knowledge that we are not aware of (see next chapter).
Faith creates courage to act. It relates to uncertainty and risk not as a necessary evil, but as an opportunity for growth.
Faith is more than simple optimism. It is not satisfied with trusting that things will work out and be fine, but combines a willingness to act with efforts to change the existing state of affairs.
Faith is based not on proof or cognitively predicted patterns, but rather on committed engagement in action under conditions of uncertainty.
For those who think this is a mechanism that isn’t necessary - that isn’t so! In today’s world, it is not possible to postpone action in a state of uncertainty and wait for certainty. Therefore, the faith that generates our willingness and ability to act under such conditions is critical. Incidentally, this is what makes us human, since under conditions of certainty, machines could be built to make the decisions in our place.
Faith can better hold situations of action that involve conflict or internal paradox.
The nature of collective faith is that it creates structures of accountability and shared expectations for individual action, in accordance with the values of the community.
Faith does not rely primarily on emotions, though emotions may accompany it and arise from it.
Faith is a significant mechanism for developing new knowledge. It establishes trust to act under conditions of uncertainty, thereby enabling experimentation and the development of new beliefs that may later even become knowledge.
Actions taken under conditions of uncertainty create new possibilities from which one can learn, and which cannot be achieved any other way (since without certainty, knowledge and beliefs alone cannot produce action).
Accordingly, faith is a foundation for learning, creativity, and innovation.
It serves us in the pursuit of practical wisdom, emotional intelligence, creative solutions, systemic understanding, and spiritual guidance.
Faith is a central component in creating meaning.
Comparison between beliefs and faith - the main points:
Aspect | Beliefs | Faith |
Condition for action | Relative certainty | Absence of certainty |
Levels | A spectrum of levels | Yes/no. Either you have a faith that pushes you toward willingness to act - or you don’t. |
Direction | Relies on the past | Mainly affects the future |
Driving factor | Predicted/estimated outcomes | Faith in the process |
Acting in Combination
The three components - knowledge, belief, and faith - affect the way we act under different conditions; together they form our engine for action:
Knowledge: when we have experience and forecasts based on existing patterns;
Belief: when we have experience or an assumption based partly on evidence, and we can estimate a predicted outcome;
Faith: in the absence of certainty (an incomplete picture, internal contradictions, and so on).
Knowledge and belief: when we have a sense of confidence;
Faith: when courage is required to act and therefore also to change.
At times, we act based on a combination of knowledge, belief, and faith, since any given situation is multidimensional, and each dimension may have distinct characteristics.
At times, the different mechanisms operate simultaneously and steer us in different directions. At times, a lack of knowledge and beliefs can lead us to false beliefs, the main thing being to decide. How do we know which mechanism to activate?
This is where wisdom comes in - a critical mechanism that helps us choose and navigate between the use of the different mechanisms. Maturity does not mean always relying on knowledge, but rather knowing when to rely on knowledge, when on belief, and when on faith.
It should be noted that the separation between the mechanisms is not as simple as it sounds here: many times, the faith we are exercising is in fact shadow knowledge that operates and serves us as tacit knowledge, while we, unwittingly, are not aware of it, and therefore think it is faith. That very shadow knowledge is the basis for accumulated wisdom, for the patterns and tacit competencies we develop, and in fact disguises itself as plain faith. It can express itself in processes, relationships, understanding of the environment, or even in deep beliefs that we feel we carry in our body (somatic). As such, action based on faith enables the development of consciousness.
The three mechanisms are not interesting in themselves; their value lies in enabling us to act, learn, and develop. Using all three tools, each on its own and together, leads to learning and intelligence. Faith leads to belief and leads to knowledge. Combined use enables us to develop and grow - for our own benefit, and for the benefit of the world and the advancement of fields of knowledge. This is our right, but it is also our duty.
Comments