In memoriam Bill Torbert: Timely action to the end
William Rockwell “Bill” Torbert died on October 21, 2025 at his home in Boston, having been in home hospice since the summer. Surrounded by family and friends, Bill died mindfully and well.
Bill was 81. The global action research community remembers his integrative contribution: collaborative developmental action inquiry. This has been key in mainstreaming language and practice for interweaving first, second and third person perspectives. This integration, still rare in conventional social science, places his work at the forefront of a new kind of paradigm-shift that is willing to grapple with subjectivity and awareness. Bill’s work appealed especially to thoughtful practitioners of action research, that is, those who understand that social and organizational change is a function of intention and mindset as much as pragmatic timely action. Bill’s work achieved a rare “crossover” success when his 2005 Harvard Business Review paper with David Rooke was selected as one of the magazine’s top papers. It’s also one of the 10 most downloaded.
Bill was my professor, then a professional mentor and in later years my perfectly imperfect teacher-friend. We spoke regularly and again just before he died (the photo is from our last call). Because he had predicted that he’d die at 81, I congratulated him on this, perhaps his most timely of actions.
Timely action sits at the heart of Bill’s contribution. Timely action is, foremost, about helping ourselves and our colleagues/clients/stakeholders find choiceful agency. This involves becoming aware of the many filters on our own minds. We must step over the belief (to which we have been disciplined!) that we can fruitfully track transformative outcomes “out there” without ourselves also turning the camera around on our “in here” action logics, to use Bill’s paradoxical term for mindsets. Beyond individual cultivation, timely action becomes a social good when more leader-educators innovate with participative democratic decision-making. At a time of mounting crisis, it is high time to practice something altogether new!
Many of us, including at AR+, have been inspired by Bill. I say goodbye with fond gratitude and respect. A group of us, Barrett, Bradbury et al forthcoming have just written a festschrift. I’ll provide a more detailed and annotated obituary in the first ARJ issue of 2026. It so happens to be a special issue led by Dr. Simon Divecha on mindset transformations. Timely.
Halloween was a time Bill loved. I have had the pleasure of celebrating with Bill and friends willing to literally costume ourselves with our signature inquiries: what is it like to be a witch (or a lion or a wardrobe!) We will remember Bill at my own AR+ Halloween Gathering this week.
