Karl Weick On Why "Am I a Success or a Failure?" Is The Wrong Question

I've written about The University of Michigan's Karl Weick here several times before, for example here and here, as he is one of the most creative and thoughtful people I know.  He, more so than anyone know, looks at the same things as everyone else, but sees something different.  I was just reading a paper that he wrote on renewal this morning and came across this stunning set of sentences:

Roethlisberger argues that people who are preoccupied with success ask the wrong question. They ask, “what is the secret of success” when they should be asking, “what prevents me from learning here and now?” To be overly preoccupied with the future is to be inattentive toward the present where learning and growth take place. To walk around asking, “am I a success or a failure” is a silly question in the sense that the closest you can come to answer is to say, everyone is both a success and a failure

P.S. The source for this quote is  Weick, Karl E. How Projects Lose Meaning: The Dynamics of Renewal. in Renewing Research Practice by R. Stablein and P. Frost (Eds.). Stanford, CA: Stanford. 2004.

P.P.S.  In response to the question, no this Roethlisberger is not an NFL quarterback.  Weick is talking about Fritz Roethlisberger a famous organizational research at Harvard  who is involved in an early and much discussed program of research called the Hawthorne Studies.

Comments

[Jan]

I agree with the statement: "everyone is a success AND a failure". But there is a cultural difference between the US and Europe. In US, it's extremely common to measure success in money, due to the meritocracy. In Europe, it is common as well, but not as polite to talk about money. In Europe we measure success in other ways (who you know, your education and what schools you went to, where you have worked, your title and not least, the way you dress). In Europe, corporate executives always dress in suits, always. In California, they almost never do. In Europe, we judge people after how they dress. And we almost never ask: "What have I learned?"

[Dr. Otto VanDerWahl]

Umm, is this referencing 'Big Ben' Roethlisberger by any chance? I mean the guy is somewhat intelligent, but he is after all a pro quarterback