Success by what Measure?
July 10th, 2008 Posted in Leadership, Rants
One of the biggest challenges we have as individuals, organizations, nations, and as a species, is deciding what we mean by “success”. We blithely accept the glib wisdom that Bill Gates and Jack Welch represent “success”. So be it. By some measures, GM and Ford are examples of immense “success”. Rome was successful. Hitler was successful by some measures.
Choosing our measures is the most difficult and most important human enterprise. Every theory and every action follows from the choices we make in this regard. Numbers are not helpful.
Do we mean by “success” that individual who has come to possess more wealth and power than all those around him? Or do we mean the company that has crushed its competition, thus dominating the marketplace? Or do we mean the nation that has achieved hegemony on the world stage through dint of military might? Is “success” a zero sum game? One wins, others lose. Is “success” an end point measure? He who dies with the most toys, wins!
“Success was not a term that Deming used. He was very attuned to the idea that the notion of “success” was end-point thinking and worse than useless. A professor/mentor of mine used to be fond of saying “SUCCESS is FAILURE”. I often contemplate his little Koan.
In the American economic enterprise, the politically correct measure of success is “by the numbers, profit that increases at an increasing rate”. The Gospel of this model is the CEO-Leader’s fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders. This is based on a single measure and subordinates everything to that measure. It has great appeal to simple minds. It panders to our basest instincts. Once reduced, it is a scorched earth policy. We are told that this is the “true” nature of human affairs and once completely unfettered, will produce the greatest good for the greatest number. The evidence of “greatest good” is equivocal at best.
Deming believed that being successful meant being engaged in continuous and never-ending improvement in our efforts to create wealth that benefits everyone. He saw the very process of wealth creation as a joyous act to which every human was entitled. He believed that rather than money, the intrinsic desire to meaningfully participate in this process was the prime motivator of all human action. The edifice of human enterprise was for Deming, a great collaboration in which every act was aimed at increasing wealth and optimizing wellbeing at the level of the individual, organization, community, nation, and world.
He also believed that when viewed in this light, competition was the engine of this grand enterprise. This was, in his mind, a practical endeavor in which solutions were never complete. He was first to admit that he didn’t have the answers but he believed he had a METHOD for moving forward.
Deming shunned the very idea of “success”. Instead he asked us to consider our aims. Then he asked, “HOW ARE WE DOING?”
His answer was foregone in a society built on a scorched earth paradigm.
“NOT VERY WELL!”.
