One of the sages of management scholarship is Karl Weick. I had the pleasure of studying with him while I was in the doctoral program at the University of Michigan. Last year, in the foreward to the Handbook of Organizational and Managerial Wisdom, he keys in on an alternative to accepting the label of "expert" -- instead of getting pulled into arguments about facts, sages tell stories.
Storytelling is a key part of Karl Weick's scholarship. Several of his most impactful academic writings delve deeply into stories of single events:
The desire to avoid the label of "expert" is also a key part of Karl's approach to scholarship. He is a humble man, completely unpretentious. Despite his inclusion in a short list of management laureates, I cannot imagine him liking the idea that he might have the last word on a subject.
In the foreward to the Handbook, Karl evokes the notion that wisdom is about the tension between knowing and not knowing. He suggests that wisdom is expressed when a judgment about whether to use an expert's tools in a new situation, or to drop those tools and take on a beginner's attitude. His view of wisdom is consistent with the quote attributed to George Santayana on wisdom,
"the wisest man has something yet to learn."
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