A leader these days needs to be a host - one who convenes diversity; who convenes all viewpoints in creative processes where our mutual intelligence can come forth.
Margaret J. WheatleyDetermination, energy, and courage appear spontaneously when we care deeply about something. We take risks that are unimaginable in any other context.
Margaret J. WheatleyProbably the most visible example of unintended consequences, is what happens every time humans try to change the natural ecology of a place.
Margaret J. WheatleyEven though worker capacity and motivation are destroyed when leaders choose power over productivity, it appears that bosses would rather be in control than have the organization work well.
Margaret J. Wheatley[A]ll change, even very large and powerful change, begins when a few people start talking with one another about something they care about.
Margaret J. WheatleyI've wanted to see beyond the Western, mechanical view of the world and see what else might appear when the lens was changed
Margaret J. WheatleyWe know from science that nothing in the universe exists as an isolated or independent entity.
Margaret J. WheatleyI believe that our very survival depends upon us becoming better systems thinkers.
Margaret J. WheatleyThere are many benefits to this process of listening. The first is that good listeners are created as people feel listened to. Listening is a reciprocal process - we become more attentive to others if they have attended to us.
Margaret J. WheatleyWe have created trouble for ourselves in organizations by confusing control with order.
Margaret J. WheatleySuccessful organizations, including the Military, have learned that the higher the risk, the more necessary it is to engage everyone's commitment and intelligence.
Margaret J. WheatleyWe've taken disturbances and fluctuations and averaged them together to give us comfortable statistics. Our training has been to look for big numbers, important trends, major variances. Yet it is the slight variations - soft-spoken, even whispered at first - that we need to encourage.
Margaret J. WheatleyWe experience problem-solving sessions as war zones, we view competing ideas as enemies, and we use problems as weapons to blame and defeat opposition forces. No wonder we can't come up with real lasting solutions!
Margaret J. WheatleyFor me, this is a familiar image - people in the organization ready and willing to do good work, wanting to contribute their ideas, ready to take responsibility, and leaders holding them back, insisting that they wait for decisions or instructions
Margaret J. WheatleyIt is time to stop waiting for someone to save us. It is time to face the truth of our situation - that we're all in this together, that we all have a voice - and figure out how to mobilize the hearts and minds of everyone in our workplaces and communities.
Margaret J. WheatleySelf-production: the characteristic of living systems to continuously renew themselves and to regulate this process in such a way that the integrity of their structure is maintained. It is a natural process which supports the quest for structure, process renewal and integrity.
Margaret J. WheatleyIn fact, Western culture has spent decades drawing lines and boxes around interconnected phenomena. We've chunked the world into pieces rather than explored its webby nature.
Margaret J. WheatleyWhen leaders take back power, when they act as heroes and saviors, they end up exhausted, overwhelmed, and deeply stressed.
Margaret J. WheatleyWe can no longer stand at the end of something we visualized in detail and plan backwards from that future. Instead we must stand at the beginning, clear in our mind, with a willingness to be involved in discovery... it asks that we participate rather than plan.
Margaret J. WheatleyWe are, always, poets, exploring possibilities of meaning in a world which is also all the time exploring possibilities.
Margaret J. WheatleyAs we let go of the machine model of work, we begin to step back and see ourselves in new ways, to appreciate wholeness, and to design organizations that honor and make use of the totality of who we are.
Margaret J. WheatleyI think a major act of leadership right now, call it a radical act, is to create the places and processes so people can actually learn together, using our experiences
Margaret J. WheatleyI believe that the capacity that any organization needs is for leadership to appear anywhere it is needed, when it is needed.
Margaret J. WheatleyListening is such a simple act. It requires us to be present, and that takes practice, but we don't have to do anything else. We don't have to advise, or coach, or sound wise. We just have to be willing to sit there and listen.
Margaret J. WheatleyPower in organizations is the capacity generated by relationships. It is an energy that comes into existence through relationships.
Margaret J. WheatleyRelationships are all there is. Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else. Nothing exists in isolation. We have to stop pretending we are individuals that can go it alone
Margaret J. WheatleyFor eons, humans have struggled to find less destructive ways of living together.
Margaret J. WheatleyEveryone in a complex system has a slightly different interpretation. The more interpretations we gather, the easier it becomes to gain a sense of the whole.
Margaret J. WheatleyI've found that I can only change how I act if I stay aware of my beliefs and assumptions. Thoughts always reveal themselves in behavior.
Margaret J. WheatleyIn virtually every organization, regardless of mission and function, people are frustrated by problems that seem unsolvable.
Margaret J. WheatleyWe each create our world by what we choose to notice, creating a world of distinction that makes sense to us. We then 'see' the world through the self we have created.
Margaret J. WheatleyOne of the easiest human acts is also the most healing. Listening to someone. Simply listening. Not advising or coaching, but silently and fully listening.
Margaret J. WheatleyI think we have to notice that the business processes we use right now for thinking and planning and budgeting and strategy are all delivered on very tight agendas.
Margaret J. WheatleyNothing has given me more hope recently than to observe how simple conversations give birth to actions that can change lives and restore our faith in the future. There is no more powerful way to initiate significant social change than to start a conversation. When a group of people discover that they share a common concern, that's when the process of change begins.
Margaret J. WheatleyIn this new world, you and I make it up as we go along, not because we lack expertise or planning skills, but because that is the nature of reality. Reality changes shape and meaning because of our activity. And it is constantly new. We are required to be there, as active participants. It can't happen without us and nobody can do it for us.
Margaret J. WheatleyOur growing addiction to the Internet is impairing precious human capacities such as memory, concentration, pattern recognition, meaning-making, and intimacy. We are becoming more restless, more impatient, more demanding, and more insatiable, even as we become more connected and creative. We are rapidly losing the ability to think long about any- thing, even those issues we care about. We flit, moving restlessly from one link to another.
Margaret J. WheatleyA world based on machine images is a world filled with boundaries. In a machine, every piece knows its place.
Margaret J. WheatleyMany of us have created lives that give very little support for experimentation. We believe that answers already exist out there, independent of us. What if we invested more time and attention to our own experimentation? We could focus our efforts on discovering solutions that work uniquely for us.
Margaret J. WheatleyAggression is the most common behavior used by many organizations, a nearly invisible medium that influences all decisions and actions.
Margaret J. WheatleySurrendering to life offers some wonderful realizations. We learn we're capable of being in this dance, of working with whatever happens. We learn to trust ourselves and then others and, gradually, we learn that life itself can be trusted.
Margaret J. WheatleyIt's not differences that divide us. It's our judgments about each other that do.
Margaret J. WheatleyCircles create soothing space, where even reticent people can realize that their voice is welcome.
Margaret J. Wheatley