Margaret J. Wheatley Quotes

When we can lay down our fear and anger and choose responses other than aggression, we create the conditions for bringing out the best in us humans.

We could focus our efforts on discovering solutions that work uniquely for us.

Aggression is inherently destructive of relationships. People and ideologies are pitted against each other, believing that in order to survive, they must destroy the opposition.

They have eliminated rigidity, both physical and psychological, in order to support more fluid processes whereby temporary teams are created to deal with specific and ever-changing needs. They have simplified roles into minimal categories; they have knocked down walls and created workplaces where people, ideas, and information circulate freely.

Thinking is the place where intelligent actions begin. We pause long enough to look more carefully at a situation, to see more of its character, to think about why it's happening, to notice how it's affecting us and others

To make a system stronger, we need to make stronger relationships.

Change always involves a dark night when everything falls apart. Yet if this period of dissolution is used to create new meaning, then chaos ends and new order emerges.

The future cannot be determined. It can only be experienced as it occurring. Life doesn't know what it will be until it notices what it has become.

Very great change starts from very small conversations, held among people who care.

In the past, it was easier to believe in my own effectiveness. If I worked hard, with good colleagues and good ideas, we could make a difference. But now, I sincerely doubt that.

Despite current ads and slogans, the world doesn't change one person at a time. It changes when networks of relationships form among people who share a common cause and vision of what's possible. This is good news for those of us intent on creating a positive future. Rather than worry about critical mass, our work is to foster critical connections. We don't need to convince large numbers of people to change; instead, we need to connect with kindred spirits. Through these relationships, we will develop the new knowledge, practices, courage and commitment that lead to broad-based change.

Hopelessness has surprised me with patience.

Aggression only moves in one direction - it creates more aggression.

I'm sad to report that in the past few years, ever since uncertainty became our insistent 21st century companion, leadership has taken a great leap backwards to the familiar territory of command and control.

I think it is quite dangerous for an organisation to think they can predict where they are going to need leadership. It needs to be something that people are willing to assume if it feels relevant, given the context of any situation

In our daily life, we encounter people we are angry, deceitful, intent only on satisfying ere is so their own needs. There is so much anger, distrust, greed, and pettiness that we are losing our capacity to work well together.

Whatever life we have experienced, if we can tell our story to someone who listens, we find it easier to deal with our circumstances.

Our willingness to acknowledge that we only see half the picture creates the conditions that make us more attractive to others. The more sincerely we acknowledge our need for their different insights and perspectives, the more they will be magnetized to join us.

We need to move from the leader as hero, to the leader as host.

Aggression only breeds more aggression. It only creates more fear and anger.

Life is creative. It makes it up as it goes along.

For us, someone who is willing to step forward and help is much more courageous than someone who is merely fulfilling the role.

When we seek for connection, we restore the world to wholeness. Our seemingly separate lives become meaningful as we discover how truly necessary we are to each other.

Listening is a reciprocal process - we become more attentive to others if they have attended to us.

Ask what's possible, not what's wrong. Keep asking.

Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.

Innovation is fostered by information gathered from new connections; from insights gained by journeys into other disciplines or places; from active, collegial networks and fluid, open boundaries. Innovation arises from ongoing circles of exchange, where information is not just accumulated or stored, but created. Knowledge is generated anew from connections that weren't there before.

One of the great errors organizations make is shutting down what is a natural, life-enhancing process-chaos. We are terrified of chaos. As a manager, it signals failure. But if you move out of control and into an appreciation of natural order, you understand that the only way a system changes is when it is far from equilibrium, when it moves from the 'quiet' we treasure and is confronted with the choice to die or reorganize. And you can't reorganize to a higher level unless you risk the perils of the path through chaos.

Most people associate command and control leadership with the military.

All social change begins with a conversation.

Thinking is always dangerous to the status quo. [...] The moment you start thinking, you'll want to change something.

In this present culture, we need to find the means to work and live together with less aggression if we are to resolve the serious problems that afflict and impede us.

Organizations are now confronted with two sources of change: the traditional type that is initiated and managed; and external changes over which no one has control.

Destroying is a necessary function in life. Everything has its season, and all things eventually lose their effectiveness and die.

In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles, and positions.

And time for reflection with colleagues is for me a lifesaver; it is not just a nice thing to do if you have the time. It is the only way you can survive.

All of us need better skills in listening, conversing, respecting one another's uniqueness, because these are essential for strong relationships.

You can’t hate someone whose story you know.

Who you are depends on who you meet.

Life now insists that we encounter groundlessness. Systems and ideas that seemed reliable and solid dissolve at an increasing rate. People who asked for our trust betray or abandon us. Strategies that worked suddenly don't. Groundlessness is a frightening place, at least at first, but as the old culture turns to mush, we would feel stronger if we stopped searching for ground, if we sought only to locate ourselves in the present and do our work from here.

Perseverance is a choice. It's not a simple, one-time choice, it's a daily one. There's never a final decision.

These days, our senses are bombarded with aggression. We are constantly confronted with global images of unending, escalating war and violence.

Without aggression, it becomes possible to think well, to be curious about differences, and to enjoy each other's company.

The search for the lessons of the new science is still in progress, really in its infancy. In this realm, three is a new kind of freedom, where it is more rewarding to explore than to reach conclusions, more satisfying to wonder than to know, and more exciting to search than to stay put. Curiosity, not certainty, becomes the saving grace.

Independence is a political concept, not a biological concept.

Listening moves us closer, it helps us become more whole, more healthy, more holy. Not listening creates fragmentation, and fragmentation is the root of all suffering.

The nature of the global business environment guarantees that no matter how hard we work to create a stable and healthy organisation, our organisation will continue to experience dramatic changes far beyond our control.

Space is the basic ingredient of the universe; there is more of it than anything else.