Quotes By Margaret J. Wheatley

I believe that our very survival depends upon us becoming better systems thinkers.

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.

I believe that the capacity that any organisation needs is for leadership to appear anywhere it is needed, when it is needed.

I 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.

For 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.

For eons, humans have struggled to find less destructive ways of living together.

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

Too many problem-solving sessions become battlegrounds where decisions are made based on power rather than intelligence.

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.

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

In these troubled, uncertain times, we don't need more command and control; we need better means to engage everyone's intelligence in solving challenges and crises as they arise.

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

Everyone 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.

For example, I was discussing the use of email and how impersonal it can be, how people will now email someone across the room rather than go and talk to them. But I don't think this is laziness, I think it is a conscious decision people are making to save time.

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

Most people associate command and control leadership with the military.

Organisations 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.

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

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

Circles create soothing space, where even reticent people can realize that their voice is welcome.

We have created trouble for ourselves in organizations by confusing control with order.

When leaders take back power, when they act as heroes and saviors, they end up exhausted, overwhelmed, and deeply stressed.

We do as much harm holding onto programs and people past their natural life span as we do when we employ massive organizational air strikes. However, destroying comes at the end of life's cycle, not as a first response.

I 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.

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.

Yet we act as if simple cause and effect is at work. We push to find the one simple reason things have gone wrong. We look for the one action, or the one person, that created this mess. As soon as we find someone to blame, we act as if we've solved the problem.

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.

Aggression is the most common behavior used by many organizations, a nearly invisible medium that influences all decisions and actions.

We 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!

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.