Quotes By Margaret J. Wheatley

Hopelessness has surprised me with patience.

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.

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.

In virtually every organization, regardless of mission and function, people are frustrated by problems that seem unsolvable.

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

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.

Most people associate command and control leadership with the military.

There 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.

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.

Listening 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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

Probably the most visible example of unintended consequences, is what happens every time humans try to change the natural ecology of a place.

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.

We know from science that nothing in the universe exists as an isolated or independent entity.

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.

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.

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.