Quotes By Margaret J. Wheatley

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.

Even 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.

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.

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

Successful organizations, including the Military, have learned that the higher the risk, the more necessary it is to engage everyone's commitment and intelligence.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.