Quotes from Margaret J. Wheatley
The things we fear most in organisations — fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances — are the primary sources of creativity.
— Margaret J. Wheatley
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.
— Margaret J. Wheatley
In 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. Wheatley
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.
— Margaret J. Wheatley
Passion mutates into procedures, into rules and roles. Instead of purpose, we focus on policies. Instead of being free to create, we impose constraints that squeeze the life out of us.
— Margaret J. Wheatley
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.
— Margaret J. Wheatley
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.
— Margaret J. Wheatley
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.
— Margaret J. Wheatley
Very great change starts from very small conversations, held among people who care.
— Margaret J. Wheatley
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!
— Margaret J. Wheatley
Life offers us this great gift of self-organization, how we can be held in the basin of shared meaning and, within that, exercise individual freedom. It is such a shame to waste it on fear and doubt. Or to seek to contain and control it.
— Margaret J. Wheatley
The world thus appears as a complicated tissue of events, in which connections
— Margaret J. Wheatley