Quotes from Margaret J. Wheatley

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.

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.

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

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.

Hopelessness has surprised me with patience.

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.

There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.

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

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

Independence is a political concept, not a biological concept.

The things we fear most in organizations - fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances - are the primary sources of creativity.

One of the easiest human acts is also the most healing. Listening to someone. Simply listening. Not advising or coaching, but silently and fully listening.

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

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.

A leader these days needs to be a host - one who convenes diversity; who convenes all viewpoints in creative processes where our mutual intelligence can come forth.

It's not differences that divide us. It's our judgments about each other that do.

Leadership is a series of behaviors rather than a role for heroes.

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.

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

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.

I've wanted to see beyond the Western, mechanical view of the world and see what else might appear when the lens was changed.

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

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

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