Margaret J. Wheatley Quotes

• 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.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Problem

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

  Margaret J. Wheatley

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

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Company

• 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.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

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

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Life

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

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Order

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Problem

• 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.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Life

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

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Problem

• 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.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Character, Think

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

  Margaret J. Wheatley

• 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.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Listen

• 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.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Business, Work

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

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Commitment

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

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Place

• Our willingness to acknowledge that we only see half the picture creates the conditions that make us more attractive to others. The more sincerely we acknowledge our need for their different insights and perspectives, the more they will be magnetized to join us.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Tags in Acknowledged

• 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.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Change

• Most people associate command and control leadership with the military.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Leadership

• 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.

  Margaret J. Wheatley

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

  Margaret J. Wheatley

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Problem

Margaret J. Wheatley (50)

Nationality:	American
Profession:	Writer, Consultant

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