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

Margaret J. Wheatley

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Margaret J. Wheatley
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: January 1
Business Theorist
Writer
Things
Organization
Imbalance
Failure
Disturbance
Creativity
Workplace
Source
Organizations
Creative
Sources
Imbalances
Fear
Primaries
Disturbances
Business
Primary
Fluctuations
Inspirational
Innovation
Fluctuation

More quotes by Margaret J. Wheatley

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In this new world, you and I make it up as we go along, not because we lack expertise or planning skills, but because that is the nature of reality. Reality changes shape and meaning because of our activity. And it is constantly new. We are required to be there, as active participants. It can't happen without us and nobody can do it for us.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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A leader is one who... Has more faith in people than they do, and . . . who holds opportunities open long enough for their competence to re-emerge.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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They have eliminated rigidity, both physical and psychological, in order to support more fluid processes whereby temporary teams are created to deal with specific and ever-changing needs. They have simplified roles into minimal categories they have knocked down walls and created workplaces where people, ideas, and information circulate freely.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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Power in organizations is the capacity generated by relationships. It is an energy that comes into existence through relationships.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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Surrendering to life offers some wonderful realizations. We learn we're capable of being in this dance, of working with whatever happens. We learn to trust ourselves and then others and, gradually, we learn that life itself can be trusted.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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Hopelessness has surprised me with patience.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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We could focus our efforts on discovering solutions that work uniquely for us.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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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
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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
Margaret J. Wheatley
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Life doesn't move in straight lines, and neither does a good conversation.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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Listening is a reciprocal process - we become more attentive to others if they have attended to us.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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The future cannot be determined. It can only be experienced as it occurring. Life doesn't know what it will be until it notices what it has become.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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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
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In our daily life, we encounter people we are angry, deceitful, intent only on satisfying ere is so their own needs. There is so much anger, distrust, greed, and pettiness that we are losing our capacity to work well together.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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Self-production: the characteristic of living systems to continuously renew themselves and to regulate this process in such a way that the integrity of their structure is maintained. It is a natural process which supports the quest for structure, process renewal and integrity.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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Power is the capacity to generate relationships.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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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
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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
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we don't have to agree with each other in order to think well together. There is no need for us to be joined at the head. We are joined by our human hearts.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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Space is the basic ingredient of the universe there is more of it than anything else.
Margaret J. Wheatley