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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

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Margaret J. Wheatley
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: January 1
Business Theorist
Writer
Passion
Policies
Purpose
Rules
Free
Teaching
Life
Instead
Policy
Squeeze
Roles
Constraints
Focus
Procedures
Create
Impose

More quotes by Margaret J. Wheatley

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we can't be creative if we refuse to be confused. Change always starts with confusion cherished interpretations must dissolve to make way for what's new. Great ideas and inventions miraculously appear in the space of not knowing.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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When error holds so much power, play disappears. Creativity ceases.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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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.
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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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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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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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Life is creative. It makes it up as it goes along.
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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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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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.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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As we let go of the machine model of work, we begin to step back and see ourselves in new ways, to appreciate wholeness, and to design organizations that honor and make use of the totality of who we are.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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For eons, humans have struggled to find less destructive ways of living together.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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Relationships are all there is. Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else. Nothing exists in isolation. We have to stop pretending we are individuals that can go it alone
Margaret J. Wheatley
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This is a world of process, not a world of things.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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Many of us have created lives that give very little support for experimentation. We believe that answers already exist out there, independent of us. What if we invested more time and attention to our own experimentation? We could focus our efforts on discovering solutions that work uniquely for us.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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Organizations 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
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I've found that I can only change how I act if I stay aware of my beliefs and assumptions. Thoughts always reveal themselves in behavior.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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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.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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I think a major act of leadership right now, call it a radical act, is to create the places and processes so people can actually learn together, using our experiences
Margaret J. Wheatley