Quote

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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Margaret J. Wheatley
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: January 1
Business Theorist
Writer
Confused
Space
Confusion
Miraculously
Change
Starts
Interpretations
Ideas
Invention
Dissolve
Must
Appear
Inventions
Great
Refuse
Cherished
Way
Knowing
Interpretation
Make
Uncertainty
Always
Creative

More quotes by 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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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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When error holds so much power, play disappears. Creativity ceases.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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Who you are depends on who you meet.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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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
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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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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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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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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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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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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
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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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We could focus our efforts on discovering solutions that work uniquely for us.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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A world based on machine images is a world filled with boundaries. In a machine, every piece knows its place.
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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We each create our world by what we choose to notice, creating a world of distinction that makes sense to us. We then 'see' the world through the self we have created.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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Thinking is always dangerous to the status quo. [...] The moment you start thinking, you'll want to change something.
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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Without reflection, we go blindly on our way.
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