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

More quotes by Margaret J. Wheatley

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Who you are depends on who you meet.
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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.
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For eons, humans have struggled to find less destructive ways of living together.
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All social change begins with a conversation.
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Hopelessness has surprised me with patience.
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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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
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Power is the capacity to generate relationships.
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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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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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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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
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Let's just keep asking ourselves this question: 'Is what I'm about to do strengthening the web of connections, or is it weakening it?'
Margaret J. Wheatley
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We have created trouble for ourselves in organizations by confusing control with order.
Margaret J. Wheatley
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Everyone in a complex system has a slightly different interpretation. The more interpretations we gather, the easier it becomes to gain a sense of the whole.
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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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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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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Listening is a reciprocal process - we become more attentive to others if they have attended to us.
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