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

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

- Margaret J. Wheatley

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

I've wanted to see beyond the Western, mechanical view of the world and see what else might appear when the lens was changed.

- Margaret J. Wheatley

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

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

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.

- Margaret J. Wheatley

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

Circles create soothing space, where even reticent people can realize that their voice is welcome.

- Margaret J. Wheatley

Destroying is a necessary function in life. Everything has its season, and all things eventually lose their effectiveness and die.

- Margaret J. Wheatley

Most people associate command and control leadership with the military.

- Margaret J. Wheatley

In the past, it was easier to believe in my own effectiveness. If I worked hard, with good colleagues and good ideas, we could make a difference. But now, I sincerely doubt that.

- Margaret J. Wheatley

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

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

- Margaret J. Wheatley

Aggression is the most common behavior used by many organizations, a nearly invisible medium that influences all decisions and actions.

- Margaret J. Wheatley

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

I believe that the capacity that any organisation needs is for leadership to appear anywhere it is needed, when it is needed.

- Margaret J. Wheatley

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

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

For eons, humans have struggled to find less destructive ways of living together.

- Margaret J. Wheatley