Leadership and the New Science. Discovering Order in a Chaotic World. Margaret J. Wheatley
Professor of Quality Management, Portland State University
“THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST WONDERFUL BOOKS I HAVE EVER READ. It is a work of art. Wheatley’s writing style and communication of ideas have such underlying elegance that they demonstrate what she is writing about – again and again in myriad ways.”
“I WOULD NEVER HAVE GUESSED THAT ANY BOOK COULD HAVE HELD ME IN SUCH FASCINATION as has Leadership and the New Science…It will enrich the lives of everyone who reads it.”
“HAVING JUST FINISHED LEADERSHIP AND THE NEW SCIENCE, I AM COMPELLED TO WRITE TO TELL YOU WHAT A GREAT IMPACT IT HAS HAD ON MY THINKING … Once I got started reading it, I could not put it down. I also started highlighting the ‘really good’ stuff, and your entire book is now green neon. The metaphors you have used are so powerful and created such vivid images in my head that they are now indelibly imprinted there.”
“LEADERSHIP AND THE NEW SCIENCE IS THE BEST BOOK ON ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP THAT I HAVE READ IN TEN YEARS. It reminds me of the LIFE magazine issue devoted to Picasso. That excited me like few other things. I could not put it down. It captured my imagination and led me to a new plane for living and working. … That is what happened with Wheatley’s book. It has the same kind of vision and uniqueness. It predicts the future and explains the present like only artists can. This book has helped me impart to others a totally unique kind of trust and courage that works, but seems to go completely contrary to the grain. Simply, it is exquisite.”
“WHEATLEY’S INTERPRETATION OF THE ‘NEW SCIENCE’ – QUANTUM PHYSICS, BIOLOGY, AND CHAOS THEORY – INTO THE ORGANIZING CONCEPTS OF WORK AND PRODUCTIVITY IS PURE GENIUS.”
“THE WORK YOU DO IN THE WORLD IS A WONDER, MEG – so upstream to the way things appear on the surface, but so in harmony with deep-down dynamics of reality. It is a source of great joy to me to think that I have had a small part in the great work you do.”
“MEG WHEATLEY’S PIONEERING INSIGHTS INTO THE SELF-ORGANIZING NATURE OF OUR WORLD HAVE BEEN REMARKABLY WELL SUPPORTED by recent advances in the new sciences. But what really makes Leadership and the New Science so enduring is that it offers us a solid place to stand amidst the chaos and complexity. We need this book more than ever.”
“I ADMIRE THE CLARITY, BEAUTY, AND PASSION WITH WHICH YOU TRAVEL YOUR CHOSEN PATH. Without question, you are having considerable impact both here and abroad.”
“I BELIEVE THAT IF THIS BOOK WAS TRANSLATED INTO RUSSIAN, IT WOULD MAKE AN INVALUABLE CONTRIBUTION TO OUR MODERN CULTURE. It has made a huge impression on me not only for its simple, natural words, but the sense of novelty, and singularity of approach. This book for me was certainly a revelation, one of those books that make it worthwhile to study English.”
“I’VE SPENT THE LAST FEW DAYS DEVOURING LEADERSHIP AND THE NEW SCIENCE, eulogizing about it to my wife, commenting to the friend who lent me the book. ‘I’m not sure if it is true, but I really want it to be.’ The truth of the matter is that much of what you have written I instinctively know to be true but I have never had quite the words to express it.”
“I WAS INSPIRED AND PROVOKED BY YOUR WRITINGS to adapt your concepts to the situation of incarcerated individuals. … My work is with alcoholics and chemically abusing or addicted individuals. I believe your concepts are a perfect vehicle to reach people who are stuck in denial … and your concepts help provide information in a non-threatening and easily understood manner.” – Diana Arostegui, Washington
“YOUR BOOK SPEAKS TO ME AND I SPEAK TO IT. I am a practicing lawyer, now almost 75. … I always feel the interconnections of everything and the joy of uncertainty and unknowing and am always excited about ideas that I had never thought of and couldn’t have by myself.” – Dorothy Stulberg, Tennessee
“WHEN WE CAN GET PEOPLE TO PERCEIVE OUR ORGANIZATIONS DIFFERENTLY, THEY ARE BETTER ABLE TO RELATE TO ONE ANOTHER IN THEM. Here is where I find that the ‘secular’ insights of your book and the ‘spiritual’ notion of communion are powerful complements to one another. Your simplicity, your directness, and your imagination combine to provide insights that are accessible and compelling.”
“LEADERSHIP AND THE NEW SCIENCE.. IS ONE OF THOSE BOOKS THAT HELD ME SPELLBOUND with every turn of the page. I felt a keen sense of disappointment when I realized I had come to the last page. You have a gift, Margaret Wheatley, and I am grateful beyond my ability to express that I have been a recipient of it.”
“.. I AM VERY ENCOURAGED THAT THERE IS STILL REASON TO BELIEVE ARDENTLY IN THE GREAT RESILIENCE OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT to re-invent itself over and over again, whether we view it fractally or as the first signs of a dawning and long awaited millennium of harmony and happiness for everyone. Perhaps what you are describing is the forerunner not only of new leadership skills and deeper understanding one of another, but also the advent of greater openness of mind and genuine honesty between us all at all levels of communication.”
Ahó Mitakuye Oyas’in
For all my relations
My continuing passion is to part a curtain, that invisible shadow that falls between people, the veil of indifference to each other’s presence, each other’s wonder, each other’s human plight.
Prologue: Maps to the Real World
I have always thought of this book as a collection of intriguing maps, much like those used by the early explorers when they voyaged in search of new lands. Their early maps and commentaries were descriptive but vague, enticing but not fully revealing. They pointed in certain directions, illuminated landmarks, warned of dangers, yet their elusive references and blank spaces served to encourage others to explore and discover. They contained colorful embellishments of places that had struck the discoverer’s imagination, yet ignored other important places or contained significant errors. Many early maps contain warnings: “Here there be dragons,” or “Regions very imperfectly known.” But these maps contained enough knowledge to inspire those who were willing, to dare similar voyages of their own.
The territory that I began mapping when this book was first published in 1992 has now revealed many more of its features. It is the world we live in daily, a world of uncertainty, sudden shifts, and webs of relationships extending around the world. In 1990, as I began to apply the new sciences to the challenges of leadership, I noted that “we live in a time of chaos, as rich in the potential for disaster as for new possibilities.” What’s ironic is that I now look back to 1990 as the good old days, when we had time and space to reflect on ideas, when we had the luxury to think about a new worldview and consider whether we believed it or not. The tone of this book reflects that more spacious era. It is a gentle invitation to become curious, to discover your own questions, to see if your experiences confirm or disconfirm new science, and to engage with me and many others as explorers of this new world only beginning to become visible.
But