A leader these days needs to be a host – one who convenes diversity; who convenes all viewpoints in creative processes where our mutual intelligence can come forth.
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.
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.
Determination, energy, and courage appear spontaneously when we care deeply about something. We take risks that are unimaginable in any other context.
Leadership is a series of behaviors rather than a role for heroes.
I believe that our very survival depends upon us becoming better systems thinkers.
Hopelessness has surprised me with patience.
Listening is such a simple act. It requires us to be present, and that takes practice, but we don’t have to do anything else. We don’t have to advise, or coach, or sound wise. We just have to be willing to sit there and listen.
In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles, and positions.
You can’t hate someone whose story you know.
Our willingness to acknowledge that we only see half the picture creates the conditions that make us more attractive to others. The more sincerely we acknowledge our need for their different insights and perspectives, the more they will be magnetized to join us.
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.
We would do well to ponder the realization that love is the most potent source of power.
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.
We have created trouble for ourselves in organizations by confusing control with order.
Without aggression, it becomes possible to think well, to be curious about differences, and to enjoy each other’s company.
I’ve wanted to see beyond the Western, mechanical view of the world and see what else might appear when the lens was changed.
Circles create soothing space, where even reticent people can realize that their voice is welcome.
Whatever life we have experienced, if we can tell our story to someone who listens, we find it easier to deal with our circumstances.
Probably the most visible example of unintended consequences, is what happens every time humans try to change the natural ecology of a place.