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..

Probably the most visible example of unintended consequences, is what happens every time humans try to change the natural ecology of a place..

One of the great errors organizations make is shutting down what is a natural, life-enhancing process-chaos. We are terrified of chaos. As a manager,….

Perseverance is a choice. It's not a simple, one-time choice, it's a daily one. There's never a final decision..

Passion mutates into procedures, into rules and roles. Instead of purpose, we focus on policies. Instead of being free to create, we impose constrain….

Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful..

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….

Many of us have created lives that give very little support for experimentation. We believe that answers already exist out there, independent of us. ….

You can’t hate someone whose story you know..

Without aggression, it becomes possible to think well, to be curious about differences, and to enjoy each other's company..

Successful organizations, including the Military, have learned that the higher the risk, the more necessary it is to engage everyone's commitment and….

Whatever life we have experienced, if we can tell our story to someone who listens, we find it easier to deal with our circumstances..

We've taken disturbances and fluctuations and averaged them together to give us comfortable statistics. Our training has been to look for big numbers….

To make a system stronger, we need to make stronger relationships..

We are, always, poets, exploring possibilities of meaning in a world which is also all the time exploring possibilities..

The things we fear most in organizations - fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances - are the primary sources of creativity..

For me, this is a familiar image - people in the organization ready and willing to do good work, wanting to contribute their ideas, ready to take res….

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

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..

When leaders take back power, when they act as heroes and saviors, they end up exhausted, overwhelmed, and deeply stressed..

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 tal….