Margaret J. Wheatley Quotes

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.

Mathematicians are like managers - they want improvement without change.

Uncertainty is a permanent part of the leadership landscape. It never goes away.

In any business, you have to evolve.

The underlying principles of strategy are enduring, regardless of technology or the pace of change.

We cannot assume that past successes will insure future successes.

Everybody wants change. But the problem is how you manage change.

Instead of focusing the traditional planning cycles where companies benchmark their businesses against existing competition, teams need to be developed to foster internal change and disruption. Self-disruption is akin to undergoing major surgery, but you are the one holding the scalpel.

If the pace of change outside is moving more quickly than the pace of change inside, you get a bit left behind.

Every organization has to prepare for the abandonment of everything it does.

When the amount of change externally exceeds the amount of change internally, the end is in sight.

You have to seed internal disruptors. You need sources of internal disruption. They don't guarantee your survival, but you have got to try.

When you're transitioning, and you're trying to develop a better brand of soccer, at some point, you have to step backward before you step forward.

Management always has a big influence on your success, no matter how good or how bad the business is itself.

One of the things that is most difficult for a manager is reversing bad results and keeping going.

You change your business plan to anticipate and adapt to changes in the marketplace.

I love challenges in my life and I love to turn around organisations.

Businesses that don't evolve are businesses that die.

I think there's a lot of things that need to be changed in the business.

If I had to probably define and characterize my job, and maybe the job of a CEO today in this global world, highly volatile, uncertain, and when you need to transform is to be the catalyst for change. That's probably the definition I would give to my job. I'm the catalyst.

When I was made captain, one of my things was that whatever happens in those four years, you don't want to make major changes just before a World Cup. We'd done it before, and it never worked.

Even though we live in a fast-changing world with short term-ism all around, it requires years of determination to transform a company and structurally reap the rewards. Innovation companies need to set their sights on solving unmet needs - but this approach requires focus and long-term tenacity.

As the world undergoes a major transformation, it's the time of significant opportunity and also threat.

Throughout my Enterprise career, I have been primarily operationally focused.

You cannot change strategy due to a trend.