Margaret J. Wheatley Quotes

I'm reasonably good at talking onstage, but actually holding court in a pub is all to do with power dynamics which I don't think has anything to do with fiction.

As the most social apes, we inhabit a mirror-world in which every important relationship, whether with spouse, friend or child, shapes the brain, which in turn shapes our relationships.

...gender relationships, which are tough for people to deal with, are key to whether a society orients to domination or partnership in all its relations.

Power is the relation of a given person to other persons, in which the more this person expresses opinions, theories and justifications of the collective action the less is his participation in that action.

The power to define the situation is the ultimate power.

The female loves to play man against man. And if she is in a position to do it, there is not one who will resist.

Whenever, at a party, I have been in the mood to study fools, I have always looked for a great beauty: they always gather round her like flies around a fruit stall.

As such people achieve influence within the organization, whenever there is a conflict between their own interest and the interest of the organization, their interests will win out.

And the inner dynamics of Hollywood are like politics. Say you give a script to a group of executives - they all sit around, afraid to voice an opinion, saying nothing, waiting to know what the consensus is. Just like focus groups, opinion polls or a cabinet.

We are shaped by each other. We adjust not to the reality of a world, but to the reality of other thinkers.

I like to think of myself as kind of a sculptor, only I sculpt people.

When any organizational entity expands beyond 21 members, the real power will be in some smaller body.

We all experience power struggles in our lives - at the workplace, with our friends, in our love lives. In a way, we're all politicians.

If you have twenty guys in the room and you just bring in one girl, you change the entire mood and everyone plays different.

It is difficult to imagine how any behavior in the presence of another person can avoid being a communication of one's own view of the nature of one's relationship with that person and how it can fail to influence that person.

What is any public question but a conglomeration of private interests?

Everybody, to some extent, manipulates. Even children learn to cry when they want something. There are all kinds of subtle things we do to get others to follow our lead, not bother us, and so on.

I don't like having managers.

As social animals we humans are very sensitive to our rank and position within any group. We can measure our status by the attention and respect we receive.

It depends on whom I'm with. Sometimes I start out in my own voice, and no matter who I'm with, I take on their thing.

I was in college for organizational communication and politics because I was just fascinated by influence. I wondered how people have influence, not because I wanted to inspire the world - yet.

Men always like what the ladies like.

Reality is self-defined as the mob, any mob, writes its own history, never to be contradicted by the quiet statement of truth.

Meetings are usually terrible, but they shouldn't be.

The attitude of other people affects each of us and the attitude of each of us has the capacity to affect all of us.