Текст бизнес-книги "Leadership and the New Science. Discovering Order in a Chaotic World"

Автор книги: Margaret Wheatley

Раздел: Зарубежная деловая литература, Бизнес-книги

Margaret J. Wheatley
Leadership and the New Science

Praise for One of the Bestselling, Most Influential, and Most Widely Talked About Business and Management Books Today

“ONE OF THE TOP TEN BUSINESS BOOKS OF ALL TIME.”

– Xerox Business Services Magazine

“MEG WHEATLEY GAVE THE WORLD A NEW WAY OF THINKING ABOUT ORGANIZATIONS with her revolutionary application of the natural sciences to business management. … Her ideas have found welcome homes in the military, not-for-profit organizations, public schools, health care and churches as well as in corporations..”

– American Society for Training and Development

“A BOOK LIKE LEADERSHIP AND THE NEW SCIENCE ONLY COMES ALONG ONCE IN A DECADE. Margaret Wheatley pushes our thinking about people and organizations to a new dimension. You will never think about organizational life in the same way again.”

– Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The One Minute Manager

“IF THERE’S A SINGLE BOOK THAT SETS THE STAGE FOR THE FUTURE OF ORGANIZATIONS, THIS IS IT … Wheatley makes complex ideas simple, and then shows how those simple ideas can be used as powerful tools.”

– Stephen E. Ewing, President and CEO, Michigan Consolidated Gas Company

“LEADERSHIP AND THE NEW SCIENCE SURPASSES ALL BOOKS TO DATE IN MANAGEMENT SCIENCE. It is truly in a class by itself, introducing a standard of excellence in thought and perception against which all other management books and thought will surely be measured.”

– Gerene Schmidt, Founder and CEO, Science, Business, and Education, Inc.

“IF YOU WANT TO THINK ABOUT CHANGE AND ORGANIZATIONS IN AN ENTIRELY NEW WAY .. READ THIS BOOK NOW.”

– John R. Berry, Vice President, Corporate Communications, Herman Miller, Inc.

“HOLD ONTO THE TOP OF YOUR HEAD WHEN YOU READ THIS BOOK. … Using exciting breakthroughs in biology, chemistry, and especially quantum physics, Wheatley paints a brand-new picture of business management. this new relationship between business and science is nothing less than an entirely new set of lenses through which to view our organizations.”

– Library Journal

“AN EXTRAORDINARY BOOK. The new physics is opening frontiers of knowledge that are among the most significant of this century. Applying these discoveries to management and leadership is extraordinarily eye-opening.”

– Marjorie Kelly, Founder and Publisher, Business Ethics magazine and author of The Divine Right of Capital

“YEARS AHEAD OF ITS TIME, THIS DARING BOOK will convince you that leaders must substitute their Newtonian mental model for a biological model in organizations of every size. … Your employees are already getting hip to this stuff. You’d be wise to catch up.”

– The Wall Street Journal

“.. A THOUGHT-PROVOKING WORK FOR PRACTITIONERS AND STUDENTS who are serious about wanting to understand the forces impacting organizations and themselves, and who desire to move forward to achieve goals and objectives.”

– Choice

“A BREAKTHROUGH. Wheatley has taken leadership to the cutting edge.”

– Marilyn Ferguson, author of The Aquarian Conspiracy and editor of Brain/Mind and Common Sense

“A WORK OF IMMENSE IMPORTANCE IN MANAGEMENT AND SCIENCE. … [Wheatley] writes about scientific theory with clarity and precision – yet her observations are unfailingly poetic and human.”

– The Salt Lake Tribune

“WHEATLEY’S MESSAGE IS BRILLIANT AND IT ENCOURAGES A PROVOCATIVE PARADIGM SHIFT. Her explanations of quantum theory reduce what could be a mindboggling complexity into an unpretentious beauty that even a science-challenged person can understand.”

– Andrea Markowitz, Adjunct Professor, University of Baltimore

“LEADERSHIP AND THE NEW SCIENCE IS A WONDERFUL BOOK, at once clear and profound, practical yet poetic. It is a lot like the new sciences it describes.”

– Timeline

“THIS BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN AND COMPELLING BOOK IS A GIFT to many of us who wrestle without the relationship between scientific thinking and organizational life.”

– Judy Sorum Brown, educator, writer, and Senior Fellow, Aspen Institute

“A WARNING TO ANYONE WHO PICKS THIS BOOK UP … BE PREPARED TO THROW OUT ALMOST EVERYTHING YOU THINK YOU KNOW about organizations, management, and leadership while reading this book. … It is quite literally one of the most interesting books I have ever read.”

– Journal for Quality and Participation

“A PIONEERING VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY INTO THE ESSENTIAL ELEGANCE AND SIMPLICITY OF ORGANIZATIONS. This is a book that must be read by any thinking manager, consultant, or professor who wishes to shake loose the shackles of limiting, old-world views and be free to explore the bountiful possibilities of what is in front of us.”

– Jim Kouzes, coauthor of The Leadership Challenge and Credibility

“ONE OF THE TEN BOOKS OF THE DECADE THAT ARE MUST-READS FOR INFORMATION SYSTEMS PROFESSIONALS.”

– CIO Magazine

“MEG WHEATLEY HAS A WAY OF HELPING US TO DISCOVER THAT WHICH WAS THERE BUT REMAINED UNSEEN and that which we knew but did not recognize. A great teacher, she makes discovery a joyous and sought-after experience.”

– Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut and author of The Way of the Explorer

“ANY INDIVIDUAL INVOLVED WITH ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP NEEDS TO READ THIS BOOK.”

– Carlson Learning Company Journal

“IF YOU ARE COMMITTED TO HUMANE, DEMOCRATIC, AND HIGHLY PRODUCTIVE CORPORATIONS AND COMMUNITIES, you have to pay attention to Leadership and the New Science. Wheatley’s integration of the new science and its implications for leading organizations are, I believe, at the cutting edge of a whole new theory and practice of organizations badly needing to be born.”

– Marvin Weisbord, author of Productive Workplaces and Discovering Common Ground, and coauthor of Future Search

“WHEATLEY’S NEW AND DEEP INSIGHTS ARE MUST READING for any management consultant who is serious about making a difference in the world.”

– Journal of Management Consulting

“BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN AND PRODUCED. A WONDERFUL ROAD MAP INTO THE NEW SCIENCE. … It should be on all of our bookshelves, and we should have extra copies available to send to our clients and friends.”

– The Chaos Network newsletter

“WHEATLEY’S BOOK SHOULD BE ON EVERY MANAGER’S, HRD SPECIALIST’S, AND OD PRACTIONER’S BOOKSHELF, and the concepts therein incorporated into our own understanding of organizations. … Even if you reject some of her notions, the book will make you think about what you do, why you do it, and the assumptions, filters, and biases you carry around with you.”

– OD Practitioner Journal

“WHEN I WAS A CORPORATE CEO, I WAS ASTONISHED BY LEADERSHIP AND THE NEW SCIENCE. It affirmed for me that everything in organizational life – indeed I could say in life itself – is about relationships. It was so wise, so insightful, and so abundantly graceful. … I frequently call on Meg’s work. She became both teacher and prophet in my mind. And yes, she became and still is, one of my heroes. … Her open, wise, and generous spirit is an example for all of us.”

– James Autry, bestselling author and former CEO, Meredith Corporation

“THIS IS ONE OF THOSE SEMINAL BOOKS THAT, ONCE READ, CAN CONTINUE TO LIVE ON IN THE PSYCHE, RESHAPING ONE’S WORLD-VIEW PERMANENTLY. To borrow an image from one of the new sciences contemplated in the book, it may well be like the butterfly in Tokyo whose flapping wings generate a tornado in Texas; it may fan subtle winds of change that eventually amass enough energy to transform corporate organizations into systems barely recognizable to us today.”

– The Advocate newsletter

“I READ LEADERSHIP AND THE NEW SCIENCE WITH FASCINATION AND AWE. … It is one of the most provocative and exciting books I have read in years.”

– H. Thomas Johnson, Retzlaff 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.”

– Barbara Shipka, author of Leadership in a Challenging World

“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.”

– Rosemarie Liebmann, Adjunct Professor, Seton Hall University

“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.”

– Michael F. Werneke, Manager, Human Resource Development, CYTEC Industries

“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.”

– Lee M. Hogan, President, Lee Hogan & Associates, and member of the Board of Directors of Associated Consultants International

“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 New Leaders

“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.”

– Parker Palmer, educator and author

“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.”

– Allan Cohen, former Senior Vice President, Zefer, former COO, Waite & Company

“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.”

– Robert Tannenbaum, a founder of the field of OD

“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.”

– Mikhail Kutyrev, Russia, former fishing fleet captain

“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.”

– Steve Clifford, Leadership Development Consultant, England

“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.”

– M.B. (Jerry) Handspicker, Professor of Pastoral Theology (Emeritus), Andover Newton Theological School

“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.”

– Maura Jones, North Dakota

“.. 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.”

– Reverend Mary Fourchalk, B.C., Canada

Ahó Mitakuye Oyas’in

For all my relations

– Lakota Nation dedicatory prayer

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.

– Eudora Welty

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 now my voice of invitation needs to be prefaced by a clear, more insistent voice. Now I am the town crier sounding the alarm. The world has changed. The worldview of the sciences described here is no longer hidden in books. It blares from news reports and blazes across our screens in the terrifying images of these times – wars, terrorism, migrations of displaced people, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis. Chaos and global interconnectedness are part of our daily lives. We try hard to respond to these challenges and threats through our governments, organizations and as individuals, but our actions fail us. No matter what we do, stability and lasting solutions elude us. It’s time to realize that we will never cope with this new world using our old maps. It is our fundamental way of interpreting the world – our worldview – that must change. Only such a shift can give us the capacity to understand what’s going on, and to respond wisely

I’ve been out in the world for many years describing the new worldview that science offers us. In my travels, I’ve met hundreds of thousands of people who have shifted their view and are creating organizations that are adaptive, creative and resilient. Yet many others are more cautious and doubtful. Some people can’t be convinced that anything has really changed – the old ways still work fine for them. Others believe that organizations can only function well, especially in times of chaos, by using command and control leadership and hierarchical structures. And many want evidence that these strange new concepts apply ‘to the real world.’

Here is the real world as I experience it. It is a world where small groups of enraged people alter the politics of the most powerful nations on earth. It is a world where very slight changes in the temperature of oceans cause violent weather that brings great hardship to people living far from those oceans. It is a world where pandemics kill tens of millions and viruses leap carelessly across national boundaries. It is a world of increased fragmentation where people retreat into positions and identities. It is a world where we have very different interpretations of what’s going on, even though we look at the same information. It is a world of constant surprise, where we never know what we’ll hear when we turn on the news. It is a world where change is just the way it is.

This dramatic and turbulent world makes a mockery of our plans and predictions. It keeps us on edge, anxious and sleepless. Nothing makes sense anymore. Meaning eludes us. Some offer explanations that this is the end of times or the age of destruction.

Whatever your personal beliefs and experiences, I invite you to consider that we need a new worldview to navigate this chaotic time. We cannot hope to make sense using our old maps. It won’t help to dust them off or reprint them in bold colors. The more we rely on them, the more disoriented we become. They cause us to focus on the wrong things and blind us to what’s significant. Using them, we will journey only to greater chaos.

Now that I’ve spent years applying the lens of new science to organizations, communities, governments, nation states, and to myself and family, I can report on the gifts available with a new paradigm. I have discovered insights and explanations about why things are unfolding as they are. I have been inspired to experiment with new ideas and solutions. I feel I am learning how to move more effectively and gracefully through this time.

But I have also discovered how hard it is to surrender a worldview. When scientists confronted this challenge at the beginning of the 20^th century, they couldn’t accept the world revealed to them in their experiments. They described this new world as strange, puzzling, troubling, bizarre, absurd.

When our worldview doesn’t work any longer and we feel ourselves sinking into confusion, of course we feel frightened. Suddenly, there is no ground to stand on. Solutions that worked no longer do. The world appears incomprehensible, chaotic, lacking rationality. We respond to this incoherence by applying old solutions more frantically. We become more rigid about our beliefs. We rely on habit rather than creating new responses. We end up feeling frustrated, exhausted and powerless in the face of so much failure. These frustrations and fears create more aggression. We try to make things work by using brute force rather than intelligence and collaboration.

It was only when scientists were willing to accept their confusion instead of fleeing from it and only when they changed the questions they were asking, only then could they discover the insights and formulations that gave them great new capacity. Once this new worldview came into focus, scientists reengaged with their work with new energy. Wonder, curiosity, and the delight of discovery replaced their fatigue and frustration. I am hopeful that we too can regain our energy and delight by looking at the world of organizations through their worldview. I believe their maps are reliable guides to lands of promise, where human creativity, wisdom and courage can be fully engaged in creating healthy and enduring organizations and societies.

You will find maps of many varieties in this book. Some describe specific new science findings in enough detail that, hopefully, you understand their terrain. Others point out less explored places that need further inquiry. Still others are very detailed, drawing deliberate connections between science and organizational life. And finally, there are records of my personal journey, what I felt and experienced as I brought back questions and insights and applied them in my own work.