Category: Quotes
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STOP strategies to overcome the powerful
Mark Van Vugt lists a number of STOP strategies to overcome the powerful: Gossip and ridicule Public meetings Replacing leaders Disobedience or rebellion Desertion Assassination Reference: Mark Van Vugt, Why Some People Lead, Why Others Follow and Why it Matters, p. 19.
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Don’t empower me – release me
“Don’t empower me. Release me. I’ll find my own power, and it will be far greater than anything you can bestow on me.” Tweet by Tobias Mayer 2013-02-28 Tobias Mayer has a blog about Business Craftsmanship which is well worth a visit. Tobias has a human-centric perspective in his guidance of organizations towards new ways…
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Reflection always finds us
“Reflection always finds us … It is like a voice that calls to us. The difficult task is to welcome it when it arrives. We tend to expect quick solutions when reflection arrives as depression; we might ignore it at first and might use more activity to paint over it.” – Petra Kuenkel, Mind and…
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Stop treating organizations as machines
“Stop treating teams and organizations as machines. Start treating them as complex (living) systems.” – Jurgen Appelo
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A matter of life and death
John Wenger asks in his post A Matter of Life and Death “Why would the whole of the Universe be a complex, self-organising and interdependent system, and a business be a top-down, controlled machine?” Yes indeed why? He continues saying that “Even if we continue to “KNOW” that our business is a machine, it does…
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Henri Bortoft
I have recently read two of Henri Bortoft’s books, The Wholeness of Nature: Goethe’s Way of Science and Taking Appearance Seriously: The Dynamic Way of Seeing in Goethe and European Thought. I am particularly fascinated by the dynamic way of seeing which is explained at length by Henri Bortoft. It’s important to take the ‘appearance’…
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Wholehearted living
Brené Brown has defined 10 Guideposts for Wholehearted Living. These guidesposts are to cultivate: Authenticity: Letting go of what people think Self-Compassion: Letting go of perfectionism A Resilient Spirit: Letting go of numbing and powerlessness Gratitude and Joy: Letting go of scarcity and fear of the dark Intuition and Trusting Faith: Letting go of the…
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Emergence and self-organization
Life’s fundamental processes are emergence and self-organization. The following quotes are from So Far from Home: Lost and Found in Our Brave New World by Margaret Wheatley: “Life gives us a world of order for free, capable of organizing itself, not from oppressive control but from inner coherence.” “What matters is now: how we live, work…
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The grand will
Martin Buber gives in his book I and Thou an account of the movement that is involved in accessing one’s grand will: “The free man is he who wills without arbitrary self will. He believes in destiny, and believes that it stands in need of him. It does not keep him in leading strings,…
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The chaordic organization
Dee Hock, founder of VISA, coined the word chaordic to describe an organization that finds the balance where chaos and order meet to ensure it thrives under the demands of the dynamic business context. Key aspects of the chaordic organization are: Crystal clarity on the highest need the organization is choosing to serve. The purpose…