Margaret Wheatley’s Eight Principles

I found the following eight principles in Biology Revisioned by Willis Harman and Elisabet Sahtouris. These principles are from A Simpler Way by Margaret Wheatley.

1. “We live in a world in which life want to happen.” Life seems bent on expressing its creativity.
2. “Organizations and societies are living systems.” And living systems are self-organizing.
3. “We live in a universe that is alive, creative, and experimenting all the time…” We see this at all scales from microbes to galaxy clusters.
4. “It is the natural tendency of life to organize…” Life affiliates with other life.
5. “Life uses messes to get to well-ordered solutions.” What may appear messy is life experimenting.
6. “Life is intent on finding what works…” Playfulness comes creatively into life’s experimenting.
7. “Life creates more possibilities as it engages with opportunities.” If an opportunity is not fulfilled, there are always others to play with.
8. “Life organizes around identity.” Life organizes around a self. All life has a subjective dimension.

Notes:
1. Willis Harman & Elisabet Sahtouris, Biology Revisioned, pp. 256–58.