How life self-organizes and changes

We live in an interdependent, interconnected world that is better described by networks than the neat boxes and hierarchies of organizational charts. With her view of the organizations through the lens of living systems, rather than the traditional one as machines, Margaret Wheatley sees identifies these principles of self-organization and change:

• A living system forms from shared interests. "From that realization, individuals reach out, and seemingly divergent self-interests develop into a system of interdependency."


• All change results from a change in meaning. "People, like all life, only change when they allow an event or information to disturb them into voluntarily letting go of their present beliefs and developing a new interpretation. Nothing living changes until it interprets things differently."


• Every living system is free to choose whether it will change or not. "It is impossible to coerce a living system to change in any direction but the one it chooses for itself. We never succeed in directing or telling people how they must change. We can't succeed by handing them a plan, or pestering them with our interpretations, or relentlessly pressing forward with our agenda, believing that volume and intensity will convince them to see it our way."


• Living systems contain their own solutions. "Somewhere in the system there are people who have already figured out how to resolve this problem. They are already practicing what others think is impossible. Or they possess information which, if known more widely, would help many others. Or as a particular group that has been negatively labeled or stereotyped, they are far more capable than anyone knows."

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