Like Any Living System, Every Organization Co-evolves Meg Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers

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Like any living system, every organization co-evolves.

Its character and capabilities emerge as it plays with possibilities.

It messes about with others until a workable system appears.

This system has abilities and beliefs no one planned.

It accomplishes work in ways no one designed.

It has relationships no one mandated.

While we worry about designs and structures, tweak procedures and rules, insist on compliance and control, we never succeed in creating an organization by these activities.

Organization wants to happen.

Human organizations emerge from processes that can be comprehended but never controlled.

Credit: Margaret J. Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers

Source: A Simpler Way


Image Credits: Pixabay (Pixabay)

Conversational Leadership Workshop
In-person, 7–11 September 2026
Warbrook House, Hampshire, UK

We are living and working in conditions of uncertainty, complexity, and rapid change. This week-long workshop with David Gurteen and John Hovell offers a space to practise Conversational Leadership as a shared, lived experience.


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This quotation is part of a  blook on Conversational Leadership. It is one of many quotations that have influenced my thinking on the subject. Parts of this blook have restricted access. You may browse the pages open to you, but you will need to register and be approved before you can login and access the full site. When you register, you may also sign-up to receive a quotation of the day by email.

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