It is impossible to read Turning to One Another in the wake of the devastating attack on New York City's World Trade Center and not marvel at the book's eerie and moving prescience. Of course Margaret Wheatley has already earned herself a (deserved and legit) reputation as the Oprah of "sensitive" organizational books with such titles as A Simpler Way. But this book--devoted entirely to centrality of conversation in healing everything from personal relationships to organizational dysfunction to world discord--flows so broadly and easily across the borders of genre or topic it's almost as though Wheatley intuited when writing it how the need for its message would soon skyrocket. "The intent of this book is to encourage and support you to begin conversations about things that are important to you and those near you," Wheatley writes right up front in the clean, straightforward voice that always saves her work, unlike that of so many other "New Age" gurus, from cheesiness. "It has no other purpose." She then delivers on that promise, making her points in short, succinct, finely written essays on various aspects of human understanding and connection, invoking the thinking of great humanists like Paolo Friere and Nelson Mandela, peppering her thoughts with encounters with people around the world, and then expanding on 10 "conversation starters" like "Do I feel a 'vocation to be truly human'?" "When have I experienced good listening?" and "When have I experienced working for the common good?"

Suffice to say, those looking for some worksheet-packed, three-step plan for organizational harmony won't find it here. Those willing to take a slower, harder, more thoughtful and likely more rewarding path to better relations on any level--or even those looking for the book equivalent of a cool, tall drink of water (perhaps where all change begins)--will be truly moved and genuinely inspired by Wheatley's practical, timely wisdom. --Timothy Murphy


Book Description
“I believe we can change the world if we start talking to one another again.” With this simple declaration, author Margaret Wheatley proposes that we use the increasingly popular process of conversation and dialogue as the means to develop solutions for the societal changes that need to occur both locally and globally. Wheatley asserts that the changes required in all aspects of modern life will not come from governments or large organizations, national programs, new policies or laws. The changes will be led by people—everyday people self-organizing locally with colleagues and friends to create the changes they want. Turning to One Another will help you begin conversations about things that are important to you. Wheatley begins by describing several conditions that support good conversation, including simplicity, personal courage, real listening, diversity, and several others. Ten short essays will act as “Conversation Starters,” leading people into conversations about their deepest beliefs, fears, and hopes.


Book Info
Devoted entirely to centrality of conversation in healing everything from personal relationships to organizational dysfunction to world discord. The intent is to encourage and support you to begin conversations about things that are important to you and those near you. Softcover.


About the Author
Margaret Wheatley is president of The Berkana Institute and an internationally acclaimed speaker and writer. She has been an organizational consultant and researcher since 1973 and a dedicated global citizen since her youth. Her first work was as a public school teacher and urban education administrator in New York, and a Peace Corps volunteer in Korea. She also has been Associate Professor of Management at the Marriott School of Management, Brigham Young University, and Cambridge College, Massachusetts. For the past decade, she has been working with an unusually broad variety of organizations on all continents. Her clients and audiences range from the head of the U.S. Army to twelve year old Girl Scouts, from CEOs to small town ministers. This diversity includes large corporations, government agencies, healthcare institutions, foundations, public schools, colleges, major church denominations, the armed forces, professional associations, and monasteries. All of these organizations are wrestling with a common dilemma—how to maintain their integrity and effectiveness as they cope with relentless pressures for speed and change in chaotic environments. But there is also another similarity: A common human desire to live together more harmoniously, more humanely. The Berkana Institute is a charitable scientific, educational, and research foundation founded in 1991. Berkana experiments with the new ideas, processes, and structures that represent the future of organizing. It has actively explored, through dialogues, seminars, and consulting, how organizations can develop and sustain their capacity, clarity and resiliency in these turbulent times.In 2000, Berkana initiated From the Four Directions: People Everywhere Leading the Way. This a global leadership initiative that organizes on-going circles of leaders in local communities across the world, and then connects these local circles into a global community of life-affirming leaders.Wheatley’s path-breaking book, Leadership and the New Science was first published in 1992. This book is credited with establishing a fundamentally new approach to how we think about organizations. It has been translated into many languages and won many awards, including “Best Management book of 1992” in Industry Week, Top Ten Business Books of the 1990s in CIO Magazine, and Top Ten Business Books of all time by Xerox Corporation. A new edition was published in 1999, significantly revised, updated and expanded. The video of Leadership and the New Science, produced by CRM films, has also won several film awards. A Simpler Way, coauthored with Myron Kellner-Rogers in 1996, explores the question: Could we organize human endeavor differently if we understood how Life organizes? Through photos, poetry, and prose, the book explains self-organization, and the conditions that nurture it in life and organizations.

FROM THE PUBLISHER