Turning to One Another Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future

by Wheatley, Margaret J.

• ISBN13: 9781576757642
• ISBN10: 1576757641
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-02-02
• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Summary

Margaret Wheatley wrote those words in the spring of 2001 to begin the first edition of Turning to One Another. In many ways, at home and abroad, our divisions only have deepened since then. We have turned away from one another, believing it's more important to stand our ground rather than to open our hearts and minds to others. The increasingly fractured nature of our relationships makes this a perfect time for a new edition of this classic book.Turning to One Another is both a gentle plea and a clear guide to help us rediscover the power of simple human conversation. Not mediation, negotiation, problem solving, debate, or public meetings. Simple, truthful conversation where we each have a chance to speak, we each feel heard, and we each listen well. Part I explores the power of conversation and the conditions -- simplicity, personal courage, real listening, and diversity -- that support it. Part II contains words and images to encourage us to pause and reflect and to prepare for the work ahead: convening truly meaningful conversations. Part III provides "conversation starters" -- questions that lead people to share their deepest beliefs, fears, and hopes. "What is my faith in the future?" "When have I experienced good listening?" "What is my unique contribution to the whole?" After each question, Wheatley combines personal reflections, stories, quotations, and poems that help us reach out, break down barriers, and connect. In this edition, Wheatley has added two new conversation starters: "What is our role in creating change?" and "Can I be fearless?"For millennia, conversation has been the natural way humans have thought together. Drawing on wisdom from Rilke and Neruda, the Koran and the Tao Te Ching, the Shona people of Zimbabwe and the Aztecs of Mexico, as well as her own graceful and insightful essays and poetry, Margaret Wheatley inspires us to experience our collective creativity. As she reminds us, all great changes begin when "some friends and I started talking."

Author Biography

Margaret J. Wheatley is president of the Berkana Institute, a nonprofit education and scientific research foundation supporting the discovery of new organizational forms. She is the author of Leadership and the New Science, a groundbreaking international bestseller (translated into 12 languages), which was named Best Management Book of the Year by Industry Week magazine, one of the Top Ten Business Books of the 1990s by CIO magazine, and one of the Top 10 Business Books of All Time by Xerox Business Services Magazine. She is also the coauthor (with Myron Kellner-Rogers) of A Simpler Way.

Table of Contents

Turning to One Another	p. 1
Now is the time	p. 2
Welcome	p. 6
Why I wrote this book	p. 10
How to use this book	p. 14
Can we restore hope to the future?	p. 18
What I believe at this time	p. 22
Simple processes	p. 24
The courage of conversation	p. 28
The practice of conversation	p. 32
Willing to be disturbed	p. 38
A Place to Pause and Reflect	p. 44
Conversation Starters	p. 56
Now it's your turn	p. 58
Do I feel a vocation to be fully human?	p. 60
What is my faith in the future?	p. 66
What do I believe about others?	p. 74
What am I willing to notice in my world?	p. 82
When have I experienced good listening?	p. 90
Am I willing to reclaim time to think?	p. 98
What is the relationship I want with the earth?	p. 106
What is my unique contribution to the whole?	p. 116
When have I experienced working for the common good?	p. 126
When do I experience sacred?	p. 134
What is our role in creating change?	p. 142
Can I be fearless?	p. 150
Gestures of love	p. 160
Turning to one another	p. 166
Referenced quotes	p. 167
About the author	p. 174
A story from the Aztec people	p. 182
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