Winter 1999, 2001

Margaret: I’m excited to talk with all of you, especially on your last day.

Ward: I know. It’s quite auspicious.  You know that we’ve been playing with the information in A Simpler Way. For us in a lot of ways it’s been very profound. Okay, you guys take the helm.

Margaret: Yes, I’m eager to hear from you.

Shruti: Thank you so much for talking with us today. We were wondering if you could say something about what made you write a book like A Simpler Way, and where you are now in the development of your ideas.

Wheatley: Well, I have a strange way of writing books, which is that they announce themselves to me. I get a sense that a book wants me to sit down and write it and then I spend quite a lot of time actually tuning in to the voice of the book. That’s the only way that I can write. Whereas, if I really make myself available to the book that wants to be written, then it’s a very different process for me of surrendering. This is something that I have developed over ten years. It wasn’t something that I knew how to do instantly, but I now feel quite confident that this process works for me and is a good use of my skills as a writer.

Now in terms of the ideas in A Simpler Way, I think those ideas have become more and more critical to understanding the world that we are in. I’m amused that right now everyone is waking up to the fact that organizations are networks by studying Al Qaeda. All of us who have been working in the field of living systems have been saying for years that the network is the only form of organization. Every revolutionary group that has succeeded has always used this network form of organizing. Even in our day-to-day lives we survive and thrive by means of the network of relationships that we have with each other. So now I think the ideas in A Simpler Way are much more relevant than ever before.

There are many concepts in A Simpler Way that are very spiritual. We knew that when we were writing it, and it was scary. Therefore it was a much harder book to write, but much more important to write, because it was an initiation into a whole different way of seeing the world. This was true for me personally and also in the kind of work and voice I was willing to give. The whole book felt like a huge risk for me. Now it feels like a “no brainer,” but at the time it was difficult putting in statements like, “we move towards wholeness.” Using the word “wholeness” was hard. I can tell you that in the last chapter of that book, Motions of Coherence, there is a statement that took me a month to put down on paper. It was a statement about oneness, which now feels like an obvious statement. Of course we’re all connected and we’re all one, but I knew as I was writing that last chapter that I was about to make statements that would shift public perception of who I was and that was very scary.

Josh Lewis: You mentioned how you were embarrassed to use the word wholeness. One of the quotes that really stood out for me, that was written in bold type, is that “Life is attracted towards order.” That seemed to be a very key point. One thing that I have noticed is that we have obviously seen higher and higher levels of complexity in life over time, and I was wondering if you thought that order necessitated complexity, or if complexity necessitates order?

Wheatley: In the science of complexity order is actually synonymous with increasing complexity. When a scientist says life seeks order, it means that the direction a living system moves in is towards more complex forms of organizing or more complex systems with more members or varieties and different capacities. It is interesting that in the science, complexity is a measure of orderliness. Then you have to look at the human dimension here. We are creating systems that are so complex that they are unmanageable. The reason is that we are not using natural processes to get there, we are still making these systems up. We’re not having them grow naturally, but developing them through a kind of egomaniac figure right now. It is who can create the biggest bank? Who can create the biggest telecommunications company? We’re creating complexity rather then letting it evolve naturally. So it does not have any of the properties of a complex living system. These are basically unmanageable human created systems. In my own thinking now I am very concerned with issues of size. I watch companies buy other companies and create these mega-corporations which are not manageable at all.

Life does move towards increased complexity, but at the time that it is creating that it creates all the necessary channels of communication and the necessary relationships.

Josh Lewis: So it seems to me that often times when we think of order we think of rigidity which you discuss in these large corporations. Would you say that movement is a necessary component of order, and that moves more towards the natural paradigm?

Wheatley: Yes I would.  One of the shifts that the new science has required is to stop looking at structure and instead look at process. Instead of looking at the product of what you have done together, you learned from the process of what you have done. Life is all about process, which means it is all about change, which means it is all about newness. It is very hard to let go of the western viewpoint that things are finished, they are rigid, or they have a structure. Instead how do you move into a sense of participating in a dance? Again that is one of the great challenges in this change of worldview. How do we move into a process mentality?

Aaron Jacobs-Smith: Earlier you mentioned the greater good, and it seems that a focus on the process would somehow be in conflict with the greater good in a sense. If you were looking towards the greater good you would be looking less at the process. It is like looking toward the future and the end result rather then the change and how it evolves toward that. How do you reconcile this?

Wheatley: I don’t see them in the same problematic way, and I’ll tell you why. I think all the work that we do needs to be grounded in a sense of how it contributes to other human beings. How does this contribute to the liberation of the human spirit? When I say the common good, that is the framework. If I am considering the question of how my particular work affects the common good, first I get into something specific. I may want to work on genetically modified foods, or a homeless shelter. Once you have your focus on how your work is going to contribute to the common good, then the question becomes how do we organize these projects? If we succeed in doing the work well we will have contributed.  We do need a sense of why we are doing the work, a higher purpose. From that sense of what our role is in contributing to the higher good then we figure out how to order our own efforts in ways that make sense.

It is really sad right now because there are so many non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) that have organized in order to serve us, to serve the community. But they have organized in ways that are typically bureaucratic and self-protective so they are not able to bring their compassion into action.  Actually the reason that I think understanding how life organizes is so important because it gives us the opportunity to actually organize our own compassion and causes in a way that we will make a difference, and actually be successful. That success is measured in how we have contributed to the common good.