Myron Kellner-Rogers

NOTES from MSOD Alumni Conference
October 24-27, 2002, Lake Tahoe, CA

notes from: Liza Sitton-Taylor, Delta Prime
(e-mail available upon request)

I had a good talk over lunch with Myron Kellner-Rogers, co-author of A Simpler Way with Meg Wheatley, and her business partner of many years.

A few quotes that I captured during our conversation were:

"The only thing keeping us stuck is what we resist."

"We become what we ignore."

"Let go of defending against your neuroses."

"The cure for burnout is not rest but wholeheartedness."

"There's no such thing as information overload, there's just a meaning shortage."

"No learning happens when evaluation is present."

Another interesting thing that I learned from him is that the systems model he uses has 9 circles:

the first set of three = systems, structures and processes.

The second set of three = identity (who are we now?), relationships and information,

and the third set of three are: meaning, trust and action.

We would expect predictability from the first set, but this isn't so because it really depends on the second and third sets. How does the system make meaning? It has to do with the identity and its relations with the environment. He also talked about how the self of the collective arises and is especially interested in how you access that collective self.