Stewardship

World

The biggest change in organizational life is that we have been beamed into all the joys and sorrows of the virtual and digital world. It is a romanticized world, riding on the wings of speed and frictionless transactions with no human beings involved. It is mesmerizing to grasp the world in a handheld device, much smarter than we will ever be. Technology is credited with bringing the world closer together, spreading democracy, changing the nature of business, supplying round-the-clock connectivity. Geography has been made obsolete. Here are some noteworthy aspects of this life in a work context:

Workers are members of teams made up of people they have never been in a room with. This has given rise to the question How do we build a team that never or rarely meets face-to-face?

We have willingly given up the forty-hour workweek. We are online and in touch and reachable most of our waking hours. If you ask people to park their cell phones at the door, 40 percent say that this is not possible.

We work at home. Our bedroom has become our office. We can work in our pajamas most of the time. This allows us to move our residence anywhere, supposedly take better care of our family, and have more control over our time. We can also go to school at home, so our dining room becomes our classroom.

What is new is the wedding of futurism to what might be called virtualism : a vision of the future within which we somehow take leave of material reality and glide about in a pure information economy.

Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft

With a device in our pocket and plugs in our ears, we can have background music or be in phone contact all the time. You go to public places and you see that most people have something in their ear and are somewhere else. There is no longer a need to be here now. You can go anyw

Capability
Service Guarantee

9 Financial Practices: Creating Accountability with Self-Control
The Money Is about control
Building Widespread Financial Stewardship
Living within the Law

10 Human Resources: Ending the Practice of Paternalism
Institutional Caretaker
A New Purpose and Role
The Structure of Human Resources
Human Resource Practices That Support Stewardship

11 Compensation and Performance Evaluation: Overturning the Class System
The Divine Right of Kings
Pay Reinforces Class Distinctions
Performance Not for Sale
Rank Individualism
Confusing Boss Evaluations with Performance
Pay for Empire
Reward Systems That Support Stewardship
The End of Caretaking

PART III THE TRIUMPH OF HOPE OVER EXPERIENCE
12 Cosmetic Reform: When the Disease Becomes the Cure
nothing is next
The Open Office
Patriarchy Recreating Itself

13 Recreating Our Organization through Stewardship
Stewardship Strategy for Political Reform
Steps toward Political Reform
A Case Study Continued: The Answer to the Power Company Story, Sometime Later in the Week

14 Cynics, Victims and Bystanders
The Power of the Cynic
Rescuing the Victim
Facts Won t Help
Treating Caution as a Choice

15 The Answer to How?
How
How? Is a Defense

16 Stewardship for the Common Good
The Business Perspective
The Point
References
Index
Designed Learning
The Author
The Artist

Anne J. Udall, Trustee, American Leadership Forum (ALF); former Director, Charlotte Region Chapter, ALF; and Vice Chair, Udall Foundation

Like Robert Greenleaf before him, Peter Block s voice is that of a contemporary prophet. This revised edition of Stewardship is one of the best books ever written. It serves as a powerful source of hope and encouragement for servant-leaders everywhere.
Larry C. Spears, coauthor of Insights on Leadership, The Spirit of Servant-Leadership, and Fortuitous Encounters

Over the past forty years, through Stewardship and other seminal works, Peter Block has articulated the course required for effective leadership in the 21st century. If only more managers and leaders from every sector took note and practiced the principles of Stewardship productivity would rise, people would be healthier, local community life would be flourishing, and the spirit of democracy would be enlivened worldwide. His message is that essential and that scalable.
Lynn Luckow, President and CEO, LikeMinded.org, and former President and CEO, Craigslist Foundation

Stewardship is love in action. It is time for our organizations to rethink how they exercise power and control. In our changing country and world, our capacity for stewardship may be what ultimately saves our democracy and models accountability and freedom, in their real sense, for the rest of the world. As usual, Peter Block points us in the direction of our better selves, living out a better future.
Sayra Pinto, Principal, Matriz Coaching & Consulting

This is one of those very rare anomalies: a second edition that is more essential and timely than the first. It spotlights our current dysfunctionalities such as the literal looting of so many of our organizations by self-serving top levels and how far we have actually regressed from a pattern of commitment to service and healthy work environments in most corporations. It s impossible to read this book and then continue to look at current organizational processes as (desirable) business as usual.
Fritz Steele, organizational and environmental consultant and coauthor of The Arrogant Leader

As with his other books, the second edition of Stewardship forces the reader to rethink basic assumptions about leadership and change in organizations. Peter always challenges my thinking and offers a perspective that I have never found elsewhere. He makes espoused values come alive. Leading in the way Peter describes requires courage, a virtue missing in many of today s organization leaders. Peter s unique ability to pinpoint the true source of power and confront the reader in a way that cuts through defenses makes reading Stewardship a true learning and growth experience.
Cliff Bolster, Leadership and Learning Consultant, Bolster & Associates, Inc.

Peter Block is one of the most provocative and iconoclastic thinkers we have on the topics of leadership, business, and organizational design. His insights are still fresh and razor sharp, and he expresses them in a singular, poetic style. The new edition of this foundational text extends the scope of his insights to meet the challenges that have arisen in the last twenty years and shows how to create not just productive and humane workplaces but vibrant communities, an engaged democracy, and a healthy planet.
Toni A. Gregory, EdD, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, PhD Program in Interdisciplinary Studies, Union Institute & University

Peter Block s second edition of Stewardship is even more provocative than the first edition was twenty years ago because we are more fearful about our economic and personal well-being than ever before. Block helps us see our own complicity and interconnectedness with all that goes on around us and, with this updated edition, will help a new generation learn that the way to find meaning and purpose in life is to form partnerships for the common good, empower each other through human understanding, and together, build competent societies.
Frances Strickland, PhD, President, Smith Educational Enterprises