Block, Peter :

Peter Block is the author of the bestselling books Stewardship, The Empowered Manager and Flawless Consulting, and a founding partner of the training firm Designed Learning, Inc. He is also cofounder of the new School for Managing and has been at the center of changing organizations for twenty-five years, consulting to businesses, schools, and governments around the world.

"An original and profound new view on running organizations.... Block transcends all extant leadership literature with this primary source on the organizational dynamics of the future, which will soon be copied. He has heard an as-yet unknown muse and conceived the organizational strunteed to be controversial; strongly recommended."

--Library Journal

"Stewardship is visionary, hopeful, and practical. Block calls for a whole new way of thinking about the workplace-and then takes the reader through very tangible steps for getting there."

--Robert H. Waterman, Jr., author of The Renewal Factor and coauthor of In Search of Excellence

"A revolutionary book that redefines what being 'value added' means in an organization and turns around the traditional thinking about who works for whom."

--Edward L. Glotzbach, Vice President, Customer Services, Midwest, Southwestern Bell Telephone

"Stewardship challenges all managers and leaders of organizations to change their fundamental approach and beliefs about how to do their job. And it provides a clear path for action for those who accept the challenge."

--Morley A. Winograd, Sales Vice President, Western Region, AT&T

"Stewardship is a fantastic book! I have read the book, reread it, highlighted it, read my highlights, and taken notes on my highlights. I will never look at leadership and organizations in the same way again."

--David W. Cox, Chair, Department of Educational Administration and secondary Education, Arkansas State University

"Stewardship sets a new standard in recreating our workplace. Expect to be surprised and broadened-you have not heard this all before."

--Gifford Pinchot, author, Intrapreneuring and The End of Bureaucracy and the Rise of the Intelligent Organization

"Every educator should read Stewardship. It provides a powerful vision of how schools and classrooms should work if ewe care about our children and our future."

--Lawrence W. Lezotte, Senior Vice President, Effective Schools Products, Ltd.

"Stewardship is must reading for any public sector leader committed to reinventing a public agency. Peter Block is relentless, and right, in his insistence that power and privilege be redistributed to employees our organizations, including government, are to work again."

--Doug Ross, President, Michigan Future, Inc.

"[Block] somehow successfully combines the practicality of an entrepreneur with the spirituality of a New Age philosopher, and his approach might inspire both the open-minded MBA and the idealistic frontline assembly worker."

--Booklist

Berrett-Koehler Web Site, January, 2002

Peter Block's classic book, The Empowered Manager, began the empowerment movement in thousands of businesses, public agencies, schools, and nonprofit organizations. Here Block takes the next step beyond empowerment in his revolutionary book, Stewardship.

Organizations that practice stewardship, Block explains, will succeed in their marketplace by choosing service over self-interest at every point and by a far-reaching redistribution of power, privilege, and wealth. Without this, little real change will result.

As a successful managing strategy for corporate, governmental, and nonprofit organizations, "stewardship" is, fundamentally, the spirit of partnership and service. According to Block, the company that has absorbed the principles of stewardship will offer equity and partnership at all levels for its employees, and managers who identify themselves as "stewards" will hold themselves accountable to all those over whom they exercise power.

Such managers will choose service over self-interest and will put self-management over control. "No one should be able to make a living simply planning, watching, controlling, or evaluating the actions of others," Block says.

Stewardship explains how to integrate the management of work and the doing of work, to redistribute purpose and power within an organization. It speaks about how this can affect work flow, quality control, performance appraisal, pay systems, supervisory methods, job design, and human resources.

Managers who are dissatisfied with the superficial changes resulting from currently popular programs, will learn how to achieve lasting, broad-based improvements in their organizations.

Part I: Trading Your Kingdom for a Horse

1. Replacing Leadership with Stewardship
2. Choosing Partnership over Patriarchy
3. Choosing Adventure over Safety
4. Choosing Service over Self-Interest

Part II: The Redistribution of Power, Purpose, and Wealth

5. Defining the Stewardship Contract
6. Upsetting Expectations: The Emotional Work of Stewardship
7. Redesigning Management Practices and Structures
8. Rethinking the Role of Staff Functions
9. Financial Practices: Creating Accountability with Self-Control
10. Human Resources: Ending the Practice of Paternalism
11. Compensation and Performance Evaluation: Overturning the Class System

Part III: The Triumph of Hope over Experience

12. Cosmetic Reform: When the Disease Becomes the Cure
13. Recreating Our Organization through Stewardship
14. Cynics, Victims, and Bystanders
15. Choosing Freedom, Service, and Adventure