Foreword by Steven Piersanti
Welcome
Introduction to the Second Edition:
What Has Changed?
It’s a Digital World
What Is Good for Business Is Good for the World
Side Effects
Goods We Can Build Upon
PART I TRADING YOUR KINGDOM FOR A HORSE
1 Replacing Leadership with Stewardship
Something more is required
The essence of Stewardship
Choosing Partners
Choosing Empowerment
Choosing Service
We Don’t Act on What We Know
The Leadership Question
The Underbelly of Leadership
The Stewardship Answer
Three Organizational Challenges
2 Choosing Partnership over Patriarchy
Creating Order
Distributing Ownership and Responsibility
Partnership as the Alternative
Balancing Power
Four Requirements of Partnership
3 Choosing Adventure over Safety
The Wish for Safety
Entitlement Is Empowerment Run Aground
Choosing Empowerment
Stewardship Begins at Home
4 Choosing Service over Self-Interest
A Model of Stewardship
Teaching Revolution to the Ruling Class
The Realm of Management
Rank without Privilege
Connecting the Heart and the Wallet
The Point
PART II THE REDISTRIBUTION OF POWER, PURPOSE, AND WEALTH
A Case Study: Sometime Later in the Week
5 Defining the Stewardship Contract
Principles for the Practice
The Stewardship Contract
Life in the Balance
6 Upsetting Expectations: The Emotional Work of Stewardship
The Trail Is Inside Out
Facing the Wish for Dependency and Dominance
Freedom’s Just Another Word for Escape from Freedom
Unstated Emotional Wants: Breaking the Pattern
Just Say No
I want my mentor
7 Redesigning Management Practices and Structures
Full Disclosure
Management Practices
Changing Basic Architecture
Boss as Banker and Broker
8 Rethinking the Role of Staff Functions
In the Service of Top Management
Police and Conscience to the Line
Mandated Supplier
Mandated Services
Offering Choice and Building 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
Peter Block is the author of eight books and a partner in the training company Designed Learning. He is the recipient of many awards-including the Organization Development Network's Lifetime Achievement Award and ASTD's Award for Distinguished Contribution to Workplace Learning-and was named to Training Magazine's HRD Hall of Fame.
“An original and profound new view on how to run
organizations…Block transcends all extant leadership
literature.”
—Library Journal
“Stewardship is one of those books that permanently changes how you
think. It obliterates the wall between good business and ethical
business…Get better business results, change the world, and save
your soul with a single book.”
—Gifford Pinchot III, cofounder and President, Bainbridge Graduate
Institute
“The most insightful analyst of what ails organizations has written
a very timely update of his book Stewardship. With America’s newest
civic generation, millennials, now flooding the world of work,
Block offers a system of governance that captures that generation’s
need for ‘service over self-interest.’”
—Morley Winograd, coauthor, with Mike Hais, of Millennial
Momentum
“The new edition of Stewardship is an absolute must-read for anyone
interested in building sustainable businesses, organizations, and
communities. [Block’s] ideas create more engaged organizations,
which are better for people, the environment, and business.”
—Brian Camastral, CEO, Riversong Sanctuary; cofounder, BLITS
Foundation; and former Global President, Mars Food
“Be forewarned: this is a scary read. In the twenty years I have
been engaged in collaborative leadership programs, Peter has been a
go-to author for challenging the theory and practice of leadership.
In this second edition of Stewardship, Peter leaves us nowhere to
hide as he takes an in-depth look at what it truly means to lead
from the heart in a culture driven by accountability, metrics, and
control. Every ‘yes but’ I raised is countered with examples,
metaphors, skillful explanation, case studies, quotes, practical
suggestions, and Peter’s trademark creativity and faith in our
ability to do the right thing for the common good.”
—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
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