Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self-Interest, Second Edition
- 4h 28m
- Peter Block
- Berrett-Koehler Publishers
- 2013
Stewardship was a provocative, even revolutionary, book when the first edition was published twenty years ago, and it remains as relevant and radical today as it was then. We still face the challenge of fostering ownership and accountability throughout our organizations. Despite all the evidence calling for profound change, most organizations still rely on patriarchy and control as their core form of governance. The result is that they stifle initiative and spirit and alienate people from the work they do. This in the face of an increasing need to find ways to be responsive to customers and the wider community.
Peter Block insists that what is required is a dramatic shift in how we distribute power, privilege, and the control of money. “Stewardship,” he writes, “means giving people at the bottom and the boundaries of the organization choice over how to serve a customer, a citizen, a community. It is the willingness to be accountable for the well-being of the larger organization by operating in service, rather than in control, of those around us.”
Block has revised and updated the book throughout, including a new introduction addressing what has changed—and what hasn’t—in the twenty years since the book was published and a new chapter on applying stewardship to the common good of the wider community. He covers both the theory of stewardship (in particular how it ameliorates the shortcomings of traditional leadership) and the practice (how it transforms every function and department for the better). And he offers tactical advice as well on gearing up to implement these reforms.
About the Author
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.
In this Book
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Replacing Leadership With Stewardship
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Choosing Partnership Over Patriarchy
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Choosing Adventure Over Safety
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Choosing Service Over Self-Interest
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Defining the Stewardship Contract
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Upsetting Expectations: The Emotional Work of Stewardship
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Redesigning Management Practices and Structures
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Rethinking the Role of Staff Functions
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Financial Practices: Creating Accountability With Self-Control
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Human Resources: Ending the Practice of Paternalism
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Compensation and Performance Evaluation : Overturning the Class System
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Cosmetic Reform: When the Disease Becomes the Cure
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Re-creating Our Organization Through Stewardship
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Cynics, Victims, and Bystanders
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The Answer to "How?"
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Stewardship for the Common Good
