Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self Interest, April/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.

What sets this book apart from similar titles

1. Peter Block's Stewardship makes a timeless case for abandoning autocratic models of leadership that is as relevant today as the day it was penned. The book, How: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything, by Dov Seidman also advocates self-governance, mostly as a way of dealing with our fast-changing, hyper-connected world. But the argument Block makes for self-governance is even more powerful than Seidman's. Block shows how empowerment is absolutely foundational for an organization's long-term flourishing and success.
2. Natural Capitalism, by Paul Hawken, is another book which shows how you can pursue stewardship in tandem with business goals. However, Hawken focuses more on the relationship between man and nature, whereas Block unpacks what it means to "choose service over self-interest" in a broad and universal sense.

About The Author:

Peter Block is an author, consultant and citizen of Cincinnati, Ohio. His work is about empowerment, stewardship, chosen accountability, and the reconciliation of community. Peter is the author of several bestselling books, the most widely known of which are Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used (1st edition 1980, 2nd edition 1999); Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self-Interest (1993) and The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Skills at Work (1987). Peter is the recipient of the Organization Development Network's 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2004 he received their first place Members’ Choice Award, which recognized Flawless Consulting as the most influential book for OD practitioners over the past 40 years.

In 2008, Community: The Structure of Belonging was published, and his latest book, The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighbhoods, co-authored with John McKnight, was released in May 2010.

He has also authored Flawless Consulting Fieldbook & Companion: A Guide to Understanding Your Expertise (2000). The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting on What Matters (2002) won that year's Independent Book Publisher Book Award for Business Breakthrough Book of the Year. Freedom and Accountability at Work: Applying Philosophic Insight to the Real World was co-authored with consultant and philosopher Peter Koestenbaum (2001). 

The books are about ways to create workplaces and communities that work for all. They offer an alternative to the patriarchal beliefs that dominate our culture. His work is to bring change into the world through consent and connectedness rather than through mandate and force.

He is a partner in Designed Learning, a training company that offers workshops designed by Peter to build the skills outlined in his books. He received a Masters Degree in Industrial Administration from Yale University in 1963; he performed his undergraduate work at the University of Kansas.

Peter serves on the Board of Directors of Cincinnati Classical Public Radio and Elementz Hip Hop Center in Cincinnati. Peter is on the Advisory Board for the Festival in the Workplace Institute, Bahamas. With other volunteers, Peter began A Small Group, whose work is to create a new community narrative and to bring his work on civic engagement into being.

He has received national awards for outstanding contributions in the field of training and development, including the American Society for Training and Development Award for Distinguished Contributions; the Association for Quality and Participation President’s Award; and Training Magazine HRD Hall of Fame.