Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self-Interest [Hardcover]

Peter Block (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1993

Block's widely awaited new book shows how the spirit of partnership and service can be made part of every business, government agency, and nonprofit institution. The author of The Empowered Manager unveils radical new models of stewardship for organizations and individuals within organizations.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Block ( The Empowered Manager ), a professional in organizational training, runs riot with assumptions about human nature. Reaching for the stars, he constructs a productive business/industry model under which increasingly empowered employee/workers establish a new category of partnership and accountability that will render traditional management hierarchies almost obsolete. In simple terms (not notably indulged in here), sales and service personnel will so promote the interests of customers, distributors and production workforce that overpaid executives will forgo wealth and power, re-address priorities and bend moral attitudes to this end as stewards of the common good. Though there will still, admits Block, be a place for bosses, their role will radically change when the subordinate becomes "the customer of the boss." 20,000 first printing; $40,000 ad/promo.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Block, author of The Empowered Manager (Jossey-Bass, 1987), which offers an individualistic approach to "empowerment," here explains this movement on a much broader scale, offering his original and profound new view on running organizations. Block shows executives how to move from controlling and directing to his vision of shared governance, partnership, and total ownership of a business by all team members. This concept represents no less than a complete redistribution of power and a total restructuring, which will probably confound most present-day managers. 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 structure of the 21st century. Guaranteed to be controversial; strongly recommended.
- Dale Farris, Groves, Tex.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 264 pages
• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers; 1 edition (January 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1881052281
• ISBN-13: 978-1881052289
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #837,205 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Peter Block is a citizen of Cincinnati, Ohio. He is a partner in Designed Learning, a training company that offers workshops designed by Block to build the skills outlined in his books. He is the author of Flawless Consulting, Stewardship, The Empowered Manager, and The Answer to How Is Yes. He is the recipient of the American Society for Training and Development Award for Distinguished Contribution to Workplace Learning and Performance and the Association for Quality and Participation President's Award. He is also a member of Training magazine's HRD Hall of Fame.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The harsh reality that confronts much contemporary optimism., September 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self Interest (Paperback)

The harsh reality that confronts much contemporary optimism. A book about helplessness, tyranny and profit. But also about leadership, democracy, the human spirit and prosperity. Though addressing the fundamental Christian principle of choosing service before self-interest and carrying a message for church management and denominational structures, Block's focus is entirely in the world and the workplace. From the fragmentation of our lives we are all familiar with he leads us to wholeness, integration and reconciliation and writes about a redistribution of power, partnership and community. But if all this makes it sound theoretical, far from it. It is absolutely practical, down-to-earth and built on solid day-to-day issues.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deming All Over Again - We Never Learn, October 19, 2002

By 

Richard R. Carlton (Ada, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self Interest (Paperback)

Although he captured me with his initial quote from Shakespeare's Richard III as rationale for a practical means to insure corporate survival, I found Peter Block to be the most refreshing thinker I've yet had the privilege to study. I used this book in a Doc course where we included a fairly lengthy conference call with Block, thus giving our rather small cohort (12 of us) a good opportunity to quiz him on some of the gritty application details. I must admit that I finished the course with a distinct impression that Block may well be the next Deming. Unfortunately, the mistakes of the past seem to be repeating in that although a new generation of managers understands his philosophy and may be buying into it at a fairly respectable pace, the bulk of corporate thinkers are just not willing to jeopardize the thinking that got them into place. The problem is typical....one of my earliest lessons in administrative thinking was a CEO who told us to use that new CQI process because he was going to foster change in our org.....right up to where he told us to find a way to make sure the results of the process met his goals for the org.

There is no doubt that Block is challenging the big thinkers to have the guts to give up the power while still holding the responsibility. Like Deming before him, he's a prophet with a message everybody believes in but few are willing to sacrifice adequately to reap the enlightenment. I'm not a CEO, but I've used his principles fairly successfully the past 4 years, occasionally I can't make it work, but when it does, the results have been spectacular. What's important for me is that I think of myself as a steward entrusted with a valuable resource. There are some great lessons on how to do this in any serious biography of Henry II of England's administrative structure - which established the concept of English Common Law, among other achievements. (By no stretch of imagination could Henry II be considered a modern manager, but his concept of stewardship certainly was as radical in his day as Block and Deming in ours - the lessons of history are worthwhile.)

It's the subtitle of the book that provides the clue to the difficulty of the concept.....Choosing Service over Self-Interest....it's extremely hard to carry this out. Block himself tends to simply inform those who challenge him that he cannot provide assurances of security, that if the outcome were a sure thing there would be no need for commitment, and then he sometimes talks about installing living democracy in organizations in place of autocracy. This is radical.....so radical that the cost of believing is more than most of today's administrators can afford to risk, so perhaps the philosophy will take root in those who are listening now in anticipation of their time. When it finally happens, the world will once again become a better place.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Todays management for a successful business., July 27, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self-Interest (Hardcover)

Peter Block has taken the principles and Edward Demming and put them into a usable methodology that will not only help any business owner focus on the essentials necessary for success but will also inspire members of the team at all levels. Block, who has written two other books on management, focuses on the prime issue for a success business: that those who are doing are the one's who should be making the decision on how to serve the customer. He writes that the old way of doing business, that of patriarchy, can never succeed in today's world that demands business be able to move with the customer at a moment's notice. The books is insightful about how to go about implementing a pardign change in a business and in your way of thinking about how business is being conducted. Block speaks of bottom up management, where the key to success as a mnanager is not to be in control, yet still be responsible. It is a life-changing typoe of book for any manager who can see that this is a style of management which will set free the entire work force to become successful stewards of your business.