Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self Interest - Hardcover

Block, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1881052281 ISBN 13: 9781881052289

Publisher: Berrett-Koehler, 1993

Synopsis

New models of stewardship--both for the organization and the individual--offer equity and partnership for all levels of employees. By the author of The Empowered Manager. 20,000 first printing. $40,000 ad/promo.

About this title

Synopsis

Despite popular rhetoric lauding quality improvement, visionary leadership, and customer-driven enterprises, says the author, real workplace change has been superficial and limited. In response to such "cosmetic change," as he calls it, Block unveils radical new models of stewardship both for the organization as a whole and for the role of the individual within the organization. The company that has absorbed the concept of stewardship, he explains, will offer equity and partnership at all levels for its employees, while managers who identify themselves as stewards will hold themselves accountable to all those over whom they exercise power. To be a steward, he goes on, means claiming one's autonomy while, at the same time, surrendering the need to control. Thus the person who truly acts as a steward within an organization will choose service over self-interest, trusteeship over ownership, and self-management over control.

Block proceeds to demonstrate how every function within an organization would be altered by the concept of stewardship, describing the changes that would take place in job design, work flow, quality control, performance appraisal, pay systems, supervisory and leadership methods, and finance and human resource staff functions. In all of these, he says, the management of work and the doing of work will be integrated. The result that block depicts will be a fundamental redistribution of purpose, power and privilege in all areas of organizational life.

About the Author

Peter Block is a partner in Designed Learning, a training company that offers workshops designed to build the skills outlined in his books. 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. He is the author or coauthor of eight books.

Foreword author Steven Piersanti is president and publisher of Berrett-Koehler Publishers, an independent publisher based in San Francisco. Before founding Berrett-Koehler in 1992, Steve served as president and CEO of Jossey-Bass Publishers after previous service as copywriter, marketing director, editor, editorial director, and executive vice president.

Edition details

• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1881052281
• ISBN 13: 9781881052289
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288