Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self-Interest [Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

The communists eliminated all but the uppermost positions of privilege. The Stalins and Gorbachevs retained their wealth and privilege, but the middle positions were eliminated and the responsibility was redistributed to the workers. Block states: "Service-based governance strategies mean the redistribution of power, privilege, purpose and wealth" (pg 43). Naturally, the elimination of these middle positions would terrify someone like the CEO of Levi-Strauss if it were applied to an entire society. In a countrywide system, the power and privilege of the CEO would be passed down to the workers and the CEO position would be eliminated. But, when applied to a corporation, there is still a place for the top dogs (Block says "there is still a place for bosses, just not so many of them" (pg 107). The result? The CEO saves his company labor costs by eliminating costly management positions, while the worker is asked to take on the responsibilities that used to belong to his supervisor and his hope for advancement is eliminated. Block recognizes that there will be no hope of advancement in Stewardship when he says: "In essence we are redefining our ambition. We are letting go of advancement and pleasing bosses as the measure of our success.... Our career progression is about as much in our own hands as our choice of parents and birth order" (pg 89). More stock options and bonuses for the CEO who meets his labor cost goals, less opportunity and incentive for the little guy. No wonder the recommendations in Blocks book all come from senior management while middle management and the worker, the people Block seems to want to champion, are not heard from.

Communists are hopeful that the enlightened comrade will sacrifice his own interests for the good of the organization. Block demonstrates that he agrees when he says: "The antidote to self-interest is to commit and to find a cause... To be part of creating something we care about so we can endure the sacrifice... Let the commitment and cause be the place where we work." (p 10). He seems puzzled that workers aren't eager to take on these additional responsibilities when he says "Many managers open the door to their employees and no one walks through it.... When the open hand of partnership is offered to us, we know there is a price to be paid. The price is uncertainty and anxiety" (pg 33). Block seems to have forgotten that another price to pay is a lot more work for little or no compensation. Managers are often eager to pass their responsibilities along to their subordinates in the name of empowerment. Teachers have kids trade papers and grade the work in class, it saves the teacher the trouble of doing it himself. Principals ask teachers to evaluate each other - it saves the principal the trouble of evaluating the teacher himself. And Stewardship's reward to the teacher for taking on these additional responsibilities at the expense of vacation, lunch breaks and time with family? A chance for promotion? No, we already established that that is not an option. More pay then? No, instead Block offers something fuzzy called "choice" when he says "When we tell subordinates we can no longer take care of them and no longer choose to control them, we also need something positive to offer. What we are offering is real choice in defining and creating an organization that has purpose and meaning for them....the offer in return that has the most currency is choice. The last thing to offer people for more effort is money" (pg 89). Again and again Block informs us that we cannot expect an increase in pay for our individual effort. Instead, we must depend on our comrades to have the same drive and ambition as ourselves. If they don't, we don't meet our quotas, and our individual effort is useless. "Paying primarily for individual effort is rewarding self-interest. Stewardship pays primarily for teamm and department effort" (pg 163). "The reward systems need to tie everyones fortunes to the success of the team, unit, and larger organization. Paying for outstanding individual performance becomes a minor element of pay" (pg 67).

In Stewardship, like in Communism, Block makes a call for a revolution. He calls for eliminating much of the management class in our organizations, and to be honest with the working class and tell them there is no hope for advancement. Instead of having these higher positions of privilege, a position that anyone, with hard work and perseverance could hope to someday achieve, we would ask the worker to take on additional responsibilities, to sacrifice time with family and self for the good of the organization with no real tangible reward. For anyone who has not been paying attention, here's a newsflash: the Communist experiment has failed. A victim of its own impracticality and its failure to provide incentive. Communism was born of revolution, but died of apathy. With no opportunity for advancement, with no rewards for individual achievement, people just stopped trying, and the whole system fell apart. I predict the same for Stewardship.

Peter Block asks the important questions, gives pearls of wisdom highlighted among the content. He clearly understands what he is facing and moves the reader easily into seeing solutions which work and those which are simply adding more of the "old ways" of coercion, patriarchy and adding more "disease" to the organization instead of the RECREATION which will move the organization to its highest level possible.

This quote from Chapter 15 Sums up Block's attitude and approach... and had me want to stand on the table and applaud.

"If we took responsibility for our freedom, committed ourselves to service and had faith that our security lay within ourselves, we could stop asking the question, "HOW?" we would see that we have the answer. In every case the answer to the question, "How" is YES. It plays the location and the solution in the right place - with the question.

When will I finally choose adventure and accept the fact that there is no safe path?

I even smiled at Block's titling of the Bibliography as "Lost and Found."

Chapter 13: Recreating Our Organization Through Leadership is exceptionally strong as is Block's approach to the Cynics which inhabit (and have the ability to very simply destroy and dismantle ) positive growth.