Audiobooks by Peter Block

Community, Third Edition: The Structure of Belonging

"With increasing violence, widening ideological divides, and growing economic inequality, a deeper sense of community is desperately needed. Yet typical ways of engaging people civically and organizationally remain unchanged. In Community, Peter Block explores how authentic community can emerge from fragmentation and offers practical steps to foster transformation. This updated third edition draws on decades of implementing Block’s ideas and includes the following: - New stories and examples demonstrating community building as a more powerful approach to social problems than traditional policies and programs - Expanded resources and a discussion guide designed for classroom and training program use - A new closing chapter covering broader implications of the book's ideas for organizational transformation - Fresh content exploring the creative economy's relationship to belonging and social capital’s role in authentic engagement - Updated examples showing how community principles apply to today’s workplace and virtual world challenges"

Peter Block (Author), Jeanine Robinson (Narrator)

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The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Skills at Work, 2nd Edition

"Empowerment produces the conditions for high performance. Especially for middle managers and below. Empowered cultures attract and retain talent. They produce high achievement, high accountability, and high commitment. Bestselling author Peter Block is a true visionary: author of the classic Flawless Consulting, his work is about empowerment, stewardship, chosen accountability, and reconciliation of community. In The Empowered Manager, he returns his eye toward management to renew our efforts to create a shift in the traditional hierarchy. Twenty years after the original book, Block talks of why it is so difficult to both open the door to empowerment and more importantly, have people walk through it. It is more important than ever to create a culture in which all members of an organization are treated as entrepreneurs, giving them ownership over their role and responsibilities. This is in the face of the reality that most employees want safety, not the adventure of empowerment. If you feel controlled by bureaucracy, unrewarded for creativity, and powerless to control your own destiny, this book is the breath of fresh air your career has been craving. Timeless tips from a master of business strategy alongside a framework for more effective management makes The Empowered Manager a must-listen guide for anyone doing business today."

Peter Block (Author), William Andrew Quinn (Narrator)

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The Flawless Consulting Fieldbook & Companion: A Guide to Understanding Your Expertise

"The perfect resource for consultants, updated for a transformed and rapidly evolving market In the newly revised second edition of the Flawless Consulting Fieldbook, bestselling author and consultant Peter Block delivers an invaluable companion to the fourth edition of his popular Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Understanding Your Expertise. In the book, you'll find an expansive toolkit you can draw on for information and guidance in the midst of your next consulting engagement. In the book, you'll discover: ● How the flawless consulting skills are being applied in a wide variety of situations by people with unique and different ways of bringing their gifts in the world. Just like you. ● How to act on what you know to use a variety of approaches to create experiences aligned with your intent and strategy. ● How to view resistance as an ally instead of a problem to be solved or overcome. An invaluable collection of resources for consultants everywhere, Flawless Consulting Fieldbook, 2nd Edition will rapidly become your most used reference for everyday consulting engagements."

Peter Block (Author), Sanya Simmons (Narrator)

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An Other Kingdom: Departing the Consumer Culture

"Our seduction into beliefs in competition, scarcity, and acquisition are producing too many casualties. We need to depart a kingdom that creates isolation, polarized debate, an exhausted planet, and violence that comes with the will to empire. The abbreviation of this empire is called a consumer culture. We think the free-market ideology that surrounds us is true and inevitable and represents progress. We are called to better adapt, be more agile, more lean, more schooled, more, more, more. Give it up. There is no such thing as customer satisfaction. We need a new narrative. An Other Kingdom takes us out of a culture of addictive consumption into a place where life is ours to create together. This way depends upon a neighborly covenant—an agreement that we together, will better raise our children, be healthy, be connected, be safe, and provide a livelihood. The authors invite you on a journey of departure from our consumer market culture. Discover an alternative set of beliefs that have the capacity to evoke a culture where poverty, violence, and shrinking well-being are not inevitable. An Other Kingdom outlines this journey to construct a future outside the systems world of solutions."

John Mcknight, Peter Block, Walter Brueggemann (Author), Mirron Willis (Narrator)

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Activating the Common Good: Reclaiming Control of Our Collective Well-Being

"A powerful, inspiring, and achievable vision of a society based on cooperation and community instead of competition and commodification. This book counters the dominant and destructive story that we are polarized, violent, selfish, and destined to consume everything in sight. That is not who we are. The challenge, Peter Block says, is that we are suffering under an economic theology that is based on scarcity, self-interest, competition, and infinite growth. We're told we can purchase and outsource all that matters. Block calls this the 'business perspective narrative.' It dominates not only the economy but also architecture, faith communities, journalism, arts, neighborhoods, and much more. Block offers an antidote: the 'common good narrative.' It embodies the belief that we are basically communal and cooperative. And that we have the capacity to communally produce what we care most about: raising a child, safety, livelihood, health, and a clean and sustainable environment. This book describes how shifts to the common good perspective could transform many areas, fostering journalism that reports on what works, architecture that designs habitable spaces creating connection, faith collectives that build community, a market that is restrained and local, and leadership and activism that build social capital by creating trust among citizens. With these shifts, we would fundamentally change the world we live in for the better."

Peter Block (Author), Alex Christiansen (Narrator)

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Flawless Consulting, 4th Edition

"Renowned consultant and author Peter Block delivers the latest and fourth edition of his bestselling Flawless Consulting, an intuitive and insightful step-by-step guide to the five phases of effective consulting. The book offers a deep exploration of the skills, tools, and behaviors required to successfully influence others. You'll see exactly what you need to say and do to help others achieve their goals, whether you are an internal or external consultant or anyone in a leadership position who wants to build effective partnerships in business, healthcare, education, or community work. Along with newly updated examples, case studies, stories, and suggestions for putting the flawless consulting process into everyday practice, you'll find: a new section for consultants living in a highly virtual world that explains how to achieve authentic engagement with your clients in virtual and hybrid environments; invaluable information for leaders and internal consultants operating within their organizations; and techniques for successful contracting and discovery. For over forty years Flawless Consulting has been the go-to guide to building trust and structuring meaningful partnerships with others for greater influence and impact. This latest edition ensures that the book will remain the gold standard in the industry for many years to come."

Peter Block (Author), Graham Rowat (Narrator)

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Confronting Our Freedom: Leading a Culture of Chosen Accountability and Belonging

"Confronting Our Freedom is about reframing the common practices rising from traditional thinking about management and leadership. Most management theory and practice are about the need for clear constraints to succeed in the world where we work, but this now conventional thinking about managing calls for adaptation when working remotely has become common. This book is an invitation to freedom. Structuring our world for freedom is the path to collective accountability. It is ultimately a friendly look into how we might reimagine our participation in the working world, analyzing the strategy, execution, and management of philosophers, leaders, and educators."

Peter Block, Peter Koestenbaum (Author), Dallas Britt (Narrator)

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Community, 2nd Edition: The Structure of Belonging

"The expanded and revised edition of Community tackles the hysteric rise of isolation and fear in a digitally interconnected world. In the second edition of Community, author Peter Block offers practical advice and uplifting stories as a way to reject the increasing pull towards isolation and fear of the stranger in a new world of constant connection. This book explores the benefits of community and belonging to foster social change and reconciliation. As we continue to find new ways of being in constant connection with each other through technology, our workplaces are depopulated and we face growing trends of fundamentalism and nationalism, our fear of the stranger deepens. Block challenges this mindset and proves that community and the structure of belonging has the power to bring about positive social change when supported by the frameworks of compassion, equity and respect for the other. Backed by extensive research, this updated and expanded edition illuminates successful stories of community building as a form of healing. Covering stories about political gridlocks, poverty, people of faith, to institutional life, this revolutionary book offers a compelling argument of why we need community now more than ever."

Peter Block (Author), Tamberla Perry (Narrator)

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Stewardship: Choosing Service over Self-Interest

"The classic first edition of this book argued that organizations that place service above self-interest and practice a far-reaching redistribution of power, privilege, and wealth stewardship will succeed far beyond those with a narrower, more selfish focus. As a successful managing strategy for corporate, governmental, and nonprofit organizations, 'stewardship' is, fundamentally, the spirit of partnership and service. Organizations that absorb the principles of stewardship will offer equity and partnership at all levels for its employees, and managers who identify themselves as 'stewards' will hold themselves accountable to all those over whom they exercise power. In this revised and updated edition, Block explores what has and has not changed in organizations and in the world in the twenty years since the first edition was published. He argues that the concept of stewardship is more relevant and necessary than ever, and shows how the idea of stewardship can and must be expanded out from organizations into our communities, societies, and nations. Peter Block is one of our most provocative and original thinkers. Here, he extends the scope of his insights to help us create not just productive and humane workplaces but vibrant communities, an engaged democracy, and a healthy planet."

Peter Block (Author), Sherman Allen (Narrator)

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The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods

John Mcknight, Peter Block (Author), Janina Edwards (Narrator)

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Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used, Third Edition

"When the landmark best-seller Flawless Consulting was first published more than three decades ago, it was quickly adopted as the 'consultant's bible.' With his legendary warmth and passion, Peter Block explained how to deal effectively with clients, peers, and others. The book continues to speak to people in a support function inside organizations as well as to external consultants. This thoroughly revised and updated third edition of Peter Block's groundbreaking book explores the latest thinking on consultation. It includes new insights about how we can organize our consulting around discovering the strengths, positive examples, and gifts of the client organization or community. The book remains a practical and specific guide for anyone who needs to develop a capacity for deeper relatedness and partnership—which means it is for all who wish to make a real difference in the world. This new edition covers the consulting challenges that have arisen from the way we routinely communicate electronically and live in the virtual world. Block suggests ways to overcome the distancing and isolating effects inherent in electronic connects. The book also includes practical guidance on how to ask better questions, gives suggestions for dealing with difficult clients, and contains expanded guidelines on more engaging forms of implementation. Flawless Consulting includes two new examples, taken from health care and educational reform efforts, to show how consulting skills can be useful (and often transformative) in a broader context. These illustrative examples point the way for achieving changes for leadership in business, government, religion, human services, and more. Like the first two editions, Flawless Consulting affirms the notion that authentic behavior and personal relationships are the key to technical and business success. By demonstrating their ability to be truly authentic at each step in the process, consultants can aim toward creating workplaces that are more collaborative and ultimately more successful."

Peter Block (Author), Erik Synnestvedt (Narrator)

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The Right Use of Power: How Stewardship Replaces Leadership

"Stewardship is our best response to our search for better leaders. It finally acknowledges the fact that we are all in this together. Leadership as we know it tries to answer the question 'What's in it for me?' Wrong question. The only question that matters is 'What do we want to create together?' This is the most compelling question we can ask in business today. The words of Peter Block convey the essence of his revolutionary message. On The Right Use of Power, this bestselling author and distinguished management consultant fast-forwards us to the business model of the future: a self-governing, accountable organization where power is shared equally, and work has meaning far beyond conventional measures. Join this business visionary as he explores: • The community of workers, and how faith, service, and communication redefine success • How to retain the best coworkers, and why it has little to do with money • The high-control, low-adaptive organization, and its roots in the parent-child relationship • What the philosopher-artist can teach us about pure motivation • The controlling boss—the surprising truth about why they do it • Spirituality in the workplace, and the hidden strengths of our coworkers • Performance appraisal: obsolete artifact or necessary evil? • Breaking the cycle of unfulfillable expectations in the workplace, through the partnership model • The Great Questions technique for building skillful communications and trust at work • If we redistribute power, do we have to redistribute wealth too? • Plus compelling real-life examples of the power of stewardship, gained from Peter Block's years of work in both the public and private sectors Concluding with a tough question-and-answer session with Peter Block, The Right Use of Power will help prepare you for the changes, challenges, and rewards coming in the new era of business—an era that has already begun."

Peter Block (Author), Peter Block (Narrator)

Audiobook

Audiobooks by Peter Block

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