Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Q & A: the Wisdom of Peter Block

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Connected communities convene to build trust and respect. 
Photo: Midtown Brews, 2009, Cleveland, Ohio USA

At the core, economic development requires people to engage in sustained relationships of trust, collaboration, and bringing ideas to action. Thinking, doing, and learning together.

Few people have devoted more of their time and thinking to the building of community in recent years, than Peter Block.  His best-selling books on Flawless Consulting and Stewardship reveal a unique mind at work.  It's been my privilege and pleasure to attend several conferences and workshops where Peter has presented and taught.

One key insight that Peter shares, is especially useful for us in supporting community and regional economic development networks:

"Questions bring us together.  Answers drive us apart."
What do we want to do together? Who needs to be with us to do it? What do we need to know, and have, to enable us to act? How will we know the results of our efforts, and learn as we go?

What do YOU think?

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Blogger Bruce Waltuck earned an M.A. in Complexity, Chaos, and Creativity (yes, really), is an Associate at the Plexus Institute and a Member of the New Jersey Association of Professional Mediators. Check out Bruce's, "Leadership, Abundance and Complexity in Human Systems", the #3 video at I-Open in 2013 (above). Learn more about complexity, change, leadership and dialogue by subscribing to Bruce's blog, Complexified and following him on Twitter at Complexified


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1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thank you Bruce! There are so many brilliant, thoughtful, creative leaders who have brought their minds and hearts to designing solutions to the challenges of human change. And thank you for your generous contributions to the I-Open library, a wealth of wisdom to strengthen education, economic and workforce development in organization and community change.