Peter Block: A Primer
As we work toward an exciting new beginning for ChangeCamp, some of us have been very inspired by the work of Peter Block:
Peter Block has a long career of research and practice in systems transformation who in his retirement from private sector practice has turned towards his passion for community. The result of his work in his home of Cincinnati Ohio is called A Small Group, a network of citizens committed to creating a different future.
Block’s work, and that of other practitioners in community transformation, is driven by a profound belief in and experience of the power of dialogue and the bonds between people to create new possibilities. He flips conventional wisdom on its head as a means to help people get into a new and shared sense of community. For example, he uses some interesting examples of “inversion thinking”:
- The listening creates the speaker
- The openness to learn creates the teaching
- Problem solving occurs to create relatedness
- The citizen creates the leadership
If you plan to attend the ChangeCampTO 2010 event on February 16th in Toronto, please take some time to familiarize yourself with Peter Block’s work:
Workbook on Civic Engagement [PDF]: http://www.peterblock.com/assets/Civic.pdf
“Community: A Structure of Belonging”: [Amazon]
Daniel Rose and I shared a summary of Block with the Design with Dialogue community recently. I am embedding the slides here.
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