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Peter Block - The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting on What Matters

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Peter Block The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting on What Matters
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People keep asking How? as a defense against living their life, says best-selling author Peter Block. In this witty, insightful award-winning book, Block shows that many standard solutions and improvement efforts, reinforced by most of the literature, keep people paralyzed. Here he places the how to craze in perspective and teaches individuals, workers, and managers ways to act on what they know. This in turn allows them to reclaim their freedom and capacity to create the kind of world they want to live in. Blocks elements of choice - the characteristic of a new workplace and a new world based on more positive values - include self-mentoring, investing in relationships, accepting the unpredictability of life, and realizing that the individual prospers only when the community does.

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also by PETER BLOCK Flawless Consulting A Guide to Getting Your Expertise - photo 1
also by PETER BLOCK

Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used

Stewardship: Choosing Service over Self-Interest

The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Skills at Work

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

by PETER BLOCK and PETER KOESTENBAUM

Freedom and Accountability at Work: Applying Philosophic Insight to the Real World

The Answer to How Is Yes

Copyright 2003 by Peter Block
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

The Answer to How Is Yes Acting on What Matters - image 2

Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
235 Montgomery Street, Suite 650
San Francisco, California 94104-2916
Tel: (415) 288-0260, Fax: (415) 362-2512
www.bkconnection.com

Ordering information for print editions
Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the Special Sales Department at the Berrett-Koehler address above.
Individual sales. Berrett-Koehler publications are available through most bookstores. They can also be ordered directly from Berrett-Koehler: Tel: (800) 929-2929; Fax: (802) 864-7626; www.bkconnection.com
Orders for college textbook/course adoption use. Please contact Berrett-Koehler: Tel: (800) 929-2929; Fax: (802) 864-7626.
Orders by U.S. trade bookstores and wholesalers. Please contact Ingram Publisher Services, Tel: (800) 509-4887; Fax: (800) 838-1149; E-mail: customer.service@ingrampublisherservices.com; or visit www.ingrampublisherservices.com/Ordering for details about electronic ordering.

Berrett-Koehler and the BK logo are registered trademarks of Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

First Edition
Hardcover print edition ISBN 978-1-57675-168-8
Paperback print edition ISBN 978-1-57675-271-5
PDF e-book ISBN 978-1-60509-394-9
IDPF e-book ISBN 978-1-60994-040-9

2010-1

Developmental editor: Leslie Stephen
Copy editor: Veronica Randall
Photography by Jim Block
Rock balancing sculptures by Bill Dan
Cover designed by Mark van Bronkhorst, MvB Design
Text designed by Brad Greene, Greene Design

Dedication

To Jim,
with love and respect.

&
To Cathy, my muse.

Transformation comes more from pursuing profound questions than seeking - photo 3

Transformation comes more from
pursuing profound questions
than seeking practical answers.

introduction acting on what matters There is depth in the question How do I - photo 4
introduction: acting on what matters.

There is depth in the question How do I do this? that is worth exploring. The question is a defense against the action. It is a leap past the question of purpose, past the question of intentions, and past the drama of responsibility. The question How?more than any other question looks for the answer outside of us. It is an indirect expression of our doubts....

Choosing Freedom, Service, and Adventure,
Peter Block, Stewardship, (p. 234)

There is something in the persistent question How? that expresses each persons struggle between having confidence in their capacity to live a life of purpose and yielding to the daily demands of being practical. It is entirely possible to spend our days engaged in activities that work well for us and achieve our objectives, and still wonder whether we are really making a difference in the world. My premise is that this culture, and we as members of it, have yielded too easily to what is doable and practical and popular. In the process we have sacrificed the pursuit of what is in our hearts. We find ourselves giving in to our doubts, and settling for what we know how to do, or can soon learn how to do, instead of pursuing what most matters to us and living with the adventure and anxiety that this requires.

The idea that asking how to do something may be an obstacle rather than an enabler ended my 1993 book, Stewardship. In the final chapter, there is the suggestion that How? is a symbol of our caution and reinforces the belief that, no matter what the question, there is an answer out there that I need and will make the difference. I pick How? as a symbol simply because it is far and away the most common question I hear. It has always struck me that I can write or speak the most radical thoughts imaginable. I can advocate revolution, the end of leadership, the abolition of appraising each other, the empowerment of the least among us, the end of life on the planet as we know it, and no one ever argues with me. The only questions I hear are How do you get there from here? Where has this worked? What would it cost and what is the return on investment? This has led me to the belief that the questions about How? are more interesting than any answer to them might be. They stand for some deeper concerns. So in this book, the starting point is to question the questions.

What Is Worth Doing

We often avoid the question of whether something is worth doing by going straight to the question How do we do it? In fact, when we believe that something is definitely not worth doing, we are particularly eager to start asking How? We can look at what is worth doing at many different levels: As an individual I can wonder whether I can be myself and do what I want and still make a living. For an organization I can ask for whose sake does this organization exist and does it exist for any larger purpose than to survive and be economically successful? As a society, have we replaced a sense of community and civic engagement for economic well being and the pursuit of our private ambition?

Too often when a discussion is dominated by questions of How? we risk overvaluing what is practical and doable and postpone the questions of larger purpose and collective well being. With the question How? we risk aspiring to goals that are defined for us by the culture and by our institutions, at the expense of pursuing purposes and intentions that arise from within ourselves.

If we were really committed to the pursuit of what matters, we might be well served to hold a moratorium on the question How? There is an image I first heard from Jim Walker, a change-oriented executive and good soul, who was put in charge of a struggling AT&T business some years ago. He used to ask, What do you do when you find yourself in a hole? His answer was, The first thing you do is stop digging. That stuck with me. Most of the time, when something I am trying does not work, I simply try harder. If I am trying to control a business, a project, or a relationship and it is failing, then I doggedly do more of what is not working.

If we could agree that for six months we would not ask How? , something in our lives, our institutions, and our culture might shift for the better. It would force us to engage in conversations about why we do what we do, as individuals and as institutions. It would create the space for longer discussions about purpose, about what is worth doing. It would refocus our attention on deciding what is the right question, rather than what is the right answer.

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