Stewardship Book

Block's intentions in Stewardship are good, to provide a method for organizations to choose service over self-interest, but I found his assumptions remarkably narrow-minded. The ideals of his stewardship model call for a certain type of employee - a passionate, driven, and largely entrepreneurial employee. His model does not allow for those who just want to go to work and work for someone, for an employee who isn't interested in the 'big' picture of the organization. While this type of employee would be ideal, there are many, many people who value their time outside the office more importantly and want to leave managers to manage and supervisors to supervise. He insults those employees who view work as just a job when he writes "When will I finally choose adventure and accept the fact that there is no safe path - that my underlying security come from counting on my own actions or from some higher power, neither of which will be discovered via an engineering solution." (p. 241). It is difficult to believe Block's vision of shared stewardship and equity when his premise is based on the idea that everyone must be the same, with no allowance for various individual interests, or different strengths and weaknesses. Overall I was disappointed.