|
|
Title: Community: The Structure of Belonging
Purchase
Item
Manufacturer: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
List Price: $26.95
Our Price: $16.73
|
|
| Customer Reviews: |
| Community: The Structure of Belonging by Berrett-Koehler Publishers Community: The Structure of Belonging |
Peter newest book "Community" will become a classic on how to "Build Community". It has a conceptual model of community building for those who like or need a model. It has practical ideas and a "how to" section for those who just want to get started and improve their community. The book has a wonderful list of resources and practitioners who have done this sort of work for those who want or need that. Society has lost its community building skills and this book is a clear guide on how to retrieve those skills. I wish this book existed 6 years ago when I started a community building effort in Redwood City, Ca.
This book is a precious gift to our often unrecognized and/or neglected personal need for community.
If this book was read by most council members, mayors, city managers, county managers, county board of supervisors, non-profit executive directors, school superintendents and citizen leaders and if they implimented only some of the ideas in this book our society would be profoundly changed from the bottom up which is the only way society ever changes.
Ed Everett (Retired City Manager/Consultant) | | Community: The Structure of Belonging by Berrett-Koehler Publishers He's done it again! | Meg Wheatley has said, "Whatever the problem, community is the answer." I couldn't agree more and now I have the answer as to how you bring about community. As ironic as it sounds, the "answer" is in the form of questions in Peter Block's new book. The questions are powerful guideposts to launching new kinds of conversations - where real change starts. Peter has taught me over the years that if you want to bring about change, change the conversation in the room where you find yourself at the moment.
This book is a true gem. Not only is it full of insights and valuable guidance, it is downright fun to read. I used it in my Organization Development in Education class this past term, and the graduate students rated it as a favorite. It certainly has applicability to all types of organizations beside civic communities. Peter Block touches your soul, reaches you spiritually, and writes like nobody else I know. All I can say is that he has done it again - and then some.
| | Community: The Structure of Belonging by Berrett-Koehler Publishers Profound and moving | | A look at any day's headlines shows why this book is so desperately needed. On so many levels, in so many arenas, we've lost our ability to overcome divisions and find a sense of common purpose. Block shows us how to regain this. The emphasis on the transformative power of conversation and the leader as facilitator rather than commander are themes that run through much of Block's work on organizations, but here he applies them to a larger canvas, and I found the discussion both philosophically rich and surprisingly pragmatic. Block clearly cares passionately about this topic and it comes through strongly in the writing--it makes for a compelling read. | | Community: The Structure of Belonging by Berrett-Koehler Publishers Required reading for community transformation | My copy of Peter's Community: The Structure of Belonging arrived Friday. It became the best part of my weekend. Today I start going through it more slowly, with highlighter.
It is difficult to find words to say how important I think this book is to those of us who work to transform community:
It gives us a common language for talking about what makes community transformation different from human service/government planning and programs.
It integrates many important strands of transformation thinking, making transformation feel more accessible.
It helps us see what transformation looks like and connects that vision to concrete practice.
Community: The Structure of Belonging is divided into two sections. The first is titled The Fabric of Community and is for me what makes this book so important. In this section Peter provides the "why" and the "what" of community transformation. (Those of us who normally skip straight to the "how" should read Peter's previous book, The Answer to How is Yes.) In this section, we learn to not continue repeating the program, system, service problem solving that keeps us from really restoring community. We learn what transformation is, what it means to be a citizen. If we really get the message of this section, we start to BE community transformer, not just DO community building.
The second section is The Alchemy of Belonging. This is the tool kit for doing community transformation. Convening, invitation, small groups, forming the questions, holding the conversations of possibility, ownership, dissent commitment and gifts are covered here. This section expands the information that has been available on Peter's website that was developed and used in Cincinnati by A Small Group (as in Margaret Mead's axiom, "Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world. In fact it is the only thing that ever has.")
In the back are two extra gifts: Book at a Glance, a 10-page sentence outline of the entire book, and Role Models and Resources, which expands the concept of an annotated bibliography and offers countless opportunities for further reading and learning.
The gift of this book is a strong set of principles and usable instructions for restoring community. The challenge is to our willingness to stop what we are doing and learn what will lead us to the communities we desire.
| | Community: The Structure of Belonging by Berrett-Koehler Publishers This book matters | Community: the Structure of Belonging is the most important book Peter Block has written and the most important book you are likely to read this year. The book is incredibly clear, profoundly important and perfectly timed.
This book is Peter's masterwork and a culmination of the important thinking he has so carefully articulated in his other classics The Empowered Manager, Stewardship and The Flawless Consultant. While others bemoan the state of our communities, the decline of our cities and the failure of institutions Peter has been thinking about "restoration" and "reweaving" of the social fabric and has defined a clear process for creating a future that we would all like to be part of.
This easy to read book has something for everyone. The theories and strategies underlying the thinking are compelling and comprehensive. The list of resources in the back of the book will lead you to people and organizations that are actively involved in building communities. The structure of the book provides easy access to the many layers of useful information including a full summary of the book added as an appendix.
What is most powerful about this book though are the clearly defined questions which result in conversations that are capable of transforming the nature of human systems. These conversations change our thinking about how we relate to each other, how we understand the notion of belonging and how we encourage the bringing of our collective gifts into our communities.
This book challenges us to become the citizens that we need to be to create the communities we want to live in. In this time in which we live it is hard for me to imagine something more important than that.
| | Community: The Structure of Belonging by Berrett-Koehler Publishers Product Description | | Modern society is plagued by fragmentation. The various sectors of our communities--businesses, schools, social service organizations, churches, government--do not work together. They exist in their own worlds. As do so many individual citizens, who long for connection but end up marginalized, their gifts overlooked, their potential contributions lost. This disconnection and detachment makes it hard if not impossible to envision a common future and work towards it together. We know what healthy communities look like--there are many success stories out there, and they've been described in detail. What Block provides in this inspiring new book is an exploration of the exact way community can emerge from fragmentation: How is community built? How does the transformation occur? What fundamental shifts are involved? He explores a way of thinking about our places that creates an opening for authentic communities to exist and details what each of us can do to make that happen. |
| |
