Peter Block has been out in front of the management curve for decades. Author of three best-selling books, Mr. Block detailed how organizations can shuck stifling bureaucracies in Stewardship: Choosing Service over Self-Interest. A Cincinnatian who lives in Mount Adams, Mr. Block, 62, showed how individual and collective action can lead to wholesale workplace changes in his first book, Flawless Consulting.

        His latest book, The Answer to How is Yes: Acting on What Matters, explores how workplaces can and should be crucibles of change. Mr. Block is guest speaker at Greater Cincinnati American Society for Training and Development on Wednesday from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

        The event costs $25 for members and $35 for walk-ins and a sell-out is expected. Call 251-6700 for more information. Mr. Block spoke with Enquirer reporter John Eckberg.

        Question: In your latest book, you suggest that while there is plenty of so-called teaching going on at work, there is precious little learning. Are people still too dependent upon letting others define what they need to learn?

        Answer: Totally. It's the nature of work. People are treating their bosses as if they are important, that they matter, rather than what they are — just bosses. Most people are afraid.

        Q: Why is it so difficult to get people to understand that change can be good for them, good for their organization, even good for society?

        A: Change is painful. And it usually comes at a time of crisis. Change is usually brought about by coercion — soft-core coercion. It's called mandate or people are busy installing change. Plus everybody wants to change somebody else. The only people who talk about change being difficult is when I'm trying to change YOU. Nobody complains about the changes they are choosing for themselves. So most change at institutions is of a coercive or colonial nature. We all think if somebody else changed, we would be all right. We would be better.

        This is the myth of institutional life: those people.

        Q: Isn't fear of punishment always more powerful than the inherent tendency toward selfishness? Isn't coercion effective?

        A: I don't think so. It creates enormous resistance. They've done studies as to which is more motivating: telling people what is possible and rewarding them or punishing. What punishment does is tell you what not to do. It's not really learning. It's more like paralysis. Most institutions act on reward/punishment system under the illusion that it motivates people. Most people don't need to be motivated. It's a lot of mythology.

        Q: So people are hard-wired to do the right thing?

        A: Well, they are hard-wired in both directions. They are hard-wired to find out what's possible, to do the right thing, to be useful. But they are also hard-wired to surrender their freedom. It's a complicated wiring system. You have a choice as to what you want to see when you look out there. Do you want to see that people long to do something meaningful or do you want to see that people are willing to surrender their freedom and avoid responsibility. Both are true. Why not speak to the part that wants to create meaning? Especially once people grow up a little bit.

        Q: I surmise you are not a real big fan of performance reviews, formal appraisals and the like. Could you sum up why?

        A: I just think they are punitive and demeaning. They just reinforce the fact that somebody has sovereignty. I don't think they facilitate learning. Most people are so anxious in a performance review, they don't know what they are saying and don't know what they are hearing. They avoid them. Managers hate giving them and subordinates hate receiving them. The A students never mind getting graded but everybody else, you almost have to threaten people to hold them.

        Most personnel departments say if you don't turn in your performance appraisals, none of your people are getting any increases. Why do we have to go to those extremes?

        I think the appraisal itself is part of the problem. People don't perform well because they are cautious, wary. They are afraid. And they are afraid of something. It may not be their boss. It may be their boss' boss. It's no excuse, though. The other side of the story is that people are responsible for how they are inside the institution. Subordinates create the bosses that they have.

        Q: Subordinates create the bosses they have?

        A: You decide how autocratic or understanding your boss is by how you relate to them and the expectations you have. When people complain to me about how their boss doesn't listen, doesn't support or doesn't develop me, I always say, well, why are you creating a boss like that? And why would you want those things from a boss? There's lots of places to get support. There's lots of places to learn. Why do we put all this energy into a boss?

        Inside an institution, if you want to be appraised, ask your peers how you are doing. They are usually harder to fool. Bosses are easier to fool. You manipulate your boss by saying: “Thank you, that was helpful” or “I'm working on it.”

        If negative feedback helped, why are we still getting the same feedback today as we got from people 10 years ago? Most of the time when you say something negative, people say, oh yeah, my partner told me that, my boss told me that, I've been hearing that for years. Well, that tells me that maybe that conversation isn't a useful conversation.

        Part of challenge is to create conversations. A great question if you're interested in change or development is this: What's the conversation that we haven't had?

        Q: Why has Flawless Consulting touched such a chord among American business owners (700,000 copies sold worldwide)?

        A: I don't know. I think it's some kind of an unusual mixture of spirit and practicality. I wrote it to seduce engineers and IT people into caring about relationships. It's written with boxes, lines, steps, lists and guides. That's the allure and it's very concrete and very specific. But it's specific about being authentic and it's specific about elusive ideas. Somehow that book brought the centrality of relationships into the consulting business. That's where people get into trouble. Most people giving advice aren't wrong. They just ignore the relationship or take it lightly. Same with managers, most advice or direction managers give is not wrong, it's just that they have no connection or relationship with the people they are directing so that advice can be heard.

        When I wrote it, I was embarrassed by it. I only wrote it because I had a contract.

        Q: Get out of here ...

        A: I'm serious. When I wrote it I was 40-years-old. I gave a talk. I never want to write. Guy said you wanna write a book about this. I said I've never written a book. He says well I'll give you some money if you write a book. So I signed the contract because he gave me a guarantee and when I finished it, I thought, oh God, I hope none of my colleagues read it. The others have sold well, too. I don't get it. I don't understand it. I don't sell them. I don't promote the books. (Unlike many consultants, Mr. Block refuses to sell books at his speeches.) It sells more now than it did 20 years ago. Figure that out.

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