Peter Block Quotes

How do you change the world? One room at a time. Which room? The one you're in.

We must establish a personal connection with each other. Connection before content. Without relatedness, no work can occur.

All we have to do to create the future is to change the nature of our conversations, to go from blame to ownership, and from bargaining to commitment, and from problem solving to possibility.

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

The essential challenge is to transform the isolation and self-interest within our communities into connectedness and caring for the whole.

The shift in the world begins with a shift in our thinking. Shifting our thinking does not change the world, but it creates a condition where the shift in the world becomes possible.

Ones vision is not a road map but a compass.

The task of leadership is to be intentional about the way we group people and the questions that we engage them in.

If there is no transformation inside of us, all the structural change in the world will have no impact on our institutions.

It is a misuse of our power to take responsibility for solving problems that belong to others.

The price of change is measured by our will and courage, our persistence, in the face of difficulty.

If we believe something does not exist unless we measure it, then we put aside: love, feeling, intuition, art and philosophy.

What worked yesterday is the gilded cage of tomorrow.

The world does not need a better definition of issues, or better planning or project management. It needs the issues and the plans to have more of an impact, which is the promise of engagement.

We must act as if our institutions are ours to create, our learning is ours to define, our leadership we seek is ours to become.

Change from the top down happens at the will and whim of those below.

It is hard to learn when we think we know something.

If you need ownership and responsibility from core workers, patriarchy can't get you there.

The goal is to balance a life that works with a life that counts.

Questions draw us together. Answers push us apart.

Every parent's deepest wish is that their children are self sufficient, happy, and able to live a full life.

The choice to worry about why we are doing something more than how we do something is risky business.

To be committed means you are willing to make a promise with no exception of return.

As long as we wish for safety, we will have difficulty pursuing what matters.

To live our lives fully, to work whole heartily, to refuse directly what we can't swallow, to accepts the mystery in all matters of meaning- this is the ultimate adventure.

...the artist treats intuition and nuance with respect and reminds us that a little madness resides in all of us. Artists give voice to feelings, to conflict, to the prism of human experience.

Why follow the steps of another to find out where our dreams will lead us.

We are reluctant to let go of the belief that if I am to care for something I must control it.

We have banished our artists to the fringe of society and tell them to eat cake. It is our artists who choose freedom over safety and use their talents to question and confront the culture.

Anecdotes, personal stories, reminiscences, like biblical parables, are the medium through which faith is restored. Stories are a form of poetry, and give us a saving image to personally relate to.

Structure influences behavior. Design spaces that make you feel "you are welcome here and that you came to the right place."

If you believe that saying no will get you shot, well, what a fine way to go.

How many times have we brought in an outsider to tell us what we already knew?

Learning and performance will become one and the same thing. Everything you say about learning will be about performance. People will get the point that learning is everything.

We get the leaders we create.

Why do anything unless it is going to be great?