Community

The Structure of Belonging

By: Peter Block

Narrated by: Nick Sullivan

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.

©2009 Peter Block (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Fantastic read!

This should be required reading for everyone. Written before this year's election,it touches on some poignant factors that I think our country (the US) has been sidestepping for years.

This is a book I can see myself reading over and over again.

Thank you Peter Block!

Excellent book.

I enjoyed the concept and idea that we are responsible for building our own communities and for becoming a part of each of the built in communities we are already a part of.

An important and inspiring book

Peter Block is a master of authentic, participatory process that awakens the deep potential of community. This book is a clear expression of ideas, guiding questions, principles and practices that will transform your collaborative community work.

key points to community belonging

Learning more about community engagement and openness to belonging. An excellent time to develop Community skills.

Great to Listen after you read

Where does Community rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Close to #1 in my studies

What did you like best about this story?

I could listen to the book and refer back to the hard copy for class. It helped me be prepared for class

What about Nick Sullivan’s performance did you like?

His voice made it interesting

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Must see

Any additional comments?

If you are in school, this audible book is great with the hard copy. I was always prepared for class and had no down time as I could listen to the book during my commute.

A Refreshing Alternative to the Status Quo

Throughout this book are threads of ideas presented in Block’s previous books (The Empowered Manager, Flawless Consulting, Stewardship, The Answer to How is Yes) that are woven into the context of creating stronger communities. It’s a testament to the evolution of Block’s thinking and therefore his work and is chock full of profound and quotable ideas:

• “The context that restores community is one of generosity, possibility, and gifts and not one of problem solving, fear, and retribution.”
• “A place of belonging is one where all voices have value.”
• “The small group is the unit of transformation.”
• “Questions are more transforming than answers.”

Block delves into the subject of what it takes to restore and transform our communities through dialogue and small groups. He examines the issues of leadership and citizenship and discusses a variety of large and small group methodologies that will lead to successful transformation. In today’s polarized political climate of finger pointing and gaming, this book offers a refreshing alternative to the status quo.

Brilliant

This book will first upgrade the language you use to describe/discuss community, then challenge you every step of the way to destroy your traditional, "proven", yet deeply flawed approach, and reconstruct it using a more human-centered, emergent design with ownership and accountability. Warning: you will want to scribble and highlight every other sentence...brotha is oh so quotable.

Every person in higher education needs this

This book rocks my world. I hope it rocks others’ too! I highly recommend this for anyone in an influential position. Note: everyone is in an influential position!

Starts out terrific

If you read the first half it's an awesome book. But the second half takes the overall review down. Unless you're interested in how to arrange chairs in a discussion...

Great book if it's for you

Book has some great incites on community building practices. It is written almost like a manual on how to get started on community building. Really good for someone who is a natural leader and is looking for some concrete structure to build off of. The book is written for the right brained and looks at community building from less of an idealistic approach and more from a concrete one. I found the book interesting and informative, but not exactly applicable to me per-se. The print copy would probably be more useful if someone where to use it as an actual manual. I bought a copy of the print version for someone who works on community building in my neighborhood and she absolutely loves the book. I didn't get a whole lot out of it, but mostly because I am not doing community organizing so... check your situation, could be really beneficial for you and your community.