Peter Block

Peter Block (born 1940) is an American author, consultant, and speaker in the areas of organization development, community building, and civic engagement.

He was born in 1940 to Jewish parents, Ira and Dorothy Block. He currently resides with his wife, Cathy Kramer, in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Peter Block completed his undergraduate studies in Industrial Management at the University of Kansas in 1961 and obtained a Master's degree in Industrial Administration from Yale University in 1963. He started his career as an organizational consultant in 1963 in the information service department at Esso (today ExxonMobil). In the early 1970s Peter co-founded the consulting firm "Block Petrella Weisbord" with Tony Petrella and Marvin Weisbord. He is also founder of The School for Managing of the Association for Quality and Participation as well as the training company Designed Learning. Peter serves on the Board of Directors of Cincinnati Classical Public Radio, the Advisory Board for The Festival in the Workplace Institute as well as the Board of Elementz Hip Hop Center in Cincinnati. Together with other volunteers, Peter started A Small Group, that aims to facilitate discourse towards a new community narrative as underscored by Peter's work on civic engagement. PR Newswire recently reported that Peter Block joined LivePerson Inc's Board of Directors.

Peter Block is the recipient of the Organization Development Network's 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2004 he received their first place Members' Choice Award in recognition of his book, Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used (1999) as the most influential book for Organizational Development practitioners over the past 40 years. Among other national awards, he also received the American Society for Training and Development Award for Distinguished Contributions, the Association for Quality and Participation President's Award, and he was entered into Training Magazine's HRD Hall of Fame.

Peter Block's work generally focuses on alternatives to patriarchal beliefs pervasive in Western culture and his ideas proffer that cultural change can be brought about through consent and connectedness as opposed through mandate and force. Peter contends that cultural change is only possible when it is preceded by relationship and connectedness among its members. Peter is the author and co-author of several books (see Selected Bibliography below). His most recent, The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods (2010), is co-authored with John McKnight, emeritus professor of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University. This book is a culmination of Peter's work on community and the cultural change needed for the creation of a more sustainable future.

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