Confronting Our Freedom

Explore the nature of modern leadership

In Confronting Our Freedom, a team of dedicated leadership coaches delivers an exciting and engaging new take on management and leadership. Drawing on recent events in the market and in the world, including the Great Resignation, the COVID-19 pandemic, and widespread digital transformation, the authors invite you to reimagine ideas of freedom and accountability in the context of work. You’ll explore how freedom of action—for managers and employees—is what gives rise to true accountability, both in the community and in the workplace.

In the book, you’ll also find:

• Discussions of the power and structure of freedom, including its implications for our own choices and lives
• Ways to shift the focus of your leadership and management to accountability and freedom
• Strategies for shifting the illusion of clear roles and expectations to one compatible with fully human organizations

A groundbreaking and incisive approach to managing and leading others in virtual, hybrid, and in-person settings, Confronting Our Freedom will be an eye opener for managers, executives, and other business leaders seeking to improve their ability to inspire others to their fullest potential.

Preface

Prologue: Then Was the Moment

The past is not past

What lies ahead

Introduction: The Philosophic Insight

Conversations on freedom and accountability

The view from where we are

Parenting is the origin story of management and leadership

Shifting the historical context

Philosophic insight in the world of organized effort

The existential understanding

I The Power and Structure of Freedom

Rewards

Freedom, reality, choice, and will

Accepting our freedom

The fundamental insight

Implications: The Forms of Freedom

Choice, reality, and will

II The Potential of Anxiety

The fruits of your patience

Solving anxiety

The promise of anxiety

The language of freedom: It is an inside job

Shifting the context to freedom and accountability

Implications: Anxiety as an ally of accountability both central to performance in a time of permanent uncertainty

The permanent condition

Being conscious

III Speaking of Death and Evil

Death is an option

A storm in the shelter

Facing reality. Taking charge of our life.

A summary of usefulness of the reality of death

Final facts

The presence of evil

Denying the reality of evil

Do no harm

Implications: failure, fear, death, and evil

IV Fully Human Organizations

Guilty as chosen and guilty as charged

The Sound of freedom

Reversing the illusion of clear roles and expectations

Not enough

Our expectations

What are we to do?

Real and chosen accountability? Fully human organizations

Epilogue

References and Background Reading

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Index

About Designed Learning

PETER BLOCK is a writer and consultant working in the areas of chosen accountability, the reconciliation of community, and restoring the common good. He is the author of nine books, including the bestselling Flawless Consulting, Stewardship, and Community: The Structure of Belonging.

PETER KOESTENBAUM is a renowned existential philosopher and the founder and chairman of Philosophy in Business and the Koestenbaum Institute. After a career in academia, he worked as a business consultant and leadership coach for major companies around the world, including Ford, IBM, Novartis, Citibank, Volvo, Amoco, and more. His most recent book-length work includes The Heart of Business: Ethics, Power, and Philosophy and Leadership: The Inner Side of Greatness.

Many management theory and practice resources preach the supposed necessity for clear constraints to succeed in the world of work. According to these sources, guardrails and boundaries are necessary preconditions to guiding and motivating your followers. But what if the conventional thinking became obsolete as soon as the digital transformation and the COVID-19 pandemic upended the way we live and work? What if the path to real accountability lies in more—and not less—freedom of action, for ourselves and the people we lead?

In Confronting Our Freedom, distinguished leadership advisor Peter Block and renowned business philosopher Peter Koestenbaum deliver a fascinating and practical new take on management and leadership. Drawing on recent events in the market and in the world, the authors invite you to reconsider what the concepts of freedom and accountability mean to you in the context of work and business.

You’ll discover how freedom of action, for both managers and employees, is what gives rise to true accountability, both in the workplace and in the community. You’ll reexamine the nature and structure of freedom, including its implications for our own choices and lives, and find ways to shift the focus of your management and leadership style to one that prioritizes accountability. You’ll also find strategies for shifting the illusion of clear roles and expectations to one that’s fully compatible with human-centered organizations.

An insightful and groundbreaking approach to leading, inspiring, and managing others in virtual, hybrid, and in-person settings, Confronting Our Freedom will benefit managers, executives, board members, and other business leaders doing their best to bring out the full potential in the people who follow them.

Praise for CONFRONTING OUR FREEDOM

“These two authors—Peter and Peter—offer us an exposition that will burst open many of our best assumptions and categories of interpretation. They range widely into our economy; they dig deeply into our most intimate and demanding relationships; and they probe honestly into issues that divide and summon our society. The sum of this is fresh thinking about the great gift of freedom and our shared responsibility for the well-being of our society. These authors come at issues in fresh ways. It is not a surprise that their judgments result in a profound summons to us.”
—WALTER BRUEGGEMANN, Columbia Theological Seminary

“Confronting Our Freedom: Leading a Culture of Chosen Accountability and Belonging is a book of its time where distributed work and post-pandemic living have ushered in a new set of challenges and opportunities when it comes to how we want to live and work. This book is another foundational work by Peter Block that will serve a new generation of thinkers when it comes to asking the big questions about what is a company and how does it serve in the world.”
—ROB LOCASCIO, Founder and CEO, Live Person, Inc.

“In Confronting Our Freedom, Peter provides a radical departure from organizational life as we know it. He invites us to deconstruct long-held practices and ways of being in the workplace that prioritize control, predictability, and an unhelpful relationship between leader and employee. Many of these practices we in Human Resources have created and perpetuated with the best of intentions. After reading Confronting Our Freedom, I am inspired to reimagine how different our workplaces could be when we believe freedom is inherent in every person and accountability is chosen rather than induced. This is a must-read for everyone practicing human resources in today’s workplace.”
—TONYA HARRIS CORNILEUS, PhD, Senior Vice President, Learning & Talent Solutions, The Walt Disney Company