Recently, I’ve had a sad, increasing sense of déjà vu. Twitter has become even more vacuous, and LinkedIn has quickly devolved into a business version of Facebook. Literally right after I finished this draft, I read a newspaper headline: “Twitter Use Eroding Intelligence. Now there’s data to prove it.”

Peter Block suggested a radical solution 20 years ago: new conversations. From a 1999 article of his: 

“I would like to see a six-month moratorium on the following conversations:
• The importance of having the support of top management
• How workers do not want to be empowered
• That leaders need to provide a good role model
• How to hold people accountable
• How to get people on board and aligned
• The need to be customer-focused
• How to do things faster and cheaper
• How to give more choice to the people close to the customer
• The need for a clear and common vision
• The ground rules for dialogue, consensus, teamwork, decisions, and feedback
• The importance of systems thinking and whole-system change
• The call for servant leaders, and the end of command and control
• The need for continuous improvement”

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