Peter Block is the best-selling author of the "bible" of consulting; Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used. Another book, The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Skills at Work, is also highly regarded Block's books suggest ways to create workplaces that are habitable and where people can live out their intentions. Today, his work focuses on bringing service and accountability to organizations and communities.

In this interview, Block, who is part of the ASTD Legends group, answers questions readers posed earlier this year.

Q. Recently, you've been talking about changing how we think about our need to "do something," especially during crises. Do you think this reaction is cultural or a part of the "fight or flight" response?

A. It is part of our cultural identity. We define ourselves in America by our ingenuity, which means our pragmatism, our cleverness, and adaptability to a challenge. We have little interest in ideas, aesthetics, or the qualitative dimensions of life.

Q. Whether cultural or ingrained, how exactly does one act on that need do something?

A. One must decide that thinking is an action, conversation is a strategy, and relationship is an outcome. Doing something is much more profound than simply deciding something, because most of what we "decide" never gets acted on.

Q. You've said that many of the decisions we make are focused on controlling events but that this type of mind-set creates dysfunction. How so?

A. Much of what matters cannot be controlled. Control over important things is an illusion; so we think that if we talk as if the world can be dominated, controlled, and predicted, it will be so.

Q. You've recommended changing our way of thinking by reflecting on our experiences and shifting consciousness in order to understand how we build our world. Do you see this as a personal exercise or one that should be done by organizations as well?

A. Both. We do it collectively, through a large-group method such as Dannemiller Tyson's Whole-Scale Change process, and individually.

Q. If organizations should do this, how would they do it?

A. Organizations must change the way we come together. They need to bring people together to think, reflect, and imagine, not just to send messages and ask for commitment.

Q. You've said we must make relationships primary and focus on the things that bind us together. To accomplish this, you recommend having discussions that use what you call the "language of reconciliation." The language of reconciliation has four elements: acknowledging we are part of the problem, offering forgiveness, making the "un-bartered promise" (a promise for its own sake), and expressing gratitude. What's your response to those who would say this is too "touchy-feely," especially for an organization?

A. People who think that are not paying attention. All people touch, feel, blame, and eventually realize that they are part of the problem they have been complaining about. To argue that this is too "touchyfeely" is to pretend we don't work in human systems. Unfortunately, often it is people in the staff roles who are the most timid about recognizing we work in human systems and need to act accordingly.

Q. What has led you to these conclusions that we have to change how we think and focus on relationships?

A. I have looked carefully at which organizations achieve greatness and which simply get rich and survive. I have never seen a great organization that did not understand the importance of relationships.

Q. How likely do you think it is that the world will move in this direction?

A. Much of the world of organizational life is already moving in this direction. It is just that you will never read about it or have it acknowledged in the public debate. Those who report on the world and control the debate have a curriculum of crisis and elitism that skews the impression of the way most people live.