Joel A. Barker reviews:
Putting Our Differences to Work
by Debbe Kennedy
Debbe Kennedy shows how to make all the dimensions of difference--such as thinking styles, perspectives, experiences, work habits, and management styles, as well as more traditional diversity considerations like gender, race, ethnicity, physical abilities, sexual orientation, and age--tremendous sources of strength.
Kennedy draws on the latest research and a wealth of real-world examples to offer compelling evidence showing exactly how putting our differences to work accelerates innovation and contribution. She identifies five distinctive qualities of leadership that leaders must add to their portfolio of skills to make differences an engine of success. And she provides a detailed six-stage process for making the most of differences in the workforce, combining first-person best-practice stories and strategic with tactical ideas to help you put each step into action.
About Debbe Kennedy
Debbe knows the leader’s journey. She has experienced it as a successful entrepreneur, a change-leading strategic partner for Fortune 100 executives and managers, a pioneer of working in virtual space, and in a distinguished leadership career with IBM Corporation for over twenty years. Her work and leadership influence have contributed to communications solutions for senior management across many corporate functions, including employee communications, marketing, professional services, diversity and inclusion, culture, employee engagement, business ethics and policy development, women’s issues, management development, employee development, human resources, strategic planning and implementation.
She is a pioneer and innovator in people-focused leadership–employee communications in virtual space, including creative uses of Web 2.0 technologies, and other social media. The hallmark of Leadership Solutions Companies’ contributions is reflected in Debbe’s strategic business partnership with Hewlett Packard spanning well over a decade. She is the author of Putting Our Differences to Work: The Fastest Way to Innovation, Leadership, High Performance. (Berrett-Koehler 2008).
Blog: Putting Our Differences to Work
Join the ongoing conversation with lessons learned and inspiration from the journeys of leaders and innovators across the world past and present.
The Global Dialogue Center
Do you hear it? The Global Dialogue Center was created in response. It is a virtual gathering place for people throughout the world with a focus on leadership, professional, and personal development. We hold a strong belief that people who are thinking, questioning, exploring new ideas, learning and spending meaningful time together are more effective leaders of organizations, communities, schools, governments, and families across the world—as well as, being catalysts for the change we need to create a better world than we know today. The future is ours to create.