Preface

Do you ever feel like the whole world is looking to you for leadership—even if it’s just your own world? Today we find ourselves in similar places regardless of our business or organization. The pressures are on. Demands for new ideas and new talent are real. Growth seems to be on everyone’s mind, whether it is to grow your business, expand your influence, multiply your supporters, increase your diverse talent pool, or gain market share. And, by the way, make it fast.

A respected leader once shared with me that the word leadership has a Germanic origin meaning to “find a new path.” What is encouraging amid all the chaos today is there is a constant stream of achievements rising up from individuals and organizations across the world finding new paths that are creatively addressing the problems we face with new thinking and a resurgence of our pioneering spirit as people.

I wrote this book for you to experience walking on some of those new paths and, at the same time, take away everything you need to forge your own. The idea for this book arose out of observation, experience, participation, and inspiration from what seems a lifetime of study and practice that has involved putting our differences to work. The most meaningful part of the journey has come from those I met and learned from and with along the way. Writing the book grew out of first asking myself a number of new questions, and now I ask you to consider them, too:

• Who needs to become a leader today?
• What skills and qualities do we really need in our leaders at all levels?
• What role do people and their differences play in our achievements?
• How well are we utilizing the talent we have?
• If innovation is the “engine of growth,” what fuels the engine? xi xii
• Where is the greatest opportunity for innovation?
• How can everyone contribute and reap the benefits of innovation?

The answers to these questions hold the promise of healing, enriching, and transforming workplaces, marketplaces, communities, and our world, and they formed the premise of Putting Our Differences to Work. The ideas in this practical guide change the prevailing rules of how to think, behave, and operate as leaders and innovators in three specific ways.

First, we learn that all we already know about leadership is valuable. However, to strengthen our portfolio of skills, five distinctive qualities of leadership are introduced. They fundamentally change the rules in how we think and act. They reframe old notions that no longer work to our advantage in our organizations or wherever we find ourselves having an opportunity to have a positive influence on others. These qualities are needed at all levels of leadership, including individual contributors and aspiring leaders who may not see themselves as leaders. Our distributed workplaces and communities mean that we all step in and out of leadership roles that require new skills to understand, interact, and relate with others different than we are.

Second, the ideas in this book draw together four diverse elements of business and society that have traditionally been handled separately in our work and our thinking—if not by our words and processes, then certainly by our visible actions and practices: innovation, leadership, diversity, and inclusion. Putting Our Differences to Work reframes how these four elements are connected and proves the possibilities that reside with this powerful foursome. The outcome is measurable with meaningful benefits for individuals, business, society, and our world.

Third, the ideas in the book elevate the significance and importance of people. They put people and all their differences at the forefront of all achievement. We need them—and all of their differences, talents, energy, new ideas, and expertise. Diverse people are the fundamental fuel for innovation to serve business and society, for new levels of leadership in our respective fields, and for realizing the highest levels of achievement for our organizations. Through concrete examples, you will learn how our differences multiply the possibilities for innovation, the “engine of growth.” You will also witness the profound influence that inclusion has to engage everyone, accelerating the process of acceptance, understanding, and ownership for new ideas, as well as new products and services. The ideas in this book ask us to reconsider where we are today and reach beyond the trendy economic jargon that has come into fashion that defines people in terms of human capital and tends to overlook the importance of people considerations in the mainstream of our business and organizational strategies. xiii

Everything about this book, from its cover to its content, reflects the results of putting our differences to work. Its pages are marked with many fingerprints. I wanted it to be a book that reflected its title—a true mirror of putting our differences to work. This book holds the wisdom of many thought leaders, mentors, sages, and teachers crossing all segments of society. I’ve had the good fortune to know many of them. Some I’ve never met, but they are very present in this book. When all the differences are put together, it is a virtual gathering of great minds and pioneering spirits coming together across time and distance to share knowledge and know-how with you.

Every action taken in the process of writing this book brought with it echoing voices from all those who dreamed, dared, and sacrificed before us. I’ve heard them whispering across time as I worked on this book. Like all those with a pioneering spirit, one learns that history doesn’t record every name and face, but all of us benefit today from the many who cared and risked and reached inside to find the strength to respond to the call of their generation and time.

Above my desk, seven original paintings stretch across my wall—of Mother Teresa, Viktor Frankl, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Jalaluddin Rumi, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Each face watches over me as I work every day, creating an ever-present reminder of the importance of this journey of continuous renewal that you and I are on at this time in history. I’ve always believed that we can remain in a continual dialogue with leaders like these shining examples if we are open to listen and learn from the wisdom they left for us.

While writing, I heard Dr. King reminding us once again why our efforts have significance: “All life is inter-related. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Mother Teresa encourages us to xiv step up and do our part: “Don’t wait for the leaders. Do it alone, person to person.” Gandhi inspires us when we are personally overwhelmed by the magnitude of the struggle: “When you are after a righteous cause, people pop out of the pavement to help you.” Viktor Frankl doesn’t let us escape without recognizing that regardless of how difficult and impossible circumstances may appear, we are in charge: “Everything can be taken from a man but… the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way.” Eleanor Roosevelt tests the authenticity of our leadership: “It is not fair to ask of others to do what you are unwilling to do yourself.” Rumi reminds us, on many levels, that this is not a journey of thoughtless action: “Attention to small details, makes perfect a large work.” And Nelson Mandela reminds us that “with freedom comes responsibility.”

I learned long ago that a story is a moment in time you can revisit over and over again. Better yet, if the story contains wisdom and knowledge, it is timeless. Stories can ignite your courage. They can be a catalyst for a new idea. They can bring out the best in your leadership. When I was selecting the “pearls and gems” from my work to include in this book, there were special stories I wanted to share because they had this kind of enduring quality. Each story includes the context and my experience of the leaders. This seemed to bring life into each story that would be somehow lost, if not mentioned.

My greatest hope for Putting Our Differences to Work is that it will be one of those books that you read, internalize, put into practice, and keep as a ready reference and guide for using your passions, intellect, knowledge, and skill to pioneer a new era—one that puts your signature on the twenty-first century—opening the way for the human dimension of leadership to reign.

And now the journey begins.

May the returns for your efforts and example in putting our differences to work leave an enduring imprint wherever you are called to lead the way.

I welcome you.

Debbe Kennedy
Montara, California
April 2008