Putting Our Differences to Work: The Fastest Way to Innovation, Leadership and High Performance (Bk Business) - Hardcover

Kennedy, Debbe

 
9781576754993: Putting Our Differences to Work: The Fastest Way to Innovation, Leadership and High Performance (Bk Business)
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1576754995 ISBN 13: 9781576754993
Verlag: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2008

Inhaltsangabe

Putting our differences to work means creating an environment where people, naturally unique and different—diverse by nature and experience—can work more effectively in ways that drive new levels of creativity, innovation, problem solving, leadership, and performance in the marketplaces, workplaces, and communities of the world. 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.
Kennedy has written both a personal and a practical guide that changes the prevailing rules of how to think, behave, and operate as a leader, connecting four diverse elements of business and society that have traditionally been siloed: innovation, leadership, diversity, and inclusion. She and futurist Joel Barker also look at how new discoveries, including Web 2.0 technologies, can draw us closer together in previously unimagined ways.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Debbe Kennedy is the founder and president of Leadership Solutions Companies, an award-winning women-owned enterprise specializing in custom leadership, organizational, and virtual-communication solutions and the Global Dialogue Center. She is known for her pioneering contributions in people-focused leadership-employee communications using Web 2.0 technologies and other social media. Formerly, she had a distinguished leadership career with IBM. She is the author of Breakthrough! The Problem-Solving Advantage: Everything You Need to Start a Solution Revolution.

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The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.

—Mahatma Gandhi

Introduction
The Fastest Way

Organizations and individuals all over the world are discovering that putting our differences to work is the most powerful accelerator for generating new ideas, creating innovative solutions, executing organizational strategies, and engaging everyone in the process.

This book is about how to make your own discovery of this truth. It comes with everything you need to get started right where you are.

The breakthrough is the essential ingredient of diversity, in its broadest sense. Real value lies at the intersection of our differences. This encompasses everything from our thinking styles, problem-solving approaches, experiences, competencies, work habits, and management styles to our ethnic origins, cultural backgrounds, and generational insight (see the Dimensions of Difference illustration). All our differences give each of us a unique perspective from which to draw, including gender, race, physical abilities, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, age, and everything that makes us who we are

image
Dimensions of Difference

The value lies at the intersection of all that makes us different… 2as individuals. The magic begins when we come together. The secret is learning how, when, and where to tap into all the wealth of insight, wisdom, and new thinking to solve problems, create new products and services, and build stronger communities with benefits for everyone.

In 2005, I had an opportunity to get a memorable glimpse into our emerging generation of innovators and the experience of putting our differences to work today. I was invited to speak at an online Leadership Forum hosted by Microsoft on the topic of “How to Get Buy-in for New Ideas.” With innovation commonly being known as “the engine of growth,” I wasn’t too surprised when the Forum drew a crowd. In what seemed an instant, over 550 leaders showed up online. I had no idea at the time that the group was so diverse, because I could only see their names. Later, I learned they came from over twenty countries representing regions across the world, including Europe, Asia Pacific, Canada, Latin America, and the United States, demonstrating that people with new ideas are a universal treasure. They represented major companies from every industry, as well as entrepreneurs, government, military, education, health care, and community organizations. I discovered the group was a cross section of CEOs and senior leaders, managers of every type, as well as educators, business owners, ministers, and consultants. Imagine all this diverse talent coming together, peer to peer, meeting on common ground, because we were brimming with new ideas to bring to our respective organizations. Up front, I asked the group why they came to this particular session. I admit, I was moved by the responses. I recognized there was a deeper level of connection among us that would have been missed if I hadn’t asked the question. Ninety percent described themselves as change leaders or innovators with new ideas to improve their businesses and organizations. Nearly half indicated that, over and above their jobs, they had come because they hoped to change the world. And this was just a small random sampling of leaders at one meeting. I have learned, since this group heightened my own awareness, a growing number of us would describe ourselves and our missions in a similar way.

In this one hour, we accomplished much together. We learned about presenting new ideas and pinpointed common problems standing in the way of innovation, change, and growth in our organizations. The dialogue continued through emails and influenced a series of smaller online conversations that I hosted in the following weeks.

Three main issues generated the most comments, discussion, and correspondence afterward. They are indicators of the gaps that still exist between leaders and employees effectively putting their differences to work to innovate and influence organizational success. See if any of these sound familiar 3 to you and what other truths you might add to the mix from your own experience:


Our company culture isn’t open to new ideas; process is more important. There is a lack of interest in change and innovation. Everyone sees the need; no one wants to take the risk. New approaches aren’t welcomed.
Gender, race, and age still play a role in acceptance of new ideas in our organization. If you think differently or ask too many questions, it leads to losing the respect of senior leaders.
Senior leaders/managers take ideas and present them as their own. The focus from our leaders is on execution of strategy; they’ve forgotten people are leading it for them. It would be great if they showed more interest in what people have to say.
These comments are good examples of common issues that stand in the way of putting our differences to work effectively across any organization. This kind of breakdown in communication erodes trust and impacts productivity and achievement in ways we may not even notice unless we are paying attention. Here is a question to consider for yourself and your organization:

What are the chances you or other leaders in your organization might be leaving similar impressions with those looking to you for leadership?

Most of us go along thinking we are doing a great job, so receiving this kind of feedback isn’t fun, often comes as a surprise—never at a good time—and is disappointing to the best of us. No one would purposely want to have members of their teams thinking this way. The important lesson we all need to remember is directly related to effectively putting our differences to work: it isn’t what we think we are doing that matters; it isn’t what we’ve said, think we’ve said, or wish we’d said; it is what others perceive and receive from us that has the sweeping influences—influences we often don’t realize restrict both the individuals and the organization from delivering the highest levels of results, innovation, leadership, and performance.

One of our biggest culprits is our language. Putting our differences to work requires that we develop the ability to communicate with the people we are counting on most to fulfill our business and organizational strategies and goals. This means reaching them, understanding what they need from us to be great themselves, so they can accomplish great things for the 4 organization. To do this, we need to become conscious of what we say and how we say it. Eric Hoffer, a well-known American social writer, summed up this need nicely: “The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.” In recent years, “the visionary and the idealist” messages that come from a leader’s heart are frequently getting replaced with economic buzz words in sound-byte form. One example of this trend shows up in the results of a survey.

Top 10 CEO Challenges Overall
Rankings of Challenges of “Greatest Concern”

Excellence in execution
Sustained and steady top-line growth
Consistent execution of strategy by top management
Profit growth
Finding qualified managerial talent
Customer loyalty and retention
Speed, flexibility, adaptability to change
Corporate reputation
Stimulating innovation/creativity/enabling entrepreneurship
Speed to market
Source:The Conference Board, October 2007.

In October 2007, The Conference Board released its CEO Top 10 Challenges, reporting the results of a survey of 769 global CEOs from 40 countries. Each of these...

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Verlag
Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Erscheinungsdatum
2008
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1576754995
ISBN 13 
9781576754993
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
224
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