The Loudest Duck - by Laura A Liswood (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Diversity in the workplace is a wonderful thing--but it also challenges many of today's business leaders. For managers and team-members alike, it can be difficult to navigate in a truly diverse workplace made up of people of different cultures, races, creeds, body types, hobbies, genders, religions, styles, and sexual orientations. But understanding our cultural and social differences is a major key to a high-performing, merit-based work environment.

The Loudest Duck is a business guide that explores workplace diversity and presents new ideas for getting the most business and organizational benefit from it. In the Chinese children's parable, the loudest duck is the one that gets shot. In America, we like to say that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Comparing the two, it's easy to see that our different cultures teach us different sets of values, and those values often translate into different ways of doing business that may subtly advantage one culture at work and disadvantage another.

In the global marketplace, it's more important than ever that we understand and are conscious of our differences to work together effectively. It is not enough to create Noah's Ark, bringing in two of each kind. We all bring our unconscious beliefs and personal narratives about who we are and who others are with us to work and, with diversity in place, we can no longer ignore them. Truly effective leaders can't pretend that we're all the same or that our preferences and preconceptions don't exist. The Loudest Duck offers a way to move beyond traditional diversity efforts that ignore our differences and toward modern diversity practices that embrace those differences--and profit from them.

Diverse organizations require more sophisticated leadership, conscious awareness of diversity issues, new behavioral patterns, and effective tools for reaping the benefits of true diversity. This book will help you develop the skills you need and the tools you can use to go beyond what Grandma taught you to make diversity work in your business.

More than just an enlightening tale about diversity, The Loudest Duck is a powerful resource for any manager, business owner, team leader, or employee who wants to meet the challenges of the modern heterogeneous workplace. It's not simply about accepting others--it's about ensuring a level playing field for everyone and building an organization that gets the best from all its people.

From the Back Cover

Praise for the Loudest Duck

"Laura Liswood has both great theoretical and practical understanding of diversity--why it is important in organizations and why attempts to create it often fail to deliver. The Loudest Duck is essential reading for anyone who wants to maximize the effectiveness of organizations or just wants to understand why things are the way they are."
--Rt. Hon. Kim Campbell, Canada's 19th and first female prime minister

"Laura Liswood brilliantly shows us how to get to Diversity 2.0 and beyond. A workplace of people from different backgrounds can lead to tensions, but this book shows, with great insights and examples, how it can lead to real creativity instead. It's an indispensable guide for managers and leaders--and also for anyone who wants to succeed in any aspect of life."
--Walter Isaacson, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Aspen Institute

"Laura's timing is perfect, and her message is spot on. Embracing diversity creates competitive advantage. Her book should be mandatory reading for everyone in business today. In the most engaging, fun, and real way, Laura gets to the heart of the opportunity--enabling Noah's diverse floating Ark to fly to the moon and beyond."
--Beth Brooke, Global Vice Chair of Public Policy, Sustainability and Stakeholder Engagement, Ernst & Young

"The Loudest Duck is one of the clearest and most profoundly informative analyses of why, despite decades of effort and investment, most diversity initiatives fail to produce the promised benefits to organizations or their employees. This book goes beyond analysis and provides a new language of metaphor that captures the unexamined dynamics of dominance, unearned privilege, and unconscious bias that undermine our attempts to create truly diverse and inclusive workplaces. It is a must reading for leaders who are serious about diversity and inclusion in their organizations."
--David A. Thomas, H. Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School; author of Breaking Through: The Making of Minority Executives in Corporate America

About the Author

LAURA LISWOOD is a Senior Advisor and former managing director for Global Leadership and Diversity at Goldman Sachs and is Secretary General of the Council of Women World Leaders. She has held executive positions in the banking, cable television, and airline industries, and cofounded The White House Project.