Leading Through Difference Starts with You.

Coming July 2026

Turn Friction into Fuel. Learn How the Best Leaders Make Difference Work

Our teams have never been more complex, and the challenge of leading them has never been more urgent. From Harvard Business Review Press comes a leadership guide for transforming your team and creating a thriving organization in a world full of difference.

Look around your team. Different communication styles, cultural norms, and perspectives appear every day in meetings, decisions, and moments of unexplained tension. Most leaders try to work around these differences.

But what if those differences are the very thing your team needs to succeed?

In All the Difference, Susan MacKenty Brady, Stuart D. Kliman, and Leslie C. Smith, offer a practical playbook for turning difference from a potential value drain into better thinking, stronger collaboration, and measurable value.

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Read the Introduction

Meet The Authors

Three Leaders. One Powerful Playbook.

Susan MacKenty Brady

CEO, Simmons University Institute for Inclusive Leadership; Deloitte Ellen Gabriel Chair for Women and Leadership, Simmons University

Stuart D. Kliman

Founder, Vantage Partners; Head of Business Development, PrescriberPoint; Chief Strategy Officer, Breez AI

LtG (R) Leslie C. Smith

66th Inspector General, Vice President of the Association of the United States Army; Visiting Professor, Georgia Southern University; Board Director

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What sets All the Difference apart is its unflinching honesty about why managing difference is so hard in the first place. This is leadership wisdom forged in radically different contexts—from boardrooms to battlefields—distilled into a framework that’s as practical as it is transformative.
If you’re serious about unlocking the full capability of your team, this is your playbook.
—Kevin B. Churchwell, MD, CEO, Boston Children’s Hospital
All the Difference offers leaders a clear and actionable roadmap for navigating the complexity of modern teams. Susan MacKenty Brady, Stuart D. Kliman, and Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Leslie C. Smith show, with clarity and heart, how to turn difference into an engine for trust, creativity, and results. This book is essential reading for anyone leading in today’s world.
—Dorie Clark, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of The Long Game
Leadership gets hardest when different perspectives collide under real pressure. All the Difference offers a practical, human approach to building trust, working through tension, and turning difference into better decisions and stronger results.
—Patrick Gilligan, President and CEO, Point32Health
Strategy fails or succeeds based on how leaders handle difference. Left unmanaged, difference derails execution; harnessed well, it fuels innovation, commitment, and results. This book makes clear why leading through difference is the most critical leadership capability of our time, and how to build it.
—Bruce Patton, Cofounder and Distinguished Fellow, Harvard Negotiation Project Coauthor of the perennial bestsellers Getting to YES and Difficult Conversations
Leading in a rapidly changing world requires unleashing the value of every team member. And what makes one different is also what makes one invaluable. All the Difference is a must-read playbook for forging the differentiating strengths across a team, an organization, into a unique collective superpower.
—Sanyin Siang, Executive Director, Duke University; Coach K Leadership ; Ethics Center; Thinkers50 Coaching Legend
All the Difference reframes difference as a source of return rather than risk. With clarity and real-world insight, the authors show how to convert everyday tension into trust, performance, and long-term value creation. A timely guide for executives navigating complex environments.
—Stephen H. Wise, Cohead, Americas Corporate Private Equity, Carlyle
All the Difference meets leaders exactly where today’s work actually happens—where varied perspectives, styles, and experiences collide under real pressure. This is a grounded and highly usable guide for leaders who want to create teams that don’t just function, but truly work better because of their differences.
—Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is the Thinkers50 #1 Executive Coach and New York Times bestselling author of The Earned Life, Triggers, and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.
In rooms where cultures, temperaments, and timelines collide, leaders have two choices: manage around difference or build with it. All the Difference shows you how to do the latter with humility, precision, and deep insights. The authors turn theory into 6 Target Actions that are not only repeatable but also, life-changing! The trio of authors are trustworthy practitioners who’ve built teams, advised C-suites, and grounded their guidance in research and lived experience. If you care about results and relationships, about building trust that travels across borders and roles, this is that one spectacular playbook that can guide you and your teams into new dimensions of success.
—Alan Way, Executive Director, Private Clients, LOUIS XIII Americas, Rémy Cointreau

Meet The Contributors

Meet the Leaders Who Make Difference Work

All the Difference was written by three leaders who built the framework from decades of real-world experience. To bring it to life, they were joined by executives, nonprofit leaders, and military officers who shared real success stories from their own experiences leading across difference. Their generosity is what makes this playbook matter.

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Harland Chun

Former Executive, Hasbro Asia Pacific, Hasbro, Inc., Reebok International and Reebok China.
The Honorable Francisco Sanchez

Partner at Holland & Knight, former U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for Trade; former Assistant Secretary for Aviation and International Affairs, U.S. Department of Transportation
Seung Gwon, MD

Chief Medical Officer & General Surgeon, CA
David Chang

Commodities Portfolio Manager, Wellington Management
Erika H. James

Dean, Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania
Ryan McCarthy

24th United States Secretary of the Army
Kevin Weiss

CEO, Sectigo; former President, McAfee
Peter T. Church

Chief People & Culture Officer, Point 32 Health
Kimberly Cockrell

SVP; Chief Human Resources & Administration Officer, Toyota North America
Aron Ain

Executive Chair; CEO, retired UKG
Tom Connolly, PhD

Former CHRO Vertex Pharmaceuticals, UBS, MF Global; Former CEO GattiHR
Reggie Fils-Aime

Former President & Chief Operating Officer, Nintendo North America
Jay Gellert

Former CEO & President, Health Net Inc.
Arun Gupta

CEO of NobleReach, Venture capitalist, Lecturer, Stanford University
Shanda Hinton

Vice President, Culture & Organizational Health, RTX
Dr. Lynn Perry Wooten

President, Simmons University
James C. McConville

Retired four-star United States Army General; 40th Chief of Staff of the Army
Jose Mola

Vice President Stadium & Campus Operations, The Miami Dolphins & Hard Rock Stadium
Sheryl Palmer

CEO, Taylor Morrison
Djuan Rivers

Former Vice President, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Walt Disney World
Charles W. M. Roberts MD, PhD

Executive Vice President, Director, Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Oncology, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
Alejandra Sosa Pieroni

EVP, Enrollment, Marketing, and Student Success, Georgia Southern University