What We’ve Learned Since Launching All the Difference

That has certainly been our experience since All the Difference launched.

Over the past several weeks, the three of us have talked with leaders, readers, interviewers, colleagues, clients, and friends about the ideas in the book. We’ve heard what people underline. We’ve been asked questions we didn’t anticipate. We’ve seen people recognize themselves in the four Landmines of Managing Difference, sometimes with an uncomfortable laugh.

Here are a few of our biggest discoveries since launch:

People are curious about how the three of us came together

One of the questions that has surprised us the most is how often people ask how the three of us came together in the first place. On the surface, perhaps it is an unlikely author trio: a retired three-star Army general, a longtime strategy and collaboration advisor, and a leadership expert, author, and executive coach. But our differences became part of the work.

We brought different experiences, language, perspectives, and instincts to the same questions: How can leaders turn the inevitable differences between people from a source of strife into a source of strength? How can good people, who come to work every day wanting to make a positive contribution, work more effectively together?

And how can we interrupt the deeply human responses that so often get in the way? We quit but stay: “It’s futile. Nothing will change around here.” We avoid: “I’m just going to do it my way.” We become certain, defensive, frustrated, or resigned. We tell ourselves stories about other people and their intentions. These responses are understandable, but they diminish our ability to learn from one another and access the value our differences could create.

We had to practice what we were writing about along the way. And readers have helped us appreciate that our collaboration is a big part of the story of All the Difference. Difference isn’t simply the subject we studied. It was something we experienced and learned to leverage together.

The universality of the ideas is resonating

We are also struck by how many different kinds of people see themselves in the book. Readers across ages, backgrounds, cultures, experiences, and industries are finding an entry point into the work. That matters to us because difference is universal. We encounter it at work, at home, in our communities, and in virtually every relationship that matters to us.

The 22 leaders who contributed their experiences to the book reinforce that universality. They come from very different worlds and bring wonderfully different perspectives. Readers have also responded to something we hoped would come through: there is simplicity and even humor in recognizing our shared humanity.

Especially when it comes to the landmines. None of us is spared. Including the three people who wrote the book.

We wrote about a new intelligence without realizing it

Perhaps the biggest surprise since launch is that conversations with readers have helped us put a name to something that was hiding in plain sight throughout the book: Difference Intelligence™.

We didn’t use that term when we wrote All the Difference. But as people began engaging with the six Target Actions and four Landmines, we started to see the framework differently ourselves. Together, they develop a capability. All the Difference, we now realize, is a playbook for building Difference Intelligence.

And it begins with how we lead ourselves.

Know Yourself asks us to understand our strengths, triggers, biases, capabilities, blind spots, and defensive tendencies. Return to Respect When It Matters Most helps us recognize when we’re drifting from our best selves and choose how we want to show up. Activate Honesty helps us tell the truth about what is hard and invite others to do the same, giving us access to information and perspectives we couldn’t generate on our own.

From there, the remaining Target Actions ask us to become maniacally curious about what others see, understand more of the full story, create greater togetherness, and turn what we learn into action. The Landmines help us recognize the predictable human behaviors that can get in the way.

The more we’ve talked about the book since launch, the clearer this has become: Difference Intelligence isn’t something you either have or you don’t. It’s a leadership capability we can practice, develop, and strengthen over time.

Conviction and certainty are not the same thing

A question we’ve been thinking about since launch is where conviction fits into all of this. If Certainty is a landmine, does strong leadership require us to somehow become less certain of everything?

We need leaders with conviction. People need to know what their leaders value, where they stand, and what they are willing to act on. Difference Intelligence™ doesn’t ask leaders to abandon conviction. It asks us to resist confusing conviction with certainty. You can know what you stand for and still remain curious about what you might not know. Difference Intelligence allows us to stand firmly in what we believe while remaining genuinely curious about what someone else might help us see.

That combination of conviction and intellectual humility feels increasingly important in a world where information is abundant, perspectives are multiplying, and AI can produce a remarkably convincing answer in seconds.

The military language can sometimes get in the way

We’ve also learned that some readers initially interpret the Target Actions and Landmines through the lens of Les’s military career. The language can suggest command and control, following orders, or even feel intimidating to some. That isn’t the intent of the metaphor.

Landmine recon is about awareness. The four Landmines name deeply human behaviors that can diminish our ability to engage difference productively. The Target Actions give us something to practice instead. Importantly, the work begins with the leader, not with fixing everyone else.

We hope people begin seeing difference differently

Perhaps the conversation we most hope All the Difference starts is the simplest one: What if we began seeing difference as a value-creating asset? Difference exists everywhere: in perspective, experience, expertise, personality, generation, background, belief, working style, function, and culture. It is an unlimited potential source of value at work and at home.

The question is whether we know how to access it. When we do, we create the conditions for better decisions, innovation, intelligent risk-taking, joint problem-solving, adaptability, psychological safety, and stronger execution. When we don’t, value gets left on the table, financial and otherwise.

Publishing All the Difference has reminded us that reflection turns experience into learning. In this case, listening to readers has helped us understand our own work more clearly. We set out to write a simple playbook that creates a pathway to trust in an era where machine learning is disrupting everything around us and the world is more polarized and suspicious and complex than ever before.