San Francisco, CA -- The future belongs to organizational diversity ... and to change-promoting management literature that can be read, shared, reused and toted with greater ease than the latest issue of your favorite business magazine!

That was the exhilarating message from Steve Piersanti, president of longtime leading business publisher Berrett-Koehler, and veteran leadership consultant Debbe Kennedy as they jointly announced BK's release of Kennedy's Diversity Breakthrough!® Strategic Action Series ... a unique "toolkit" of six booklets and an innovative boxed-for-travel book and pack of 52 "dialogue" cards that condenses Kennedy's proven approach to promoting genuine organizational change into a practical, step-by-step gameplan.

"Diversity Breakthrough! is the first complete series in a new kind of resource BK is making available to its readers," announced Piersanti. "It's concise, it's inexpensive, you can buy either the whole integrated kit or just what elements you need, and as many as you need."

As adaptable to individual reading and small groups as it is to broad, company-wide initiatives, Diversity Breakthrough! "was designed to get as many people actively involved in the change process as possible," said Kennedy, a former IBM Equal Opportunity manager. "The goal of a good diversity initiative in the 21st century is to make diversity and inclusion mainstream -- it's essential for attracting and keeping the best talent and necessary to drive the innovation and creativity needed to win in the marketplaces of our world."

Already Diversity Breakthrough!® is earning raves from the management world for both its clear-headed approach to the often thorny, abstract issue of workplace diversity and for its format, which, according to Piersanti, signals the publisher's pioneering efforts to move beyond the traditional business book.

Kennedy, founder, president and CEO of Leadership Solutions Companies, whose client list is headed by Hewlett-Packard and Agilent Technologies, the author of Breakthrough! Everything You Need to Start a Solution Revolution, says that Diversity Breakthrough! emerged as a natural extension of her work helping a wide array of organizations initiate the change necessary to become more diverse, inclusive cultures.

Central to achieving a "diversity breakthrough" is getting people at all levels to talk to each other. The boxed-for-travel set, Action Dialogues with a Foreword by Frances Hesselbein of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation, contains a book with step-by-step processes a complete set of dialogue and diagnostic tools for helping individuals and organizations elicit honest, succinct feedback in a safe, welcoming dialogue.

Each booklet focuses on a phase in what Kennedy calls the "imperfect circle" of change, from the initial "Assessment" and "Acceptance" through "Action," "Accountability," "Achievement" and-"lest anyone rest on their laurels too long," Kennedy jokes, "More Action". In total, the booklets also include over 50 first-hand accounts of taking on the diversity challenge from leaders at such diverse organizations as Hewlett-Packard, IBM , CellularOne, GTE, the U.S. Army, San Francisco's Grace Cathedral ... even the Lowell Area Schools in America's heartland.

The top names in organizational management have been quick to praise Diversity Breakthrough! for an array of reasons:

• It demystifies the often forbidding challenge of "addressing diversity" by structuring it into seven manageable organizational realms -- leadership, culture, involvement, the business, strategies and measures, staffing and development, and ownership.

  "I took a tour of Debbe Kennedy's new work one evening, and the next day was able to utilize her tools with a client. This is a perfect set of interventions for the beginner or the skilled professional."
  --Beverly Kaye, President, Career Systems International, Inc. and Beverly Kaye & Associates, Inc.

• It is designed so that managers at every level of an organization can walk away from a meeting equipped with concrete action steps for every phase of change.

  "I'm totally overwhelmed with the excellence of the materials. I think Diversity Breakthrough! is an enormous contribution."
  --Frances Hesselbein, Chairman of the Board of Governors, The Drucker Foundation

• In keeping with Kennedy's idea that change happens in an "imperfect circle", each component of Diversity Breakthrough! is designed to be used as often as needed.

  "The powerful and novel set of activities and exercises ... draws in everyone and enables them to climb to a new plateau of understanding and commitment."
  --Joel A. Barker, author, Discovering the Future: The Business of Paradigms

To learn more visit www.diversitybreakthrough.com. The Diversity Breakthrough! Strategic is available on Amazon.com or through Berrett-Koehler's www.bkconnection.com or by calling 800-929-2929.

For more information, contact:

Michael Crowley
Berrett-Koehler Communications, Inc.
415-743-6464
BKCOMM@diversitybreakthr
http://www.diversitybreakthrough.com