Month: September 2025

Introduction

Following some comments about On getting to being okay I decided to do a deeper dive into the Getting Above the Line (GATL) pilot project, which was subsequently delivered in my former department by the Global Leadership Foundation (GLF) twice since 2020.

GATL was intended to deliver a relatively simple model of thinking about our emotions with an emphasis on personal responsibility and self-awareness. Neither of these things are easy to master and GATL certainly wasn’t going to deliver mastery in 4 1-hour long sessions, plus some homework. The goal was to offer a simple model that could then be the foundation for self-directed efforts.

The prompt for thinking about GATL was a reflection on the national RUOK day and how it is that so few of us are comfortable talking about our own emotional states, or even thinking about them, with any comfort or ease. Since 2020 there really has been no let up in psychological pressure, so the need for a simple ‘starter kit’ may have grown.

Originally, I was reacting to what colleagues with diagnosed depression were telling about how ‘disclosure’ of that diagnosis slammed back on them as a kind of stigma. I wanted to ‘change the conversation’ but quickly realised that if that was going happen, we needed to become more emotionally ‘literate’ ourselves.

Below I want to reflect more on GATL, its benefits and potential.

Why try?

Quite apart from the fact that I have needed to confront and address my own emotional responses to acquiring a significant disability, and learn how to be more emotionally intelligent, my work background has exposed me to psychiatric disorders in many settings. I am comfortable with ‘mental illness’ as a way of understanding how and why we fail to, or are unable to, respond to experiential trauma in an effective way. I have read widely on psychiatry and psychology as well. I am not asserting I am an expert in these fields, only that I feel comfortable. This matters because the alternative is to feel uncomfortable and to be unable to confidently confront a concern about psychological distress.

I deliberately avoid using the term ‘mental illness’ because it is laden with dogmatic assumptions. There are people who experience levels of psychological distress that are extreme. But the chances of encountering them in the workplace are remote. Mental illnessisn’t a term that is useful when we are mostly considering psychological or emotional injuries. We are most dealing with concerns about emotional health. I don’t like ‘emotional illness’ as a term. I prefer ‘emotional injury’. Experiencing anxiety or depression is natural and normal but not being able to flick the ‘off switch’ and return to ‘normal’ afflicts some of us.

Why this might be the case may be subject to clinical speculation but it’s no stranger than finding you can’t recover from any other injury because of some unanticipated physical condition. This is no better demonstrated, in my view, by the way that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has evolved as a concept. It has evolved from being thought of as something confined only to a response to the risk of physical death to a response to existential harm. This is a much more sophisticated understanding that deep trauma can be triggered by experiences that cause serious emotional harm. This can include emotional abuse, rejection and isolation, sustained bullying and other experiences that cause deep existential distress.

There are those who will disagree with me, maybe even vehemently. But this isn’t an area where there is common agreement. There are people with entrenched dogmatic beliefs, some of whom practise as clinical professionals. My point is that even if you don’t want to explore the field yourself, do understand there is no indisputable authority.

I am firmly in the camp of those who think that the experience of being human isn’t innately the realm of those who have degrees in psychiatry or psychology. We have a rich heritage of wisdom and compassion of our own to draw upon to help us respond effectively to most of our woes.

Most of us don’t have the time or inclination to read so there is great value in having a simple and actionable guide to greater awareness of our own emotional states.

Centres of emotional intelligence

We naturally talk about our head, our heart and our gut when we describe our responses to life circumstances. It is interesting that we also have neurons in our gut and our heart. I like the way the GLF builds on this natural reflex to craft a model of understanding our emotional responses. On their website we can read:

“If you were asked by someone to describe what you ‘think’ with, you’d probably look at them strangely and respond with ‘My brain, of course’. Interestingly, it is not as simple as that. In fact, when we are thinking effectively, we are doing so not just with our brain but with our whole body.

‘Whole body thinking’, or presence, is thinking the balances three centres. ‘Head thinking’ is more rational and logical and provides great insight. ‘Heart thinking’ connects us with our feelings and emotions and brings intuition. And ‘body thinking’ uses our senses and brings ‘gut feel’ or instinct. Each of us is capable of thinking in all three of these ways. However, in the process of developing a personality, we tend to lean more strongly towards one of the

three, which then becomes our primary filter for perceiving what we think is reality. Higher levels of emotional health are characterised by the ability to give close to equal weight to each type of these centres.

Emotional health

The idea of emotional health is at the core of GLF’s approach. This is from their website:

“A person with a high level of emotional health takes personal responsibility for the way in which they relate to and engage with others and the world around them. Emotionally healthy people have a well-tuned inner observer: they are conscious of themselves – their thoughts, their emotions and their behaviours – and the impact they have on others. They are able to recognise and overcome the various influences and constraints they experience (either from others or themselves) through the choices they make and the practices they use.“

Vertical development

Another key way of thinking about emotional health is seeing our acquisition of skills and knowledge as a ‘horizontal’ development that must be balanced by ‘vertical’ development – which I see as gaining depth of insight. GLF’s website sums this up:

‘Vertical development’ is about building our ability to distinguish and let go

of our own limited thinking and perceptions. As this occurs we are more

able to genuinely relate to and engage with others and the world around us.

The Neuroleadership Institute backs this up when it says that we should ‘train’ for insight, not just deliver information. Triggering insight is critical if we want to stimulate our motivation to learn and to change our behaviours. Even having the technical capability to perform a task may not be sufficient to achieve a desired or intended outcome. Without insight and self-awareness we may lack that ‘secret sauce’ that enables us to resonate with others.

Conclusion

“Gaining a full understanding of emotional health is an ongoing journey, even for those of us who have worked with it for a long time.” (GLF website)

We have to start somewhere. The GLF model is simple but sophisticated. The critical ideas can be represented in visual form. The idea of a ‘line of responsibility’ (above which one should strive to stay) is almost ridiculously simple as an idea, though staying above it might be a challenge. But it is better to face that challenge with a method that isn’t going to demand complex ideas and language.

I made myself a graphic which depicted degrees of self-centredness versus degrees of behavioural freedom. They are inversely related. As one grows the other shrinks. I used to have it printed out and visible. Writing this has prompted me to put up a new one. It’s been a while.

At the most basic level, immediately above the ‘line of responsibility’ is ‘Recognition’ (self-awareness) and immediately below it is ‘Automated Response’ (reflex). A simple idea but it is so hard to shift from self-centred reflex to freer self-aware behaviour.

GATL was an effort to bring profound and powerful ideas to people quickly and effectively. Doing so in four one-hour online sessions, plus a bit of homework could only ever be an intro – a starter kit.

Below is some feedback from some participants in the 2020 pilot.

Participant 1

What empowered me from the training was that I learnt to: 

• pause and become aware my own and others’ reactions – understanding why I/they react as I/they do. 
• identify and manage my own emotions.  
• think before acting and manage impulses.
• understand motivations of other people and have empathy.
• initiate strategies to effectively manage relationships and build teams.
• think with my head, heart and gut and that a neat trick is to touch that area to remind myself to stay present in that zone.

Participant 2

I found all of the content useful. I have been trying to implement the strategies/models into my day-to-day life since we started. Once more employees across DCJ have completed the sessions it will be easier to apply these learnings into team practices and truly integrate into DCJ culture.

I think it was also exceptionally positive having participated in the training with a diverse group of people who are not all from the same team. I think that allowed us all to share our honest thoughts and feelings without fear of judgement or retribution. I can see it would be useful to have mixed groups with managers/employees as it will further enhance empathy and understanding of lived experiences.

I felt refreshed after each session. It was somewhat draining because that degree of self-reflection is not natural for me, but it was a wonderfully positive experience and I’d happily recommend participating to anyone.

Participant 4

This is not just a work training opportunity; it is a valuable and enjoyable personal growth and awareness experience!

The Global Leadership Foundation (GLF) training workshops can be influential to our organisation, as they reinforce DCJ values and can help bring us closer to creating respectful workplaces. The training concepts embed a foundational understanding and a ‘shared language’ – for us as individuals, colleagues, and for managers alike. Enhancing the way we work together, engage with one another, our stakeholders and clients. Participants will come to better understand their own and others Emotional Health (EH) levels, ‘position’ and responses. The training also promotes conscious awareness of Emotional Health levels on any given day. 

Participant 5

I thoroughly appreciated Global Leadership Emotional intelligence workshop.

This course encourages a person’s capability to moderate and control one’s emotions as well as the ability to manage the emotions of others.

This course provided me with a direct insight and awareness into:

• Self-regulation: the ability to manage one’s negative or disruptive emotions, and to adapt to changes in circumstance. Those who are skilled in self-regulation excel in managing conflict, adapt well to change and are more likely to take responsibility.
• Motivation: the ability to self-motivate, with a focus on achieving internal or self-gratification as opposed to external praise or reward. Individuals who are able to motivate themselves in this way have a tendency to be more committed and goal focused.
• Empathy: the ability to recognize and understand how others are feeling and consider those feelings before responding in social situations. Empathy also allows an individual to understand the dynamics that influence relationships, both personal and in the workplace.
• Social skills: the ability to manage the emotions of others through emotional understanding and using this to build rapport and connect with people through skills such as active listening, verbal and nonverbal communication.

Introduction

I have been reading some interesting material lately on how people think about Disability Inclusion and what motivates their actions. Some are born with their disability. Some acquire it while they are young. Others acquire their disabilities at various stages of adulthood. I was on the more mature side of the adult spectrum when I acquired my disabilities. 

One of the things about acquiring a significant disability later in life is that there’s a chance you might have some life experiences to draw on for the process of adapting and responding. 

In 2008 I contracted GBS and acquired mobility and grip disabilities. My ankles ceased functioning as they used to, and I required Canadian crutches to get around. I started off with a rollator – essentially a tray mobile with a seat but that was a nightmare on the train during my daily commute when I returned to work. 

I loved walking, reading and real-life problem solving. My past work experience was almost exclusively in the public sector (4 federal and 6 state agencies) – and most of that was about engaging with the public or the community. My roles were very people oriented (from intimate personal care to problem solving interviews to conflict resolution) Also a substantial portion of my work was disability related in some way. In my last agency I was initially employed as a Support Manager – coordinating health and community access services for residents of privately run accommodation services for people with disabilities. 

When I acquired my disability, I was developing and running tendering processes mostly to acquire disability accommodation services. A lot of what I had done previously involved monitoring and assessing performance of service providers and negotiating compliance or developing solutions. 

Walking used to be enjoyable but now is slow and perilous. I could still read but, because of my accompanying grip disabilities, I switched to ebooks and audiobooks. 

When I became a founding member of my department’s Disability Employee Network in July 2010 I was interested to discover that the majority of members were from the community disability support teams. These were people with disabilities whose jobs were working with people with disabilities in the community. They were engaged in practical problem solving. The advent of the NDIS saw the end of those jobs. By the time I became DEN Chair in November 2016 none of these members were left. 

In June 2023 I commenced a consultancy, working with staff network leads with my former employer. This was a novel experience, and I had to discover what made me a successful lead. While there are leadership skills that can be learned we all have a foundation of experiences and attitudes upon which we construct later philosophies and skills. It wasn’t a case of trying to make other people lead the way I did. I had experience as an effective leader but that didn’t necessarily mean I knew how to help others be effective leaders because of that experience. I had to quickly develop insight into myself and the leads I worked with. That was hard work. It was also deeply rewarding. 

I especially had to remember that other people didn’t necessarily see the world through my eyes – and hence while my hammer led me to see nails everywhere not everyone had the same tool. 

One great lesson for me came by accident in around 1991. I was Advisor Disability Licensing cover northern NSW with a brief to inspect and license over 130 aged and disability residential and employment services.  I had no previous experience in this area. Because I sometimes spent all week in the field, I had a lot of time to listen to radio shows and audiocassettes. I didn’t listen to music because I was on paid time and figured I should be educating myself. I came across an audio course on conflict resolution in my department’s library. There were 6 audio cassettes which I played repeatedly over about 3 months. When I stopped at a service, I practiced what I had been listening to. I got to be very good at conflict resolution – a skillset that has served me well since. 

I brought those conflict resolution skills into my role as DEN lead. As my consultancy progressed, I became more aware of other experiences and skills I had brought into that role. I became more able to talk with ERG leads about tapping into life experiences that could inform their sense of leadership.

Diverse leadership inspiration

A few recent experiences, including my consultancy, have made it clear to me that being effective leader for any ERG is vital, and that allowing one person to dominate can be a problem. There are, of course, individuals who are great leaders.  When I was an ERG lead, I realised I needed more eyes and minds than just mine on the job. That was an attitude I developed when I was contract managing employment programs and Business Enterprise Centres – develop collective leadership commitment to identify and address issues of concern. I created regional coalitions of services to enhance service delivery, share insights and imagine potentials. 

This experience inspired me to create the DEN’s Guidance and Action Team (GAT) – 15 members who volunteered to be more involved in helping the DEN address inclusion and equity issues.

Another useful experience was my time in 1997 as a Community Recovery Coordinator on the Tasman Peninsula after the 1996 shootings at Port Arthur. I learned just how important it was to listen to multiple voices and back off if you are the wrong solution for the problem. My employer had developed an idea of unmet need through talking to community ‘leaders’ but didn’t talk to the community itself. It needed some gentle support but not some clown running around organising meetings they didn’t want. Mostly they wanted to be left alone. There was a need to be met, but it was the one articulated, not the one imagined.

This taught me to not assume my take was the best one, and to listen with care and respect to what others were saying.

The leader as hero isn’t a good idea

Leadership isn’t about control, though it might be about being in control of oneself. It is more about influence. This is a modern development arising because the old hierarchies no longer exist. Now we may be leading people who are older, more experienced, better qualified or who have greater expertise – people who are our equals.

My predecessor on the Tasman Peninsula spoke only to the community and government leaders. They assumed the existence of a need but did not check it out. Only a few people thought there was a need to ‘lead’ community recovery. This was old hierarchical thinking.

There is an abundance of very good books on leadership available. They reflect a contemporary data-driven approach which is grounded in psychology at an individual and organizational level.

My favourite is Loretta Malandro’s Fearless Leadership because it was ideal for me as an ERG lead getting my head around being in a leadership role that really had no formal status. Malandro introduced me to the idea of situational leadership. Brené Brown’s Dare to Leadwas also inspirational. I was keenly aware that both had the theme of courage in their titles. But this wasn’t about being heroic so much as overcoming one’s own doubts and committing to influencing – being bold enough to share one’s vision (sourced, of course, from many people).

I think the GAT was an ideal manifestation of this new way of thinking. In September 2018 I called for volunteers from the DEN membership. Fifteen responded. They were smart, passionate and hurting. They were cranky too. It took 12 months to persuade them to be a disciplined and professional force for good. I have since repeatedly referred to the GAT as the heart of the DEN and I was surprised when one of the original members said I was just saying that. I wasn’t. The DEN’s success would not have been possible without them.

Culturally we have moved out of hierarchies into communities of equals. Our organizational structures are slow to reflect this, but we know it as individuals. We see this in the language of teams, and we know it from our direct experiences. We respect competence and capability, not position.

Organizations demonstrate the degree to which they are slow to catch up with this reality by the fact that narcissists and psychopaths are disproportionately represented amongst the ranks of executives. Similarly, people who are psychologically ill-equipped to work well in teams aspire to leadership and management roles – and often succeed.

Effective leadership in ERGs

ERGs are modern phenomena that reflect our contemporary values of representation by peers. When I became a founding member of my department’s DEN in 2010 there was still a hierarchical spirit around. But that was 15 years ago when some ideas and values were still in the early stage of definition and transition. 

ERG leadership is still seen by some as a heroic individual or two co-chairs or co-leads. The term ‘chair’ reflects the legacy of an ERG being seen as a staff association of amateurs and volunteers rather than a vital employee-led group of competent and professional peers. I now prefer the term ‘coordinator’. The need for effective leadership is still there but the term reflects less reliance on hierarchical status and more reliance on functional skills like inspiration and persuasion. I am constantly reminded of Ernesto Sirolli’s advice – “You cannot motivate, only inspire!” 

ERGs operate outside the normal organizational hierarchy. As DEN lead I had direct access to my department’s Secretary and three Deputy Secretaries. This was something neither my manager nor Director felt comfortable about. These were also relationships I had to manage with great care.

This makes situational leadership a challenging role to perform. If done well it can be transformative. If done poorly an ERG will languish in ineffectuality.

Conclusion

The opportunity to work with ERG leads obliged me to delve deeper into the theories of what an ERG is than I had done before – and I found that there weren’t any that were of much use. There were assumptions and habits lingering from a transitional phase that should have ended a few years back. Part of the problem has been that ERGs haven’t been studied. They are widely perceived to be ineffectual and hence not worth inquiring into. The other part of the problem is the lack of self-reflection by ERGs themselves. Organizations maintain them as a good idea – in a vague sentimental manner. Nobody has done a value for money assessment.

However, well-led companies do support effective ERGs, probably because there is a culture of accountability and a theory of what the ERGs are for. Public sector ERGs are a manifestation of intent to comply with legislation and policy, and that is often enough for an agency. This leaves many a public sector ERG with untapped potential that can be realised through effective leadership – from the organization as well as the ERG. A key task for such leadership is negotiating a theory of the function and benefits of an ERG within an agency/sector and securing the resources to deliver those benefits.

The attention given to leadership these days reflects a critical trend. It’s not that there is a greater demand for leadership per se, but for far better leadership. This is probably no better demonstrated in the works of two former navy seals – Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. Their book, The Dichotomy of Leadership has a 4.8 star rating on Amazon, with 87% of the 6.9k reviewers giving 5 stars. That’s extraordinary, and it reflects a desire for greater self-awareness and personal accountability among current leaders. It’s a great read.

The theme of leadership has attracted a huge level of serious research and scholarship for the past few decades. This reflects the growing recognition and importance of effective leaders in our non-hierarchical age. They can make or break organizations and teams. In the contemporary business environment that is a critical element in survival and success.

For ERGs, DENs or staff networks (call them what you will) leadership is under-estimated and under-valued. There’s a lot of work to be done if we want these groups to deliver on the unique potential they hold. 

As usual, I want to promote the work of PurpleSpace. It is still the only organization I know that is dedicated to creating effective Disability ERGs.

Introduction

RUOK Day is on Thursday 11 September this year (2025). Each year it triggers the same concern in me. The idea of the day is powerful but those who are asked to be prepared to ask whether a workmate, friend or family member is feeling okay may not have a comfortable sense of what psychological stress or distress might be. 

This dimension of our wellbeing has long been dominated by the idea of ‘mental’ health or ‘mental’ illness. While there is a persistent dogma that insists that being human is something only psychiatrists understand, there is a strong and growing self-care, self-awareness, self-management movement. 

I grew up at a time when emotions were dismissed as signs of weakness – fit only for children and women. It really wasn’t until the late 1960s that this mindset began to change. But it still took a few more decades before thinking about emotions became popular. I read Daniel Goldman’s Emotional Intelligence shortly after it was published in 1995. Now, a quick search of Amazon throws up over 50 offerings on the theme of emotional intelligence. 

Research into organizational behaviour and leadership has produced a rich source of content that emphasises the critical value of self-awareness and personal accountability. 

There are over 50 podcasts on psychology, as well as YouTube videos and who knows how much else on other social media (which I don’t use). 

However, it doesn’t matter how much content is around if people don’t engage with it and don’t become comfortable enough to reach out to somebody in need. 

The line

Toward the end of my time as a disability ERG lead, I became concerned about what members with diagnoses of depression were telling me about the stigma they felt. I wanted to do something to ‘change the conversation’.  In early 2020 I started working with the Global Leadership Foundation (GLF) on what became a pilot program we called Getting Above the Line (GATL). It had promise as a means of helping people become more aware of their emotional reactions by giving them a simple tool rather than a psychological theory. 

The GATL program consisted of 4 1-hour sessions held over Teams or Zoom. It introduced the Personal Responsibility model and then explored how to use it.

The line refers to an idea that there are states of emotion where we feel in control and states where we are not. It’s called ‘the line of choice’. Above it we accept personal responsibility for our behaviour. Below it we blame, defend, deny and justify.  Below are the elements of a scale, with my rephasing). So, above the line, in ascending order there are – recognition(awareness and ownership), social value (positive constructive response), wisdom (insight) and presence (above it all). Below the line, in descending order, are – automated responses (negative and reflexive), exaggeration (blowing things out of proportion), survival (just hanging in), preoccupation (can’t let it go) and delusion (self-justification and denial of any responsibility).

Rephrasing is a useful exercise because it’s a measure of the extent to which you acknowledge that these are the stages we go through.

I like the GLF’s essential themes, and I especially like the idea of emotionally healthy leadership. There has been a lot of research into leadership in the past decade or so emphasizing the importance of self-awareness and personal accountability. Leadership is a useful theme because it applies to situational leadership rather than just formal roles. Leadership includes a capacity for empathy and the need to create psychologically safe settings for others. 

In fact, the failed NSW government’s Age of Inclusion campaign from 2020 had a manifesto which envisioned that leaders would “inspire with self-awareness and empathy”. Unfortunately, nobody thought to add those capabilities to  team leaders’ and managers’ role requirements – which was a great pity. 

In the context of Disability Inclusion, I prefer organizational leadership texts because they are a well-structured, data driven, and actionable guide to relational and situational self-awareness and personal accountability.  Others may prefer guidance of the self-help or spiritual variety. The point is that there are essential insights that are the foundation of self-managing one’s emotions. It really isn’t effective to reach out to others if you haven’t that vital insight into your own capacity to be aware of and regulate emotions. 

The GLF has a nice little free booklet, Emotional Health and Leadership. You can download it here.

My hope with GATL was to have facilitators trained so the program could be run across my department. But 2020 wasn’t a great time for innovation, even though the need for help to stay above the line was urgent.

What the data tells us

In Australia 23% of people with disability say their primary disability is psychological. Anxiety and depression are by far the most common diagnoses. Aside from those with formal diagnoses there are many people whose lives are influenced by stress and worry – whether at work or in one’s private life. 

In the 12 months prior to the Australian Mental Health and Wellbeing study (2020-2022), the most common mental illnesses in Australia were:

• Anxiety disorders (3.4 million people, or 17% of the population)
• Affective disorders (1.5 million, or 8%) (depression etc)
• Substance Use disorders (650,000, or 3%) 

Psychotic disorders are found in only .5% of the population. So, the most common ‘mental illness’ we encounter is anxiety – something we all know at various times. Depression seems to be the next most common – also something most of us have encountered.

The lived experience

I have no doubt that some people do get into situations where they can’t switch off an emotional response and clinical intervention is the best option. But we so mistrust our emotions that we are prepared to surrender normal emotional responses to clinicians who need to make a living. Some years back I read an article lamenting the way that normal and natural grief was being treated as a disorder by doctors. Not everyone acts in our best interests.

We need to remember that we are heirs to a wide spectrum of emotions, and sometimes our natural capacity for resilience is overwhelmed or impaired. We need help. But this is help that should come from friends and family – and would, if they hadn’t been disempowered by being convinced being human isn’t something we can’t figure out for ourselves.

People with clinically diagnosed conditions are put in a bind. What starts out as an act of self-care can end up being a source of shame. I have been told how the fact of having been given a diagnosis becomes a stigma. One person told me that they disclosed they had a diagnosis of depression to their manager because they did need some accommodation because of a significant personal event. Prior to the disclosure they were trusted to work with little close supervision. But afterwards not only did supervision suddenly increase but their judgement was questioned as never before. Efforts to discuss these changes with the manager were futile.

Back in the 1970s I worked in several psychiatric hospitals. I later worked in Veterans Affairs, where, in the process of preparing summaries of clinical evidence for tribunal hearings, I read and summarised countless psychiatric reports. In subsequent years I worked with accommodation services whose residents were former psychiatric hospital patients. I have long felt comfortable with the idea of mental illness, and this is why I don’t think the term suits people who have experienced emotional distress.

I understand how mental illness has been represented in our community and why any suggestion of it might make a manager, indeed anybody, might react badly. We need to reclaim our right to our experience of the lows as well as the highs of being human without ‘expert’ intervention (unless we ask for it or it is deemed really necessary).

Conclusion

My concern about RUOK day is that it is one day of the year. That’s okay for birthdays, Christmas and Fathers’ Day (I got a very nice highland single malt). But RUOK should only be a reminder that we need to be developing our capability to be open and empathic as a fundamental capacity.

Almost 25% of people who say they have a disability have one relating to their psychological wellbeing.

But there’s more to that than just this. Disability can be traumatic. I spent 10 months in hospital after contracting GBS. I left with serious disabilities. I contracted GBS in April 2008 and come September 2025 I cannot recall anybody asking me how I was coping with such a catastrophic loss of ability. I am doing fine. Thanks for imagining that you have asked me.😊

I am a fan of the ‘Special Olympics’ but I do wish they’d change the name. I remember how ‘special needs’ decayed into the insult of being ‘special’.  The performances are riveting to me because I know a little of where the athlete has had to come from. I am not inclined to emulate them because I am a nerd and sport isn’t my passion.

That said, I fear there is an unintentional misdirect going on. Olympic heroes with disabilities can create an illusion that all people with disabilities must be heroic. This isn’t a conscious thing, but it’s the kind of stereotyping that kicks in without us knowing. 

For example, the 2020 Age of Inclusion campaign included a good reason for employing people with disabilities that was that they were good at problem solving because their disability meant they were good at navigating impediments in the world. No. Stop laughing. I am serious. This was real. It took me near 18 months to get it removed from the Public Service Commission website.

I suspect that some Olympians with disabilities process the trauma of the cause of their disability through dedication to their sport. If you get your lower leg blown off by an IED, becoming an Olympic level athlete makes sense. I write blogs on Disability Inclusion as a way of processing my trauma.

So, my point is that disability can carry its own sense of the visitation of an outage on one’s sense of personhood and cause grief, depression or anxiety. The heroic response is not appropriate for everyone. That’s a myth from a different time. We must be accepting of, and gentle to, ourselves and open, and inclusive of, the pain others experience in whatever hurts them.

To me RUOK day is a reminder for me to ask myself how okay I am to reach out and be a good friend to somebody in need of emotional succour.

And you?

Introduction

A former colleague sent me a newsletter from a body called DENconnect. I read it with great interest and finished it puzzled. It stimulated me to refresh my understanding of DENconnect.

DENconnect’s formation was initiated by the NSW Public Service Commission a few years ago. The original intent was to network Disability Employee Networks (DENs) across the sector. That would have been a useful development but that wasn’t how things panned out. DENconnect is now a separate body with no specific connection with any DENs, despite what its Terms of Reference says. 

To my mind this is a deeply confused development supported by people with more interest in disability as an identity than addressing the inclusion needs of staff with disabilities. It is more performative than solution finding. It is more about feeling good than doing good. 

As I noted in my earlier post on my Functional Disability Theory, I have little sympathy for performative identity politics when there are staff with disabilities with access, equity and inclusion needs that are unmet. DENconnect asserts its primary objective to be Provide an accessible, safe and engaged space where employees with disability, their ally’s (error in original) and champions can all meet and advocate for an accessible and inclusive NSW Government not only for its customers but for employees with disability, executives, and Ministers (from the Terms of Reference 12 April 2024).

Why and how this differs from agency DENs isn’t clear at all. What is the unmet need that DENconnect sees it is filling?

DENconnect imagines an “accessible and inclusive NSW Government”. That might be a noble vision, but it makes a problematic assumption. It says “…not only for its customers but for employees with disability” as if the primary concern for DENconnect is for the government’s “customers”. That, by the way, is an absurd terminology and reflects the disproportionate influence of the Department of Customer Service on the framing of DENconnect. “Customers” includes inmates of prisons, the ill, the homeless and many more who would not regard their contact with the various arms of the public sector as a ‘customer experience’. Some have observed that the police arresting and locking up their ‘customers’ hardly constitutes good customer service. Here language matters because it reflects an unconscious orientation. 

The Customer Service portfolio has 13,390 staff (2024) compared with Communities and Justice which has over 56,000 and which includes corrective services, police, state emergency services, fire and rescue, public housing and child protection. Terminology like “customers” not only reflects an insular perspective but also a lack of consultation across the sector. This matters because agencies dealing with problematic engagement with the community have ‘frontline’ work environments that are less conducive to staff with disability than ‘nicer’ ‘back room’ work environments.

DENconnect’s mission seems ‘relaxed and comfortable’ with the time to deal with non-critical concerns. The reference to “feel safe to disclose their disability”, “raise awareness”, “advocate for” and “talk about” is in stark contrast to a professional DEN networker. Contrast this language with a comment on PurpleSpace’swebsite from a member – “We needed to bring people together to ask some big questions. Did our strategy have focus? Were we executing it adequately? Were we rewarding our volunteers correctly? Did our executive sponsor have our backs? Ultimately, how would we know we were doing well as a network?”DENconnect’s language is very general where the PurpleSpace comment reflects a focused, dynamic and self-reflective orientation.

This more passive and somewhat distracted orientation struck me around the launch of DENconnect. I was at a meeting along with other DEN leads and representatives when the subject of recruiting more staff with disability came up. There was surprising enthusiasm for DENs being involved. This was not something I supported. A DEN, I believed, had one primary focus – assuring existing staff with disabilities were able to do their jobs with dignity, without fear, and with assured access to what they needed.  Of course, a DEN also has a role of ensuring inclusive recruitment practices for existing staff with disabilities and so might offer insight and advice on external recruitment, but as subject matter experts rather than as DEN representatives.

The DENconnect Charter includes this puzzling statement – “We will build and support each other via networks formed in DENconnect. We will actively support career progression or development opportunities for our colleagues with disability and talk about how we can achieve thriving careers in the NSW public sector.” The first thing that struck me is the absence of any reference to other DENs, or addressing unmet inclusion needs of current staff with disability. DENconnect seems to be unrelated to the concern about unmet inclusion needs – and an entirely separate entity in competition with agency DENs.

In one part of the Terms of Reference we find “The different departmental DENs across the sector come together through DENconnect.” The Introduction boldly asserts that “DENconnect is a hub for all existing NSW Government Disability Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) or Disability Employee Networks (DENs) to connect.” But its not, and this is reflected in its structure. It has a committee with 8 members – Co-Executive Sponsor, Co-Chairs, Co Secretary’s (error in original), Treasurer, Comms Lead, Events Lead, Member Inclusion Lead, Co-Advisory Leads.

There is no reference to DENconnect being a representative body for the sector’s DENs other than the brief presumptive assertions above. Nothing in the Terms of Reference demonstrates any regard for any DEN. For example, one might expect that the committee might constitute formal representatives from other DENs, but there is no such provision. 

What, then, might its purpose be? Under the heading More Information we find “DENconnect is a sector-wide network which operates out of the Department of Customer Service (DCS)” This is odd. Why would it need to operate out of any agency? Was anything about DENconnect assented to by any other DEN? (not to my knowledge). Was any part of the Terms of Reference assented to by other DENs? (not to my knowledge). Or is DENconnect essentially a project of the Department of Customer Services? (it seems so).

What identified need is being filled by DENconnect? There was a perceived benefit in individual DENs connecting and sharing experiences. I was part of an early effort. It didn’t go anywhere because DENs were in various states of development and support, and their leads had widely disparate beliefs about what they were doing. There was no strategic guidance at that early stage – which may explain why we have what is there now.

I am struggling to find any justification for DENconnect as it is. As things are across the sector, running any kind of staff network is challenging. Time to run a network is scarce, so the effort put into operating a DEN has to be as effective as possible. Splitting time and effort across two bodies – one’s own agency’s DEN and DENconnect would be problematic for many.

To complicate matters, membership of DENconnect is independent of agency DEN membership. It is possible to be a member of DENconnect only – which effectively makes DENconnect a parallel and competing body, rather than a complementary and uniting one.

What’s with Let’s Rock NSW?

DENconnect has been a major force behind Let’s Rock NSW. I don’t know how to describe this phenomenon. I first heard of it when there was a day out at Luna Park, North Sydney in 2023. I was stunned. I could not imagine a more self-indulgent, self-congratulatory thing to do at public expense. I spoke with a few people who attended, but they were unable to persuade me that they ‘deserved’ that day out. 

The most recent event (June 2025) had an agenda, accompanied by an image of a finger (I can think of only one thing) and a blurb – “At the heart of Let’s Rock NSW is the carefully curated program which promises to rock the foundations when it comes to disability in the workplace.” Let’s look at the main part of it:

• 2:10pm Keynote speaker Hannah Gadsby – Comedian, Writer, Art Person
• 2:40pm Rockin’ it out – audience participation
• 3:00pm In conversation with… Dr Dinesh Palipana OAM – Doctor, Lawyer, Disability Advocate, Researcher – facilitated by Sarah Rose – Paralympian, Author, Disability Advocate, Podcaster, NSW Government Employee
• 3:35pm NSW Government showcase – Disability Inclusion initiatives
• 4:10pm Closing remarks – 4:20pm 

Here’s what I saw in the agenda, remembering that this was an event for public servants with disability held under the auspice of the NSW government. Neither Hannah nor Dinesh are expert in disability in public sector workplaces. There was 35 minutes allocated to showcasing Disability Inclusion initiatives – about which nothing was subsequently reported, not even at 2025 Let’s Rock NSW event highlights. There were no speakers who had expertise in the NSW public sector. There were no presentations by anyone from the NSW public sector other than introductory remarks. No DENs were given the opportunity to talk about challenges, successes and solutions. In sum, the event ducked the hard issues and was more about having a good time. There was that 35-minute nod to Disability Inclusion initiatives of course. But surely that should have been the focus of the event?

This was a “carefully curated program” designed to “rock the foundations when it comes to disability in the workplace.”? The Department of Communities and Justice was strongly represented at the Australian Disability Network’s (AusDN) Awards Night following its Annual National Conference in May 2025. It would not have been unreasonable to expect, given the theme of the event, that the department would have been invited to speak at the event – and maybe even given the opportunity to deliver the keynote address.

The department has participated in the AusDN’s Access and Inclusion Index assessment since 2019 and was awarded: 

• 2024 Access and Inclusion Index: Best in Class – Candidate Experience
• 2024 Access and Inclusion Index: Best in Class – Workplace Adjustments

It also had its Disability Confident Recruiter status renewed for 2024-2025. These achievements would, one might think, be of interest to the whole sector, and especially at an event touted as rocking the foundationswhen it comes to disability in the workplace.

In addition, the DCJDEN was nominated as the winner of the inaugural DEN of the Year award by AusDN, in 2022.

But let’s put this into a wider perspective. DCJ is one of around 25 NSW government agencies which are members of AusDN. DCJ joined PurpleSpace in 2018. The DCJDEN, in company with executive sponsors, presented on its innovative work at the AusDN annual national conferences in 2019 and 2020. In 2020 the DCJDEN chair was offered a fulltime disability specialist role – including DEN Chair as a substantial component (2 days a week, I think). The role was also involved in the Access and Inclusion Index and the Disability Inclusion Action Plan. So, the 2025 awards reflect an ongoing commitment to Disability Inclusion by DCJ that is, I believe, unparalleled in the sector. 

Despite this track record, DENconnect, remains oddly incurious about DCJ’s work on Disability Inclusion. I should observe that I am not excluding other agencies who are doing good work. DCJ is just a glaring example. 

The NSW Public Service Commission’s Linked In account carried this: Let’s Rock NSW – Rethink Disability – Last week, hundreds of NSW public servants attended Let’s Rock NSW, a groundbreaking event on challenging perceptions of disability and driving meaningful change in the NSW public sector. It’s difficult to understand what was “groundbreaking” about it, given the serious work done by agencies that are members of AusDN or PurpleSpace – or both.

It is noteworthy that even the website carried the ‘highlights’ of the event and nothing on the NSW Government showcase – Disability Inclusion initiatives. These seem nowhere recorded or available for review or exploration.

The hype and hyperbole about the event haven’t been backed up by any apparent report of outcomes. What was groundbreaking? What has changed? What is the benefit delivered? 

The ground of confusion

I don’t have a personal beef with DENconnect. It is symptomatic of how a wider social movement can distort the environment in which it intends to be a positive influence – but isn’t. This is what concerns me.

As I noted in an earlier post, I am not a fan of the disability identity trend. My approach to disability is entirely functional. It’s not that I want to ignore the diversity of people with disabilities. I do get that having a sense of being a person with disability can bring meaning to life experiences that might otherwise be perplexing or even distressing. 

But not all disabilities are relevant to all situations. There is a great distinction between being a person with a disability and a person whose disability adversely impacts their work experience. Hence my focus on functional issues concerning disability and my assertion that if your disability doesn’t require an adjustment or an accommodation, it’s not really relevant beyond being a statistic that adds to the spectrum of diversity in the sector, relative to the community it serves. 

The NSW public sector has a responsibility to ensure the workforce reflects the community. That means that it should be working toward having, and being able to measure and report on, a percentage of its workforce with disabilities that is similar to the community. 

The generally accepted figure in Australia is that 18% of the population lives with a disability. At present the target for people with disability employed in the NSW public sector is a modest 5.6% by 2025. This figure was set back around 2018 and seems not to have been revised. It is based upon internal agency diversity data, which is different from the People Matter Employee Survey (PMES) reports. Fewer people declare disability on internal diversity systems than those who report disability on the anonymous PMES survey. The mismatch is due to fear that the internal system does not preserve anonymity.

The NSW Public Sector Report of 2024 notes on page 25 that “In 2024, 2.7% of our workforce reported having a disability…” Considering that some agencies, including Customer Service, showed 10% or higher staff with disability on their 2024 PMES reports, that disparity should be a huge signal for DENconnect – that an invaluable service would be to encourage staff with disability to register on their agency’s diversity records and to address the root of fear.

The visibility of people with disability in the sector is a good thing in terms of understanding the extent to which the community is reflected in the workforce. But without there being an assurance of genuine inclusion within workplaces, there is no way of knowing how many staff with disability are suffering exclusion, disempowered in silence. 

There’s a spectrum of disabilities that are termed ‘invisible’. We know that people who don’t have an apparent disability are disinclined to ‘disclose’ if they see that people with ‘visible’ disabilities are not treated well. 

Our natural bias is ‘ableist’. That is to say that we assume that, in the absence of obvious signs of disability, none exist. This is nowhere better demonstrated by the reactions experienced by hearing impaired people when they ‘disclose’ their disability and ask for an accommodation – like for someone to speak slower and more clearly. Such a request can often trigger an angry response.

Mental illness is another major problem area. It is poorly understood and subject to quite cruel stigmas. Even though anxiety and depression are the most commonly diagnosed conditions and hint at no gross disordered behaviour, we struggle to talk about ‘mental health’.  In 2018, 23% of people with disability said their “main health condition was mental or behavioural”. We won’t talk about ‘mental illness’ directly and struggle with vague expressions like ‘mental health issues’ and even desperately declare that somebody is “suffering from mental health”. I heard senior government representatives use that exact phrase several times. 

There is a lot for a serious DENconnect to work on in a deliberate, constructive and representative way. But it must be clear about its mission. The DENs were originally created to address unmet access and inclusion needs of staff with disability. But now DENconnect has interpreted that mission to be about celebrating the diversity of staff with disability and supporting their career enhancement desires. That’s not an illegitimate mission. My argument is that it’s just not an appropriate mission at public expense while there are staff with disability in the sector whose access and inclusion needs remain unaddressed.

It could have used the Let’s Rock NSW (needs a less juvenile name) event at Randwick Racecourse in 2025 to explore why some agencies have high rates of PMES disability disclosure (e.g. Customer Service and DCJ both have 10% and Legal Aid NSW 14% – others, like the NSW Police Force, are as low as 4%). There is, in fact, a considerable body of data that creates a foundation for an analysis of what works and what doesn’t. You’d hope that the sector has the intellectual chops to undertake such research. But, as I noted, there is a stark absence of effective analysis and insight – as well as curiosity. 

DENconnect is really just a symptom of a much larger problem – a lack of insight into disability inclusion at all levels of government. While there is professed support – because it is mandated by law and policy – there is little moral and intellectual effort applied in a coherent and coordinated manner. DENconnect has a far greater level of government funding and support than agency DENs because it performs a service of ‘caringabout’ without actually delivering any discernible benefit to those who most need its support.

The trend toward disability identity has confused the landscape. Staff with disability who continue to experience exclusion and even abuse are, in effect, collateral damage caused by a movement which hardly acknowledges their presence. 

This is what happens when disability becomes performative. Those who can’t/won’t perform are rendered invisible and irrelevant.

Conclusion

DENconnect strikes me as a well-intentioned but confused entity. It is doubtful whether the members experience much discrimination. This certainly seems to be the case in Customer Service, which appears to be a genuinely caring organization. It is one I deal with more than any other NSW agency, and I have been routinely impressed by the quality of service provided. 

It should not, however, be running DENconnect. The Public Service Commission lists 13 DENs across the sector. Two of them are in the Communities and Justice portfolio – where work environments are very different and challenging (police, corrective services, child protection for example). Two of the other DENs are in fields of service that involve a high level of public contact and where work environments can be challenging (education and health). 

These public contact services have very different cultures and associated risks for staff with disability. These service outlets are scattered across the state in small work teams where bullying is reported more frequently than in the city-based agencies with little direct public contact. The 2024 NSW Public Sector Report notes that: Frontline employees experience higher rates of bullying compared to non-frontline employees. In this year’s People Matter survey, 15.4% of frontline employees reported experiencing bullying, compared to 11.6% of non-frontline employees. (Page 38)

The report also says that: …bullying disproportionately affects individuals with certain demographic characteristics. Non-binary employees reported the highest rate of bullying at 25.4%. Additionally, 24.5% of respondents with disability reported experiencing bullying. 

Customer Service does have public facing services around the state, and there will be members of the public who misbehave. But that’s not equivalent to what police, community services or health deal with.

There is no strategic or intellectual oversight on Disability Inclusion in the sector. DENconnect could provide oversight but it would need to be self-critical, curious, strategic and more representative. The sector, as a whole, can’t provide it because Disability Inclusion is controlled by people with neither lived experience nor insight into disability, in my opinion. The Department of Communities and Justice has primary responsibility for commentary on disability and is uninterested in saying how many staff with disability work in that business area.

There is no doubt great work being done on Disability Inclusion in the NSW public sector, but those doing it are not being celebrated or given a platform to discuss the challenges and strategies to overcome them or celebrate successes. In fact, they seem to be studiously ignored. But maybe, in fact, they are simply not known.

The sector has no theory of Disability Inclusion. In DENconnect’s case it has a vague set of sentiments and no sense of urgency – as befits its environment inside Customer Service. Its ‘nice’ and ‘comfortable’ with no sense of the raw end of trauma experienced by some staff with disability. 

During my time as DEN lead, I was involved in quite a few cases where a staff member was subject to what can only be described as inept and cruel treatment at the hands of managers and, sometimes, colleagues. There is no point in giving staff with disability ‘a voice’ if no one will listen. And there is no point in claiming to be a representative if those who need help can’t/won’t be heard.

The NSW public sector has a wide range of agencies ranging from under 50 staff to over 25,000. Depending on the type of work done and the size of the workforce, staff with disability could be in small teams with responsive managers or in teams in high stress roles with problematic management.  An effective DENconnect would be across these issues and orientated to address them. But, because it has set itself up in effective competition with agency DENs, it has no access to this critical insight.

When a person with disability gets to where they can indulge themselves and trade off the fact that they have a disability, talking about career enhancement rather than psychological safety that is a sign that they have the adjustments and accommodations they need. If that’s their perspective on the sector, that is what they will convey.

I made the point in my The limits of caring post that caring about and caring for are very different things. The former is self-serving – feeling good about one’s identity and fitting into a culture of like-minded folks.

The sad thing about DENconnect is that the people involved are ‘good people’ who seem to me to have invested a lot in their sense of identity as a person with disability. But this is far from being able to meet the needs of staff with disability across the sector who are still experiencing discrimination and abuse. There is no sense of urgency or determination. There is no evidence of an intellectual overview, a strategic insight or a sense of mission. There is certainly no thought of holding the government to account – at agency or ministerial level. There is no activism of the kind that will drive real and enduring change.

I do not understand how a body purporting to represent staff with disability across the sector can behave this way. DENconnect’s statement of purpose asserts: “DENconnect is proud to be building an inclusive culture where people with disability, their colleagues, and allies, support each other to build strong successful careers.” But that ‘culture’ is inclusive only of those who want, or are able, to join it.

There’s a vital distinction between an ‘inclusive culture’ that can be selective about its members and an ‘inclusive workplace culture’ which cannot. The original mission of DENs in the NSW public sector was to create inclusive workplaces – including cultures. That takes skills that must be developed and refined. This is why agencies who are serious about Disability Inclusion align their efforts with organisations like AusDNand PurpleSpace.

It is interesting that DENconnect doesn’t appear to want to be part of this more serious effort.

Introduction

I recently had the great pleasure of meeting Seb Ducarme, Membership Engagement Manager, PurpleSpace by phone. Seb is based on the east coast of Australia but has a global reach. The great thing about him being here is that he will be able to run the kind of events that PurpleSpace runs in the UK and Europe.

Before I go on, I should make it clear that this isn’t an ad for PurpleSpace. It’s more an ongoing affection that stretches back to May 2018 when PurpleSpace’s founder and CEO, Kate Nash, gave the keynote address at the Australian Network on Disability’s Annual National Conference in Sydney. The next day she ran a workshop on Networkology at the Westpac Bank’s HO. 

At the time I had been a Disability ERG lead for 17 months. I had spent that time rebuilding numbers and the ERG’s profile after a prolonged period of restructure and doing the conventional stuff – 4 meetings a year and not a great deal in between.

Kate Nash ‘radicalised’ me and in turn I transformed the ERG into a potent force for change in favour of staff with disability. I won’t retell the story. Suffice to say that in September 2020 my successor was offered the ERG lead role as fulltime. It included a few other jobs as well, which put the ERG lead in the driver’s seat for energising change in favour of staff with disability. That was an extraordinary commitment to an experiment in employee-led positive change. It began with Kate’s keynote speech.

In 2019 and 2020 I was invited to present at the Australian Network on Disability’s Annual National Conferences on the innovative work the ERG had been doing.

Below I want to reflect on how and why I was ‘radicalised’ to become a highly effective Disability ERG lead.

Networkology

Kate introduced me to the idea of Networkology in company with the notion that data was important when it came to Disability Inclusion. The idea that Disability Inclusion was a rational discipline wasn’t a shock to me other than it hadn’t entered my head that it could be applied in this case. I had been reading in management theory for decades and completed an applied management program. But I hadn’t imagined this applied to Disability Inclusion – the realm of volunteers and amateurs.

I had been involved in the Disability ERG since its founding in July 2010 and had never thought of it as more than a passive staff association mostly providing lived experience insight for policy and program reform.

With the advent of the idea of Networkology the ERG became an energised agency for advocacy and a driver of change. I eventually envisioned it as a de facto business unit – a professional partner with the department creating the changes we all wanted to see happen.

I comprehended Networkology as a discipline, a science and this utterly transformed how I operated. Thank you, Kate!

The life of a Disability ERG without Networkology

Our original Disability ERG was set up as a kind of staff association. This was novel to everyone, and our first job was to educate HR on the reality of being a staff member with a disability in the department. This was a good and productive process for awhile and then things went slow. We had gotten disability onto the agenda. This was a priority, but now we had made it, we were competing for attention and resources like everything else on the agenda. 

We had neither the culture nor the means to grab and hold attention, so after the initial success we lost ground. It was now okay that unresolved issues of accessibility, fairness and bullying could be put on the backburner until there were funding and attention available to address those needs. That was not a good thing, but what to do?

I was aware that other Disability ERGs had adopted a union-flavoured approach which developed a contentious sentiment toward executive leaders. That hardly helped. I wanted collaboration and partnership. Networkology gave me the theoretical model and then, when we joined PurpleSpace, there were practice guides to make it happen as well.

Conclusion

PurpleSpace is the only organisation I am aware of that has a professional commitment to supporting Disability ERGs and their organisations. I was very fortunate that my department’s executive leadership fully understood that commitment from the top was crucial if the Disability ERG was going to be an effective partner in helping the organisation meet its obligations concerning Disability Inclusion.

However, I more often saw that organisations assumed that their staff association-based Disability ERGs were responsible for leading implementation of the vital changes that ensured accessibility, equity and fairness. They are not. They are critical partners in delivering those changes that the organization is responsible for ensuring happen. Maybe Disability ERGs also have a role in reminding the organisation of its duty and priority – but as an equal partner, not as an amateur and volunteer body.

Driving any kind of change in an organisation is a complex and challenging role. Disability ERGs should be playing a vital part as an equal partner in bringing those change efforts to fruition. But to do so skills must be developed, relationships must be established, and insights must be distilled and shared.

Neither Disability ERGs nor their organisations will usually have the necessary insights and skills to make this happen unassisted.

It is no exaggeration to say that my success as a Disability ERG lead was grounded in PurpleSpace’s insights and methods. Their critical insights into leadership capabilities and strategies made the difference for me. One word sums it up – Networkology. There’s a science behind success that can be learned. The art of being successful is up to us – and belonging to a community of practitioners can help that a lot.

Seb said its okay for me to include his email address: [email protected]