Category: Uncategorized

Introduction

After my last essay I was reminded that people with disability are still being called ‘inspiring’. My immediate reaction was to ask, “Who is inspired, to what are they inspired, and what action have they taken?” To be fair, I will allow that a person with a newly acquired disability may be inspired by a Paralympian to participate in sports. But that’s not how it usually goes.

The colonisation of identity

I have often been told that I am inspiring, and I have had to bite my tongue. I was supposed to feel good that I had excited a rush of emotions, triggering a dopamine hit like a small win on a poker machine. I don’t come with sound effects – just a cranky silence.

If my visible disability inspired action toward greater enactment of inclusion I wouldn’t be writing this essay. It doesn’t, because a dopamine hit triggered by an excitation of a sentiment of empathy or sympathy doesn’t change behaviour. It just stimulates a desire for more hits – more expressions of sentiment. 

My theory is that my identity as a person with disability is co-opted in the service of making others feel good while delivering no benefit to me, or other people with disability.

Here is an illustration of how this works. The 2021 NSW Public Sector State of the Sector Report noted that people with disability are the most bullied segment of the workforce. It also noted (on page 39) that “Bullying, discrimination, sexual harassment and racism should not be tolerated.” Note the passive ‘should’, rather than an active ‘will’ or an imperative ‘must’. What is going on here?

On page 47 there is a graphic chart on bullying, which I will translated into approximate figures – people with disability 24+%, Aboriginal people 20+%. LGBTQI people around 17%. Two other groups over 15% were regional and frontline staff – that’s a whole different problem area.

On page 6, in Commissioner’s foreword, we read “The workplace experience for people with disability is an area in which I want to see us make significant improvements. There is much to be done to ensure people with disability feel they are included and belong in the workplace, and are supported to do their best work.” Note the expression “there is much to be done.”

The report does not say people with disability are inspiring. But the problem is the same. There is a problem – staff with disability are being bullied at a far higher rate than other staff. They are not, therefore, ‘supported to do their best work’. There is an acknowledgement that there is “much to be done”, but  bullying is only passively frowned upon. Conflicted and mixed messages.

But here’s the thing – if you are supposed to be committed to Disability Inclusion, but you aren’t really, making a show of being so is all that is needed. That showing can give you a dopamine fix and fool you into thinking the sentiment is real. Substituting sentiment for action is something we all do. This is why we fail at our efforts to convert a ‘new year’s resolution’ into action.

Saying you are committed to Disability Inclusion doesn’t mean you are. Only acting out that commitment is real.

This is a cranky point for me. When people express empathy for, or sympathy toward, people with disability but don’t do anything it comes across as a form of abuse. Our identity is used to serve their ends – they get the dopamine hit and we get nothing – except an expectation we should feel good because we have inspired somebody to express a positive sentiment. This is not okay.

This isn’t a problem solely for people with disability. Inclusion in general is mired in sentimental inactivity. Iris Bohnet’s What Works is a critical examination of stalled efforts on women’s equality in workforces. Her solution is intentional and systematic action – going beyond the sentiment.

Leadership is where empathy goes to die

In an earlier essay I wrote about how it is acknowledged that leaders lack empathy, and this seems to be something innate in our evolutionary past and our neurology. I get that. I see that in many situations, empathy impedes effective leadership – war is a good example. I am not saying I approve, just that I understand that what lies in our evolutionary past is what it is.

But that’s not okay these days. Our cultural values have evolved faster than our personal reflexes. Even the military has had to adapt. Now concern for individual wellbeing is a necessary consideration. Expressing an inclusive sentiment, getting a dopamine hit and moving on without converting that sentiment into action isn’t okay – in theory. It still is in practice.

Part of the problem is the reliance on a purely intellectual input into management and leadership training – such as it is. Management and leadership practice is often several decades behind research and theory. But its worse than that. The idea of emotional intelligence has been around since 1990 and popularised in 1995 (when I first encountered it). That’s at least 27 years ago. And yet its little known among current managers/leaders.

The reality is that genuine empathy compels action – and that’s a problem within an organisational culture. Action demands Resources, Attention, Commitment and Effort (RACE). And it’s not a ‘race’ managers/leaders will run willingly without strong leadership from on high.

Inspiration without action is homeless

I get that when a person says a person with disability ‘inspires’ them that they intend to express genuine good intent. Melinda Briana Epler, in her great podcast, Leading with Empathy & Allyship, reminds the listener constantly of the need for consistent action. There is no point in being empathic if you don’t take action.

If being inspired is not anchored to a commitment to action it becomes parasitic. It doesn’t have a moral home and so colonises the identities of the people it purports to admire and support. It draws energy from the very people it imagines it is contributing to. It turns their needs into its nourishment.

Being inspired is self-serving – unless it triggers a passion backed by action in service of a cause.

It’s okay to be inspired to act by a person with disability

There are some people with disability who humble me. Their fortitude, determination, and dignity can leave me feeling like I still need to sort my attitude to what I have been through. We are all learning how to live with, and grow from, what has happened to us.

Acquiring a disability doesn’t turn people into saints. It doesn’t make them admirable or role models in a general sense. But what you can learn is that the human spirit has a capacity for resilience that can surprise those who have faced no great life challenge. This is true for so many people – those who have experienced abuse, torture, violence, and traumas of many kinds.

People with visible and obvious disabilities are people apart, a special category of inspirational and heroic sufferers of misfortune. We are the icebergs of humanity – the visible aspect of struggle and trauma. We represent, by accident, the human spirit as it expresses the universal potential for resilience.

If we inspire anything, let it be that you too can do what you think we do – and that this is what you find admirable. 

Conclusion

I am aware that there are people who style themselves as disability advocates and who respond to the heroic/inspirational model. They have a role in that they may make a positive difference for some people.

But it’s a limited role that has no function inside organisations – which is where I am focused. Disability Inclusion is a tough gig – as is the whole spectrum of Diversity Equity & Inclusion. Organisational management and leadership are part art and part science – the science is developing constantly and the demand on the art is increasing.

We must avoid sentimentality and the allure of the dopamine hit and attend instead to genuine action for change based upon sincere empathic response. Real effective leadership in driving and fostering positive change depends upon clarity of awareness and depth of commitment to knowing what is going on.

Introduction

I was discussing a mutual acquaintance with a former colleague. This person had acquired a significant disability. Their person style was abrasive. I wondered whether the trauma of the acquired disability was influencing their personal style. 

I recalled my 10 months in hospital. I was paralysed for 3 months, and the remaining 7 months were a grimly determined struggle to recover control over my body. I ended up with life altering residual disability in my ankles and wrists and hands. 

There was no psychological support offered. The focus of attention was on the body, not mind or emotions. 

I was 18 months off work, and I came back in not a good head space, or heart space. I was determined to recover my ability to work effectively. That was seen as heroic. But it wasn’t. It was survival, and I was freaked out. I know that now. I didn’t know at the time.

We are not heroes

A few years ago, I was getting my crutches out of the car when a guy walked briskly by and called out, “You are my hero!” He was gone before I could react and respond. I would not have been civil. 

Quite a few people confessed that they couldn’t have done what I had. To them I said they were selling themselves short. 

I am not suggesting that genuine heroes do not acquire catastrophic disabilities – only that the measure of being a hero is not the disability, or how it is handled.

If anything, people who have catastrophic experiences which leave them with a disability are way-showers to those who have had no discernible trauma in their lives – you too can do this. We are resilient, but we also suffer.

Permission to grieve?

In the spectrum of what can happen I am comparatively lucky. I did not injure my spine. I still have all my limbs – but even so a guy I know with two below knee amputations walks better than I can. 

Still, I haven’t felt there was permission to grieve granted to me by those who cared for me – and I scarcely allowed that for myself for a decade. 

Grief is about letting go, not feeling sorry for oneself. It is about acknowledging and owning what has happened, not suppressing, or denying it. I lost the ability to garden, go bushwalking, perform home maintenance tasks and a bunch of other things that were integral parts of my normal. I am reminded constantly of that loss, not because I dwell on it, but because the garden still needs tending, as does the house.

But grieving is not just a one-off thing. It can last a lifetime. A friend who lost his son to bone cancer when he was just 17 remembers his death with his daughter each year. And when an experience re-defines you as different from those you were once like the reminders can be constant.

One of my former colleagues became suddenly deaf after being given medication for a condition that had nothing to do with his ears. I spent quite a few hours on the phone with him once he acquired hearing aids that allowed him to use a phone. He was traumatized by his sudden loss of hearing. Nobody had spoken to him about the sudden loss or let him speak about his experience. In 2019 he spoke at a seminar on disability awareness held for regional staff members. He talked about what felt like to become deaf, and the struggle of adjusting.

I saw him change – from being angry to being an advocate. He was angry because he had become deaf. He was frustrated nobody he worked with understood that. Rather than giving empathy they were remote. They didn’t understand – how could they. He didn’t understand but was expected to do so. He was expected to be ‘heroic’, but that was a role imposed – as it always is. And we assume heroes don’t grieve, they ‘suck it up’.

Courage and determination aren’t exceptional

I constantly remind myself of Claire Cunningham’s observation that disability is just part of the spectrum of being human. People quietly experience and endure shocking and painful experiences – and we adapt mostly – though in ways that are not always ideal. 

When I was in hospital, I became alarmed that my welfare was at risk, and I became angry and militant. I look back with no apology. My energy was directed only at the people who put me at risk. They had assumed I was to be consigned to a nursing home. I had a differing opinion.

These days we understand trauma much better that 14 years ago. But popular perception has not caught up. Trauma informs so many lives, but only a few are pressured to be heroic.

Exclusion also causes trauma

Apart from the impact disability can have on one’s personal identity – the personal sense of no longer being who one was – the exclusion from being like other people is deeply painful at first – then it becomes an ache that does not go away.  

It takes time to adapt. We are neurologically programmed to favour those who are like us, so becoming unlike those we were once like triggers a sense of removal. This is true even when our in-group remains apparently accepting and embracing – subtle act of isolation can still apply.

This isn’t a moral matter, but a biological one. The obvious area where this is most telling is in intimate relationships – and this can impact social relationships as well.

We humans are social beings. Our sense of identity depends on how we interact with our community and in-groups. Subtle acts of exclusion can sting deeply and wound. A gross act of exclusion can be seen as transgressive to a group, but the subtle is part of the normal.

This touches on the more complex area of identity and intersectionality. I want here to affirm that trauma can be a personal experience because of a catastrophic experience, and then a social one as the aftermath of that personal experience plays out in one’s life – in relating to others.

The tyranny of the able ideal

It’s not like there haven’t been people with disabilities until recently. Men, in particular, have routinely lost limbs in wars or accidents. And yet designing the world inhabited by humans, something we have been doing for millennia, has only recently become sensitive to the diversity of human conditions.

It’s as though we have become hypnotized by a vision of a human ideal – a mythic average person who has no impairments to senses or body or psyche. It is from this perspective that a person with disability is so often viewed – even by people who are nowhere near that ideal average human.

The upshot is that people with significant disabilities are seen as non-conforming to that ideal – and are heroic in our efforts to live in that idealized world. It’s like what has changed in the minds of those who commission and design the built world has been the revisioning of people with disability as heroes who should be catered to, rather than seeing them as people who express part of the spectrum of being human – people they have duty to serve, to embrace as one of them.

There is a profound difference between making the built world accessible to people with disability and making it available to the spectrum of human expression – in relation to which a person with disability is only a reference point of lived experience, not the primary or sole beneficiary.

Two struggles

The social model of disability is useful in that it draws attention to the way the idealized world is not compatible with the spectrum being human – of which disability is but a part.

But it also creates a distortion – the impact of disability is external – out there in the idealized social world. It is also internal. Behind the imposed heroic masks there is also trauma, unresolved grief, and physical pain.

This reality was brought home to me when a former colleague spoke of his process of getting out of bed, showering, and dressing. He has prosthetics on one arm and one leg. He also spoke of the constant physical pain. The conversation was triggered by my question about why he thought he was being bullied by his manager and the next up manager. He was explaining that just getting to work was sometimes such a struggle he felt flat and dispirited. Anticipating the bullying did not help. Rather than trigger in-group concern, he triggered exclusion, not only because of his obvious disabilities but his mood and manner. He was not ‘one of them’. He was not ‘abled’ like them, and he was not a member of the management in-group. He was an easy target for exclusion.

In my fortunate circumstance I rarely experience pain related to my disability. Everything I do must be conscious and deliberate. I cannot lose attention when I am walking. I cannot lose attention when I am holding or manipulating anything. If I fail to remain attentive, I will fall or drop things. My walking speed is at snail’s pace. I am kept upright by two Canadian crutches. Before my disability was acquired, I was a walker. I loved walking. I grew up in the Tasmanian wilderness.

Navigating a world not designed to accommodate the range of abilities present across all members of our community is a varied experience. Sometimes there is no barrier. Sometimes there is, and it is absolute and exclusionary.

Navigating the inner world is likewise a varied experience. There may be trauma that has not been resolved. There may be grief caused by the loss of senses or physical utility that is unexpressed. In this people with disability are no different from all other people whose lives have been rocked by trauma, loss, pain, or stress. It is that we often have inescapable signs. You can’t miss crutches, wheelchairs, guide dogs, or white canes.

The tenacity of the human spirit

To admire a person with disability as somebody special, or heroic, because they are seen to be out having a go devalues the human spirit. It also devalues the idea of the hero.

According to the Oxford Dictionary a hero is “a person who is admired for their courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities” I’d add that this [in my view] pertains in relation to service or an ideal, not about a personal matter. the word ‘hero’ is loosely applied these days. I prefer that it is reserved for those who risk their lives or wellbeing in response to a sense of duty, and in the service of others.

When I was in the rehab ward, I met a guy who had had a stroke. It was his 2^nd. He told me how he had spent 2 years learning to climb the stairs to his bedroom after the first. He had made it, and then the 2^nd one hit him. He said, with a sigh, that he would have to start all over again. But his wife interrupted and said they’d move into a single-story home.

If you haven’t been clobbered by something catastrophic you will maybe not appreciate how resilient the human spirit is. That’s our normal as humans. We are resilient. Heroes put themselves in harm’s way. Some may, as a result, have to struggle to recover as best they can from the harm inflicted upon them in the performance of their service.

Conclusion

There is nothing exceptional about striving to recover what one can from a catastrophic event. If anything, those who do strive are exemplars to remind others just how resilient we all can be – not outliers doing something remarkable.

The guy who said. “You are my hero” could said, “Thank you for reminding me how resilient I can be”.

Seeing us as heroic can hurt us. In the whole of my recovery, which was 18 months [10 of which were in hospital] before I got back to work, not a single person asked how I was coping emotionally. From the time I was suddenly lying on the loungeroom floor unable to move I felt nothing – no fear, no anxiety. Was it shock? Was it a protective reaction that shut down strong emotions at a time they were not useful?

Later, after discharge, I wrote a lot. This is from 21 August 2009: I could do no other thing than I have done. It is not remarkable to be oneself, to be other than in character. For this reason, I have long detested the notion of the “hero”. Courage and bravery are not extraordinary or remarkable. They are commonplace. People of character and integrity always stand up when circumstances demand it.

I think I wrote a lot of my grief out after my discharge in February 2009. But there is still something that may never leave me.  When I see people walking freely there is a twinge of loss – I used to do that.  I am okay with that. It reminds me of what is important.

Introduction

As Christmas nears, I am taking the time to look back on the year from a Disability Inclusion perspective. Some good things have been happening, and some things remain unchanged.

The good things

In July last year I joined my local council’s access advisory committee. Through that I have been involved in consultations with architects and designers re buildings, parks, playgrounds, and other facilities under the responsibility of the council and the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

The commitment to disability access is genuine and deeply rooted in the personal commitment of staff. And it is growing.

The NSW government’s annual survey of its public staff – the People Matter Employee Survey [PMES] – indicates a steadily improving willingness of staff to indicate on the survey that they have a disability. Something is working better for that to be happening. I was pleased to see that my former employer, the Department of Communities and Justice was the top performing department concerning the number of staff recording that they have a disability – 8%. It was 4% in 2019 when the innovations I led kicked off in a big way. 

Earlier this year I participated in a disability recruitment exercise for a federal department. It was run by a private recruitment firm. It was sophisticated, professional, and sensitive to the needs of applicants. I was impressed by the whole process. It should be the benchmark standard for recruiting staff with disability.

What hasn’t improved

Around mid-year the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet woke up to the fact that there had been zero progress on a Premier’s Priority on lifting the percentage of staff with disability from a low of 2.6% to a modest target of 5.4%. Instead of owning up there was a panicked election-induced effort at a smoke screen to hide the absence of any strategic effort.

Setting a target is all well and good, but failing to develop a means of hitting it reeks of a lack of authentic commitment at the highest level of the sector’s leadership.

The Public Service Commission’s website observed that “In 2022, the proportion of public sector employees choosing to share that they have a disability through reporting in our HR system was 2.5%. Achieving this 2025 target is particularly ambitious as disability is multifaceted and complex.”

You’d think that knowing a target was “particularly ambitious” might have excited a determined response. The same web page goes on to say, “We are committed to building strong foundations”. This is misleading. The graphic used shows the disability employment at 3% in 2014. A benchmark figure of 2.5% in 2018 is shown at a ‘starting point’ on the journey to 5.6% in 2025. In 2022 the rate remains at 2.5% after dropping to 2.4% in 2020.

In 2018 there were 7 years to hit the 2025 target. In 2022 there are 3 years. Zero progress in 4 years. Committed to addressing a multifaceted and complex challenge? No.

There is an important difference between improved figures on the PMES and the formal diversity data, which has not shifted in line with improved PMES data. The situation is multifaceted and complex. I agree. But I don’t agree that the people charged with addressing the challenge have a clue.

I am still hearing horror stories of staff with disability being subjected to bullying and abusive conduct. The managers/leaders responsible rightly feel confident that they are immune from being held accountable. Their conduct breaches Code of Conduct and Work Health & Safety obligations. The absence of accountability is the single most important inhibitor of change. There is no point in espousing a ‘zero tolerance’ to bullying if what you exhibit is a generous tolerance. Unless, of course, you say you have ‘zero tolerance’ because that’s what you are expected to say – and you think nobody really thinks you are serious – which you are not.

The benchmark texts on this theme are clear. Set a standard and model it. Ensure that leaders understand you are serious by holding those leaders who fail to meet it to account in a meaningful manner. The biggest inhibitor to change at a reasonable rate is the presence of exemptions from accountability granted to leaders who fail to meet the conduct standards by fellow leaders.

This is a known issue. But its not a bug, it’s a feature. And because it’s a feature it can be designed out – if there is a will to do so.

The persistence of goodwill

There is an abundance of goodwill and a desire for inclusion is evident. I see this when I talk with former colleagues 

The PMES results for my former employer are instructive. In 2019 two departments (NSW Departments of Justice and Family and Community Service) merged to create the Department of Communities and Justice. In 2019 the PMES results for both departments showed 4% of staff had a disability. In 2020 this had risen to 6% for the newly formed department. In 2022 that number was 8% – doubling in 3 years.

This improvement can be put down to the work of the Disability Employee Network, the response to the department’s participation Access and Inclusion Index, and the response to the Disability Inclusion Action Plan. These 3 things impacted the organisation’s culture, letting individual staff members to unleash their spirit of goodwill. I was part of stimulating that improvement. 

The tension between goodwill and leadership cultures

Stimulating goodwill can do wonders, but it can run into the frustration of leaders not facilitating changes that seem to be plainly needed. Organisations are necessarily hierarchical and the power to drive change is strongest among the leaders.

But the paradox is that leaders become less empathic, less compassionate, and little interested in holding members of their own leadership group to account. There are sound psychological and neurological reasons for this. The good news is that now we know what the problem is solutions can be designed and implemented.

Conclusion

This year has been a wonderful opportunity to work with people who are caring and open to ensuring that inclusion of people with disability is part of how facilities and services are designed and delivered. These are not people who are necessarily well-informed about disability, but they are receptive and responsive when we engage with them. That’s how inclusion grows through the community.

I give leaders a hard time as a group. That’s because the research on leadership as a class merits doing so. That doesn’t mean I am down on leaders individually. In fact, the success I enjoyed as a Disability ERG Chair would not have happened without the support and commitment of senior leaders. Leaders are critical to magnifying the goodwill of staff so that it can be the force for good it has the potential to be. 

In fact, that’s my point. Leaders can magnify or impede that goodwill. DCJ’s 8% of staff with disability in 2022 is a great improvement on the 4% of 2019. It was achieved because leaders and staff collaborated in stimulating the process of positive change. That collaboration kicked off strongly in 2018 and started delivering results in 2019. This is what could be achieved with partial leadership commitment. Had it been whole who knows what the 2022 result could have been.

As a community we are heading in the right direction as we are more and more able to express our goodwill and be inclusive. On a government level there are impressive commitments of resources to ensure that publicly funded services and facilities are available and accessible to people of all abilities. 

Before I acquired my mobility disability in 2008, I could go bushwalking with no concern about whether the track was accessible. Now I need a track to be smooth and not sloping too much, and with places to rest safely at regular intervals. There are not many tracks like that, but they are being created as the financial means to do so becomes available. 

A friend sent me an ABC article on disability employment today, noting that things hadn’t improved for people with disability in the past 3 decades in terms of overall numbers. That’s true for a number of reasons – mostly that organisational leaders have not committed to changing that number.

But in that 30 years things have massively improved for many people with disability. We are more inclusive as a community. That’s been my lesson for 2022. I had spent the past 4 years focused on disability employment and not really been aware of the wider changes across the community – and driven by the public sector. I needed that balancing experience.

Yes, there’s a lot we need to do to address employment of people with disability. Yes, our organisational leaders must step up and own their responsibility to make stuff happen and hold their leaders to account if it does not. We must not diminish how important this is.

Tomorrow morning, I will take my regular walk at Echo Point in Katoomba and be grateful for work done to create an accessible walkway so I can sit quietly and feel close to the wild world. I am deeply grateful for the work done [and resources committed] to make that possible.

My best wishes to you for the Christmas/New Year. I do hope that you have an enriching, restoring, inclusive and accessible time.

Let’s make 2023 the year of engaging with our organisation’s leaders in a more effect way, one that will help them become more committed allies and champions.

Introduction

In the past few weeks, I have read 3 books that are deeply connected – The Essentials of Social Psychology by Wind Goodfriend, The Moral Animal by Robert Wright, and Influenceby Robert B. Cialdini.

I had been looking deeper into the idea that inclusion is, for many of us, an evolutionary step. Even though we are people of goodwill and compassion we are still influenced by deep seated reflexes and biases that only selectively favour inclusion. The basis for that selectivity is whether a person is like us, part of our ‘we’ group (in group).

We have multiple identities these days – our cultural, racial, and religious identities, our families, politics, and affiliations with geographic, sporting or interest-based groups. It’s a far cry from the tribal settings of our ancestors. Back then identity was clear cut and comparatively simple.

Nested identities

Our sense of identity matters because it is the basis upon which we include or exclude others. 

‘We’ group membership can be multi-layered in a work context. We can be employees of organisation X, members of work team Y and members, or not, of a leadership team.

So, we have elements of identity that are formed at biological, cultural, and work levels – and they all exert influence at the same time. That’s a lot of processing pressure for our brains if we are trying to figure out how to be the best person we can be – inclusive and compassionate.

Mostly, given the circumstances, we do pretty well. We live in a complex pluralistic community that works okay most of the time. This is partly because we have set up our exclusions and inclusions in a way that does not cause strife – but can still leave inequity and cause injustice.

A complex pluralistic community with a commitment to equity and inclusion is a relatively novel idea. Its not something we are naturally tuned to – not on a biological, psychological, or cultural level. It is an aspiration. The ‘we’ group expands from the tribal to the societal. That’s a big evolutionary step.

Intentional change

Melinda Briana Epler, the host of the podcast Leading with Empathy and Allyship, opens each episode with a reminder of the need to take consistent action. She says that change is as much about unlearning as learning, and that intentional action is needed on a daily basis. It isn’t easy.

Neither should it be. Moving toward an aspirational goal always requires personal commitment and intentional actions consistently performed. Our natural goodwill is a great foundation for creating reasonable conditions in which people are treated in an okay manner. But it’s not sufficient if our goal is to attain that aspiration of inclusion and equity.

Of course, we may not have agreed to sign on to that aspiration. This can be something of a problem if governments and organisations frame aspirations on our behalf and then assume we assent. Even if we do assent the mere presence of legislation or policy is not sufficient to guide change.

Robert Cialdini explores the idea of commitment to action. There is a powerful difference between action commitments that are elicited as part of a persuasion strategy – often manipulative – and those that are freely and intentionally given by an individual or a group.

Commitment, compliance, and consequences

Imposed aspirations are rarely thought through by those who develop the ‘good idea’. Conformity is never complete across a population, and among those who do conform and aspire to the goal, there is no uniformity.

Positive change is a messy business. Nothing is clear cut. Provided there are no particular impediments, things will change for the better – albeit slowly and messily.

Cialdini addresses an unexpected version of the ‘we’ group. It is when leaders naturally see themselves as forming a ‘we’ group, and their staff as ‘them’ or others. A feature of ‘we’ groups is leniency toward members. We are, for example, more forgiving of family members. The same might also apply with one’s work team members versus another team.

For Cialdini a code of conduct, which establishes minimal acceptable standards, does not have any real power if ‘we’ group members are lenient towards those who breach those standards. This becomes important when we consider conduct which is considered so unacceptable as to have a ‘zero tolerance’ declared. Cialdini argues that major breaches of a code of conduct, or repeated minor breaches, should lead to dismissal. Why?

Aspirational goals are part of the mechanism for evolving a culture. We can seek compliance through encouragement or formal accountability. We need both – applied in the right measure. The presence of formal accountability measures that cannot be circumvented because of ‘we’ group leniency are crucial to the community. They affirm the value of the aspiration. They say, “keep moving in the direction we are going.”

Formal accountability has always been present in human culture – from the tribal level up. It has always been associated with what has been highly valued – to protect it and reaffirm its value.

Conclusion

We are creatures of habits ingrained at a deep level in our biology and psychology. But we are also aspirational and adaptive – responsive to opportunities to exhibit ‘the better angels of our nature’.

Inclusion in our communities and our workplace – in our complex pluralistic culture – is an aspiration to which we are adapting (messily and unevenly). It is part of governmental and organisational policy.

There are impediments to this intentional change that can be managed better by using the insights of evolutionary psychology and methods of ethical influence. Two are especially important:

1. How commitment to the aspiration is shared and affirmed – leading to consistent action. The goodwill that responds to the aspiration must be supported.
2. How the more egregious acts of non-conformity by influential people are prevented from being subject to ‘we’ group (in group) leniency and exemption. Leaders must lead.

Of the 3 book Cialdini’s Influence is perhaps the most pertinent – because it encapsulates the content of the other 2 and draws out the most important principles. Do read it.

Introduction

A former colleague, Leanne Duggan, sent me a link to a great essay on blind people and audiobooks. She is featured in the essay, and it was great to know that her voice is being shared.

We have blind people to thank for the development of the talking book. It’s an interesting history – a debt of gratitude that should be known and acknowledged. The clunky tech of yesteryear has evolved into the sweet ease of an audiobook on a smart phone.

Please take the time to read the essay. It’s well-written and not long.

The greater gift

Audiobooks are now mainstream. They can be listened to as a specific intentional act, but they can also enrich commutes and the performance of tasks that take very little conscious attention. 

The benefits for blind people are obvious. For them audio is their primary means of access to entertainment and information. When we sit down to watch television, we use eyes and ears. In the days before television and the internet books were the go-to source, apart from radio. Without vision, books were inaccessible (with the exception of braille).

Audiobooks are a blessing to people with other disabilities – ones that making picking up and holding a book difficult, painful, impossible, or simply unpleasant.

My ability to hold things has deteriorated. What was once a sensual pleasure has become an ordeal (bibliophiles will know what I mean). I have been giving away my beloved hardcopy books, so they can be loved by others, and not remain now mute tokens of days gone, never to be recovered.

Audiobooks are a blessing also to those with no disability but may be time poor. You can’t walk and read safely, but you can walk and listen.

Conclusion

I can’t imagine life without audiobooks now. The essay gave me an insight into blindness I hadn’t thought about, and a chance to be grateful to those pioneers of talking books.

Introduction

Kate Nash is the founder and CEO of PurpleSpace, a UK-based organisation devoted to fostering greater inclusion of people with disability in employment. 

I met Kate in 2018 when she was the key-note speaker at the Australian Network on Disability’s (AND) annual national conference in Sydney and ran a workshop on Networkology the next day. At the time I was Chair of the Department of Family and Community Services’ Disability Employee Network.

As I listened to Kate’s key-note address, it dawned on me that I was wasting time and squandering opportunity. I received a lot of accolades for my time as DEN Chair, which ended in March 2020. While there are many people who were critical to the successes that were achieved, I remain intensely grateful for that wakeup call that came from Kate as perhaps the most important influence.

Positively Purple is the best book on disability inclusion I have read. It is a book that executives must read if their organisation has expressed any commitment to disability inclusion, and they want to be an effective participant.

It is also a book leaders and members of Disability Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) must read. In an ideal world executives and ERG members would also join Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) leads in conversations about the book’s contents.

The insider perspective

Positively Purple is my top disability inclusion book for several reasons:

• It is written by an insider with long lived experience of very significant disability and a career in disability advocacy, working with senior political and corporate figures.
• It speaks directly to organisations at all levels – executives, D&I teams, and ERGs.

I am particular about saying “very significant disability” to denote the reality that for some people with disability, the lived experience is intense and relentless and lifelong. At age of 15 Kate began developing symptoms of Stills disease (juvenile idiopathic arthritis). The condition shaped her life in every respect – and in profoundly consequential ways.

This ‘insider’ perspective isn’t shared all that often. There are some great books about the lived experience of a specific type of disability that can be confronting but rewarding to read. This book is different. It uses stages of Kate’s personal story to trigger deeper exploration of themes by employers and employees.

The book is built on the foundation of a biographical story. But it’s not just an insider’s account of living with a disability. It provides a powerful narrative thread that creates opportunities to reflect on the lived experience, on the formation of personal identity and character – and on the development of disability inclusion practice principles that can guide organisations.

In part, the book traces Kate’s journey through employment at a time when disability inclusion was becoming a public and political issue (mainly the 1990s). Kate has worked in disability inclusion advocacy from the outset of her career. In fact, her career is an account of one facet of the history of the struggle for inclusion for people with disability in the UK. It is a remarkable story. The perspective of a person with skin in the game makes the personal angle potent. Kate’s story, as she evolves in experience and skill, is compelling in its own right.

The Networkologist is born

Kate’s career seems woven from threads of bold positive determination, an extraordinary ability to build and sustain alliances, and a clear-eyed awareness that what she wanted to achieve required strategic discipline.

This is not a book written by an objective researcher who has gathered, assessed, and reported on good things to do. Yes, Kate’s first book, Secrets & Big News: Enabling people to be themselves as work, might fit that description. Positively Purple is, in a sense, the story of a personal evolution – and that’s its value.

The personal evolution is toward being more effective as an advocate for, and worker toward, disability inclusion. Kate’s personal story is a subtle guide on how to build and preserve networks as an intentionally acquired skill.

In 2018 I was excited by the idea of Networkology because it filled in a gaping hole in my ability to be a good DEN Chair. There was method born of experience. There was a pathway to success that wasn’t hit or miss. 

Conclusion

As I read Positively Purple, I was finding insights I wish I had known about back in 2018, and others that have obliged me to reflect hard on my present perspective. It is harder to consider you might be wrong when you think you know.

I read the book on the Kindle app on my Mac. This enabled me to get the font size up enough so that I could read on the big screen while sitting back and exercising my dysfunctional ankles. It also meant I could take screenshots of passages or headings that merited deeper reflection. I gave each screenshot a brief name. Here are some examples:

• ‘Share’, not disclose
• Be prepared to invest
• Adopt a zero-tolerance approach
• Disability confidence concepts
• Share your strengths
• Eradicating shame
• Behavioural change starts with a ‘have to’
• Build adjustments into org DNA
• A story of transition of identity

This last one was a theme Kate discussed several times. It is one that resonates with me strongly. Disability is often acquired. We had a sense of who we are before the disability (BD), and we must often adjust that sense after acquiring a disability (AD). For some this might mean owning the fact that you can’t see or hear as well as you used to – BD and AD are distinguished only by what can seem to be irritating and embarrassing sensory deficits. One of my former colleagues went from hearing perfectly well to being deaf. I went from walking freely to needing walkers and crutches. For us the BD and AD states were radically different. Either way – embarrassing or catastrophic – we must adjust our sense of identity. It helps when others are inclusive of our need to change.

Kate’s personal story is essentially a transition of identity – from being a carefree 15-year-old to a tirelessly positive advocate for disability inclusion. It’s a story we will all benefit from reading. People with disability will be strengthened. Others will gain insight that will clarify what they can do in support of disability inclusion.

As usual I include a link to Amazon so that those preferring an ebook of Positively Purplewill have ready access, but do please support your local independent bookseller if that is possible.

Introduction

Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) are strange things. They sit in a shadow land within an organization. They are not part of the normal formal power and influence hierarchy. They represent the voice of a specific minority community within the organization, advocating for its interests. This generally means seeking to stimulate change in favour of its membership. It also means representing a certain impatience its membership feels. 

ERGs often fall within the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) area because they tend to be formed to redress some kind of injustice or inequity that arises because of how the attributes of the membership are perceived and responded to by the other members of the organization as a whole.

While an ERG is formed and sanctioned as a change-agent organizations are inherently change resistant in DEI matters. This means that an ERG has a difficult, complex, and delicate role to perform. It must harness the natural membership’s impatience into a strategic and diplomatic impetus that can effectively drive desired change. 

For ERG leaders this is no easy task. In fact, being an effective ERG leader is extremely hard. The role is voluntary and must be performed alongside their ‘real job’. Some kind of time allowance will be made, but this will vary between organizations. But it is generally fair to say that time and attention will both be at a premium. 

So, ERG leadership is a difficult role that many will have to perform under less-than-ideal circumstances. 

In this essay I want to focus on leadership because, to put it bluntly, leaders can make or break their ERG. 

I want to talk about ERGs in general. I joined a Disability Employee Network (DEN) back in July 2010 and was the only remaining founding member when I left my department in June 2021. I was Chair for 3 years and 4 months. There were 3 preceding Chairs. I was the longest serving – entirely by accident rather than design. I stepped down in March 2020, with no desire for another term. 

The joys and perils of leadership

Being an ERG leader is rewarding but it is demanding. There are challenges and pitfalls to be overcome or avoided. 

Leading an ERG is no easy thing, though it can appear to be otherwise. So much depends upon what outcomes are expected, and how attaining those outcomes is imagined. 

Leadership is a deeply personal matter, and herein lies both pitfalls and opportunities. In most ERGs one person is designated as ‘the leader’. It’s a standard model in any organisation. We have Chairs, captains, managers and so on. Sometimes this works well, but mostly it does not. This is a really important consideration. It may surprise the reader but be patient.

Leadership is a difficult and complex role that is almost never performed at an optimal standard. I am not saying it is done badly, just that it can always be done better. This is something mostly recognised in hindsight.

The biggest impediment to being an effective leader is one’s ego. There are other impediments of course, but this has the greatest adverse impact.

I have been reflecting on leadership recently because of conversations about the fate of an ERG I was involved with. I have watched from a distance and was tempted to ask; ‘What would I have done differently’. That’s not a good or useful question. You cannot parachute yourself into a situation you are not involved in. Had you been involved, that situation would not have arisen. There would be an entirely different one – better or worse than the one being considered.

Leadership sometimes causes situations to arise. Other times it responds to internal and external events – and ameliorates or exacerbates the matter. I do not want to think in terms of leadership being done well or badly – but how equipped a leader is to handle a situation that arises. Leaders do their best, but their best is not always equal to the challenge.

Here I want to focus on 6 things that, for me, defined the key attributes of effective leadership. I am not saying I got them all right all of the time. I did my best. Those 6 things are:

1. Ego
2. Experience
3. Strategy
4. Teamwork
5. Time and Attention
6. Professionalism

Ego

I tried several times to become ERG Chair and was rebuffed by members. Eventually I got to be Deputy Chair – which was nothing at all. I got to be Chair only because the incumbent quit unexpectedly and moved to a different department – and I was deputy Chair at the time.

I wanted to be Chair because I thought I could contribute something to the role, but I didn’t know what. Two previous Chairs were moved by the same desire for service, but they were not very effective. Getting the job was one thing. Doing something useful with it was another. I had no idea whether I would be a good Chair

Being a Chair of an ERG can be something. It has status. You get invited to participate in events you wouldn’t be invited to otherwise. You get to meet senior leaders and other ‘important people’. You also get to run meetings and be the person in charge.

But it can also mean that nothing much happens. Being an ERG leader is a difficult and challenging role that demands a lot. It is hard work if you want to do it well, and it will be humbling. It is an act of service, not something to gratify an ambition, a need for status or a desire for power.

So many leadership roles become vehicles for working out unresolved personal psychological issues. That’s pretty much the landscape we all live in. So, it should be no surprise that this might happen in an ERG. However, let me be plain – it is a betrayal of trust of the ERG’s membership to aspire to leadership motivated by anything other than a commitment to service and a rational understanding that you are fit for purpose as a leader.

Experience

Leadership experience is essential. If you haven’t led anything before, an ERG is not the place to have on the job learning. The reason is simple. You make dumb mistakes when you are learning how to lead, and sometimes they are catastrophic – a reality that may become apparent only long after the fact. You owe other members of the ERG a duty to be fit for purpose as a leader.

I had held several leadership roles previously – in the public sector and in the community. I had made a few monstrous mistakes that led to miserable failures and deep enduring lessons. At the time I became DEN Chair I was an acting team leader during a time of powerful change in our organisation. My team members were deeply concerned about their continuing employment. They were understandably distracted. We managed to maintain quality output, stay together as a mutually supportive team and deal with the ongoing employment challenges. That turned out to be a very useful experience for me. 

I had also a long history of influencing others. I started off full of passion, and just got into trouble. I eventually got to be pretty good at making things happen through a lot of trial and error. By the time I became DEN Chair I had the fundamentals under my belt. At the time I didn’t understand any of this. I am writing with hindsight, with the opportunity to reflect on experience.

Strategy

Leadership, to be effective, must be strategic. It is not easy to develop a strategic outlook if this is not already part of your way of doing things.

For some people just getting to be a leader is more than half the battle. Once in the role the dynamic energy of the campaign dissipates. I have heard of quite a few managers described as ‘disorganised’. They have passionately advocated for themselves as the best person for the job, and then delivered debilitating disorder and chaos once they have secured the role. ERG Chairs can be similar. 

We have a natural bias that leads us to over-estimate our abilities and downplay our weaknesses. 

Strategic thinking requires having an objective and a means of achieving it. You have a vision for the ERG, and the members agree with it. You then must set out how you will get to that outcome. It is here many leaders come unstuck. The vision of how to get there must conform to a reality in which other people behave in unexpected ways.

I have been recently seeking out informed commentary on military campaigns and have become interested in the idea of a military doctrine – a way of thinking about behaviour on a battlefield that is coherent, consistent, conservative of resources and focused on success. The military metaphor may feel uncomfortable, but all strategy is strategy, even if your approach is collaborative and kind.

My immediate goals, as DEN Chair were to rebuild membership numbers and ensure that the DEN represented all areas of our newly reformed department. I wanted to have an election as soon as possible – that took 15 months as it transpired – less time than I imagined. I had my goals, made them known and was accountable for my success or failure. I prepared monthly progress reports showing actions taken and an analysis of numbers.

ERGs are about changing the circumstances of their members for the better and too often organisations dictate the pace of change. There must be an impatience and a strategy for infecting the rest of the organisation with the same impatience.

This is where most ERGs fail. It is where leaders so often fail too. I have listened to conversations among ERG leaders who seem okay with slow progress and resistance to change. They hypnotise themselves and their members into accepting that things change slowly. Impatient members disengage and those who remain turn their ERG into a club.

Teamwork

Leadership is not a single heroic function. Some leaders do stand out as singular individuals, but none who are effective and successful would neglect the people who constitute their leadership team.

The best thing I did, after I rebuilt the DEN’s membership numbers, was create the Guidance and Action Team (GAT). This was a group of 15 volunteers who shared my impatience and wanted stuff to happen.

The fundamental rule of developing an effective ERG is the creating of a critical trinity of mutual support and regard – the ERG, the organisation’s Executive Leadership Team (ELT), and the organisation’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) team.

This demands a lot of relationship building and maintenance – internally (GAT and membership) and externally (ELT and DEI). This is sensitive and hard work for an ERG’s leadership. It may be too much for one person, but ensuring it does happen, and keeps happening, is an essential strategic role for the overall leader.

An internal leadership team can be an essential distribution of talent, skills, and experience needed to ensure the ERG’s success. This is where a leader’s ego can be tested. Are they prepared to delegate representation? Are they happy going to a meeting with 2 members of the leadership team – and take the focus off them?

Another aspect of teamwork is succession planning. This may mean ensuring that there are maybe 2 people who could step into the leadership role at a moment’s notice.

An ERG leader may be a genuinely exceptional person. This happens now and then. Even so, seeing themselves as first among equals is even more important. Building an effective leadership team and developing a succession strategy becomes more critical.

Time and attention

Having the time to focus one’s attention on what must be done is vitally important. There is an expectation that an ERG leader will ‘donate’ a certain amount of their own time out of commitment to the cause. This is fair enough, but it must be balanced by a realistic time allowance provided by the organisation. This is sometimes not understood by an ERG’s line management. It is harder for executives who do not work to an award to appreciate that putting in substantial time outside of regular hours isn’t part of an ERG leader’s lifestyle choice – and should not be expected.

ERGs are created and supported because they are expected to do valuable work within the organisation. They drive change that supports the welfare of a certain group of staff members. This concern for the welfare of a minority is the rightful duty of the organisation and it should be relegated to ‘one of those things we will get around to when we have time’. This change is hard to make, and the ERG is properly seen as a vital ally that must be enabled to deliver its side of the bargain.

The DEN of which I was a founding member met for a full day once a quarter. Back in 2010 this looked like a generous allowance – and in many respects it was. But the reality is that you don’t drive significant change that way. 

I was able to not only more than double the formal meeting time by creating the GAT but also lift the overall activity of the DEN to a much higher level. I was fortunate in that, as Chair, I was permitted at least a full day a week during critical stages. Seven months after I left the Chair, my predecessor was offered, and accepted, the opportunity to be a fulltime Chair.

I am not arguing for that now, but it did affirm the vital importance of having those critical resources of time and attention.

Neuroscience research shows that being under time pressure and having competing demands on attention degrades the quality of work done. The heroic vision of the flat-out leader juggling competing demands is actually a scenario for poor decision making. It may be true that some leaders are constitutionally suited to thriving in the ‘fog of war’, but most are not.

To be effective, an ERG leader must have sufficient access to those vital resources – time and attention. An organisation must first value the ERG sufficiently to provide adequate access to both. The ERG leader must demonstrate they use both to good effect.

Professionalism

Having laid a strong claim for sufficient time and attention for an ERG leader to perform well I want to consider the final element – professionalism.

As DEN Chair I was keenly aware that I was accountable to the membership for the actions I was undertaking on its behalf, and to the organisation for the way I was using its resources (my and other people’s time mainly). I was also considering my reputation and standing.

After creating the GAT, I set a standard. We had to be professional in everything we did, operating at the same standard as a business unit. We had objectives – outputs to be delivered, outcomes to be achieved, and a reputation to build and maintain.

There was no obvious expectation that we would or should be professional. We were an ERG – a volunteer part-time group. What standard should we work to? As individual employees we were required to behave in a professional manner. Why expect anything less of ourselves as DEN members and representatives?

Looking back to the origins of the DEN I can see that there was no clear vision for how the DEN should operate. Our first Chair was a senior manager, and his conduct was very professional, but there was no expectation on the rest of us. That was a weakness that led to the DEN failing to deliver as hoped for.

So, while an ERG leader must be professional in their conduct in relation to the organisation, they must also require that the ERG itself be a professional body in representing the interests of its members. The ERG must be outcome oriented. 

Conclusion

A leader’s ego, lack of experience, and want of an effective strategic vision can risk the corrosion of the vital foundation of teamwork. If they do not have the time and capacity to give their role the attention it demands, they will achieve little. If neither the leader nor the ERG is professional, it will lose the trust and support of its membership.

These are the essential cautions, and I’d rather discourage than encourage aspiration to ERG leadership if they are not fully appreciated.

But on the plus side, there is an essential impatience for change, which energizes members and keeps them engaged. For this change to become real it must infect the rest of the organisation – and this can happen only through teamwork – a shared vision and a shared goal. And this takes effective leadership.

This is what makes an ERG a meaningful and useful creation. 

ERGs are potentially powerful instruments for positive change. But they are also anomalous. They are invited to be disruptive on the one hand and are resisted on the other. They operate slightly out of phase with the organisation’s normal streams of influence. It means their task is difficult, complex, and delicate.

Being an effective ERG leader is, therefore, a deeply challenging experience. The benefits to members are potentially great. But the risk of being ineffectual is high. Inertia is a natural state in organisations. They are naturally change resistant. This means that the impatience that energises ERG membership has a natural inclination to decay into inertia.

Maintaining and spreading that essential impatience for positive change is the most important thing an ERG leader can do. It is immensely difficult but profoundly rewarding.

Introduction

When I became DCJ DEN Chair in November 2016 I made a lot of guesses based on years of random reading, plus experience. They turned out to be good guesses in the main.

In 2018, at the Australian Network on Disability’s Annual National Conference, I encountered Kate Nash, CEO of PurpleSpace. Kate introduced me to the idea of Networkology – a data-driven experience-based approach to supporting staff with disability. It was my first hint that there was a science behind the passion for Inclusion.

In June 2021 I quit DCJ, and for the next 12 months I threw myself into the luxury of researching disability inclusion and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) more intensely. I simply did not have the time to commit this amount of effort previously.

What has become abundantly clear is that if you want to generate enduring positive change for staff with disability you must adopt a scientific approach. This is no field for amateurs operating on good intent if the goal is enduring deep positive change. That is just self-indulgence.

In past essays I have explored the impediments to positive change. In this essay I want to explore opportunities for overcoming those impediments.

The scientific approach versus the good intent approach

Good intent is great, as a beginning. Being part of a cause is a good thing. But while gifted amateurs may score some successes, in the longer term the effort expended will not equal the positive outcomes attained.

It is a well attested fact that efforts at inclusion can deliver no discernible advance even 20 years later. See Iris Bohnet’s What Works. Dr David Rock of the Neuroleadership Institute (NLI) observed that despite the millions of dollars expended on anti-bias training in recent years, the ‘bias problem’ has not gone away. Good intent not backed by science rarely delivers intended results.

The NLI spent around 3 years researching bias and came up with an approach that did not work. It was scrapped and after more research an effective methodology was developed. Even with good science finding solutions is not always assured at first.

The essence of a scientific approach is disciplined inquiry and experimentation followed by rigorous assessment and evaluation – as a virtuous cycle. This is important because organisations are complex things and what makes them tick is not obvious. This is where the amateur approach becomes problematic.

One of the problems of bias is that we think we know more than we really do; and we think we are smarter than we really are. There is a natural tendency to favour folklore and supposition over objective facts – and to even reject those objective facts when they contradict folklore and supposition. This applies even to those whose approach is, in their estimation, scientific. We are all vulnerable to this most natural of all human biases. The scientific approach, when done well, is humbling precisely because it shatters illusions and conceits.

However, if taking a scientific approach is not a habituated thing, it can seem daunting and even overwhelming. But if the difference is between ineffectual action and non-enduring outcomes and effective lasting change the choice should be clear.

What science?

For me research into psychology and the human brain are the most compelling, but just getting data on what is going on now is a great start.

Back in 2014 Kate Nash published Secrets & Big News. This was the first extensive research-based document on employees with disability I had come across. As I noted before, Kate introduced me to the idea of Networkology – the science of building a staff network. 

Another powerfully useful book is  Cherron Inko-Tariah Mbe’s The Incredible Power of Staff Networks . These two books are a must read as a foundation for setting up and running a Disability Employee Resource Group or Disability Employee Network.

In New South Wales we have the advantage of the annual People Matter Employee Survey (PMES) for public sector employees conducted by the Public Service Commission. It is followed up with an annual State of the NSW Public Sector. Both are a rich source of data, especially if tracked year by year. 

In terms of the publicly known data some digging is rewarding but that seems rarely undertaken. This is a pity because there are useful insights to be gained. Of course, agencies will put the most positive spin on their data, but it isn’t hard to get a more balanced picture.

There is a huge amount of invaluable research on aspects of inclusion. I mentioned Bohnet above. I’ll add just a few more:

• Amy C. Edmondson – The Fearless Organisation
• D. Kahneman, O. Sibony, C.R. Sunstein – Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgement
• Daniel Kahneman – Thinking Fast and Slow
• Jessica Nordell – The End of Bias

When it comes to brain research, I am particular inspired by the Neuroleadership Institutewhich is a research-driven company. I have read more widely on brain research, but not in areas specific to the theme of this essay. Lisa Miller’s The Awakened Brain was particularly interesting.

There is a lot of useful material on psychology more generally. I like Jonathan Haidt’s work, as well as the extensive literature on Emotional Intelligence.

The thing about psychology

Good psychological research extends in management, organisation culture and behaviour – in fact anything to do with how organisations and the people in them work. The research informs change management, learning and development, and anything else you think of.

These days you can’t really run a complex organisation well without relying on the latest research. This means a lot of catching up is necessary because people in key roles are busy as it is, without the need to constantly update their knowledge and skills. There is always a lag between current research findings and practice. This can be a good thing, of course, because that research isn’t always done well, or its interpretation can miss the mark. Keeping up also requires constant critical evaluation. 

However, this more starkly demonstrates that an amateur effort at driving change in favour of staff with disability is unlikely to generate enduring or substantial success if it’s not equally diligent.

The thing about brain research

I started reading in brain research in the late 1990s with a fair degree of scepticism. I have had to significantly adjust my attitudes over the years. So much of our behaviour is hardwired into our biology and beyond the reach of glib efforts to coax or admonish us into change. 

As our social, cultural, and work environments have evolved, those hardwired behaviours have resisted well-intentioned efforts to be modified and made as adaptive as desired. This has led to people being blamed for being resistant and is why anti-bias and anti-discrimination training fails and often delivers adverse outcomes. 

This explains my affection for NLI. It understands that efforts at driving behavioural change in favour of inclusion must be grounded in brain research and not moral intent. Yes, the moral intent may be a guiding force, but it cannot be the instrument of change.

Conclusion

I joined the DEN in July 2010 because I wanted to see change. I had returned to work after an 18-month absence with acquired disabilities. My return to work was horrible, but not because anybody was being intentionally cruel to me. My colleagues were fantastic. My managers were well-meaning but inept. I was a novel problem to them (as I was to myself) and they had no prior experience or knowledge to guide them. A workplace adjustment policy was the number 1 priority for me.

When I became DEN Chair in November 2016 the membership was depleted and dispirited. It had no notion of being an effective lobby and the HR team that supported us was well-intentioned, but captive to the larger organisational imperative to change things slowly. There was good intent all around – but progress was painfully slow.

Things changed in 2018 when Kate Nash introduced me to a scientific approach – rational, methodical, strategic, and effective. There’s nothing mysterious about this. It is the way to succeed at most things these days. 

There’s no reason why a DEN or an ERG should see itself exempt. Yes, a body of volunteers does not have the time resources of paid staff. That may make things harder. The issue of time and support is real – if the ERG/DEN is to have a meaningful impact. 

Organisations should be working with DENs/ERGs in collaboration to bring about desired change in a rational and strategic way. They are allies with a common objective. But only one has the resources and the means to promote and support the Science of Inclusion.

Introduction

This report was commissioned by the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC) earlier this year and was produced by Ernst and Young (EY). It is dated 8 July 2022.

The Premier’s Priority on Disability concerns employment of people with disability in the NSW public sector. The target rate by 2025 is 5.6%. The 2018 baseline rate was 2.5%. The figure was still at that level in 2021. The figure for 2022 is not yet available.

I read the EY review with mounting disappointment. It offered little more than a cold high-level analysis of a complex matter. It offered no useful insights in why there had been no progress. The recommendations are of little value because they perpetuate the problems with inclusion goals that are global – high level injunctions without practice guidance, and no clear guidance on accountability.

Here I want to reflect on those recommendations, and what could have been proposed.

The recommendations

1. Implement a consistent definition of disability 
2. Implement a sector-wide workplace adjustment passport
3. Provide disability communications guidance 
4. Improve recruitment guidance and practices 
5. Implement sector-wide training to improve the capabilities of leaders and managers 
6. Implement mechanisms to share best practice and maintain momentum across the sector 
7. Incorporate accessibility into procurement and publishing processes 
8. Co-design bespoke implementation planning for Health, Education and Stronger Communities Clusters to result in the largest impact 

They are not silly or pointless recommendations. But when one asks for a review on what hasn’t been happening, just coming up with a list of things one should do is hardly helpful. There is no apparent thought given to why there had been no progress on the Premier’s priority, or what had impeded progress.

To be fair, there are a few good observations, like the following ‘insights’ offered by staff interviewed, for example:

• The workforce appears highly engaged and passionate about outcomes for people with disability, however a greater investment of time and resourcing could help them to be more effective. 
• Embedding holistic change around diversity and inclusivity into organisational culture is variable and has been, at times, slow.

There was a corresponding set of findings against each ‘insight’. Here are 2:

• Achieving transformation across the entire public sector will require cultural change that embeds inclusiveness into every level of all organisations across the sector, with visible leadership from senior executives through to recruitment managers. 
• Although numerous examples of good practice exist across the sector, the system as a whole needs to develop stronger points of connection between organisations and clusters to identify, share, and adapt these examples to Cluster-specific contexts. 

There are, I think some pertinent questions to be answered:

1. How should agencies provide more time and resources to make the work of DENs more effective?
2. How do agencies act effectively to embed diversity and inclusion values and practices in their workforce cultures? 
3. How do agencies ensure that leadership is visibly and demonstrably committed to disability inclusion?

In fact, one ‘finding’ strikes me as the most pertinent and potent and which could have been interpreted and crafted as the #1 recommendation. It is:

• Achieving transformation across the entire public sector will require cultural change that embeds inclusiveness into every level of all organisations across the sector, with visible leadership from senior executives through to recruitment managers. 

And yet the best the report can come up with is Recommendation 5 – Implement sector-wide training to improve the capabilities of leaders and managers. I don’t flat out disagree with the recommendation, but its chance of success is low. This is because of several major concerns:

1. It would take years to develop and implement at very considerable cost.
2. Such training without cultural change being first embedded will not deliver the best value for money.
3. Training must be voluntary and valued. To make that happen a lot of preparatory influencing must happen first.

The overall problem I have with the recommendations as a group is that they don’t form into an actionable strategy. For example, I agree a uniform definition of disability would be a good thing – but its not the #1 issue here. I would want to see a set of recommendations that identify the most pressing concerns that can be acted upon. This suggests to me that there are two sets of actions:

• Procedural/administrative
• Cultural/practice/experience

These must be considered separate and run concurrently, with clear guidance on intersection points.

The time problem

A report like this could have been written 3 years ago. In fact, it should have been. What it shows now is what it would have shown then. There would be a chance of hitting the target number by the target date if the sector had the report and acted upon it with intent and commitment. Even the recommendations, as they stand, and assuming they are accepted across the sector, can’t be implemented in a shorter timeframe.

For a variety of reasons, I have discussed at length in other essays, changing the workplace experience for people with disability is a complex affair. Time is only one of the resources needed. The others are commitment and attention. But neither are worth anything without time. 

The reality problem

Probably the reason there has been no sector-wide progress on the Premier’s priority on employing people with disability is that is hard. It takes time. Its takes resources. It takes caring. It takes leadership.

Globally it is recognised that inclusion – disability or otherwise – is dependent on effective, committed, and accountable leadership. It must be a priority. Resources must be provided. Organisational leadership must be held accountable.

This is an inescapable reality. It can lead people who do care to talk the talk, but cannot walk the walk because they are not able to, even though they want to – and cannot confess they can’t. It’s not a good place to be in, because it puts them in company with those unwilling to walk the walk. And we often can’t tell the difference.

Conclusion

I am disappointed that the NSW Premier’s Disability Review isn’t likely to be a useful tool for driving worthwhile action. I am, however, grateful that it exists as an official overview of the challenges and opportunities – though they must be reshuffled to reflect the practical priorities.

I sensed in the report a tension between administrators and practitioners. Seeing the target as numbers to be attained makes sense only if the human reality that underpins those numbers is genuinely inclusive and respectful. That tension is present in all aspects of public service. It is a natural dynamic that strives to balance compassion and means in ways that we can live with. 

This review struck me as giving a nod to the compassion side but coming down squarely on the means side. I suppose, given that it is a review of a failure to hit a target number, that risk was always there.

But let’s be very clear here. The failure to make any progress on the target number has not been a failing of compassion. Yes, the compassion side has been not very adept at times. But it has been having a go and succeeding at times. 

The means side has been the issue – a lack of resources and attention, and an unwillingness to make hitting a target an accountable matter. I am not suggesting that the means side is mean – just maybe it didn’t understand the amount of work needed to make the changes. If it had, it may have ensured that a target number about people didn’t forget the human character of that number.

I think, finally, while I appreciate the intent of the Premier’s Priority for growing the proportion of people with disability in the NSW public sector, it was poorly conceived as an idea. There was no clear strategic approach from the outset, and now we are all paying for that. The solution is hinted at in the EY review in Recommendation 6 – Implement mechanisms to share best practice and maintain momentum across the sector. But how? Would such an action be resourced properly, and practitioner led? Would there be accountability?

The frustrating thing about the Premier’s Priority from the outset has been a passive and general approach – as exemplified by the Age of Inclusion campaign from the PSC. A lot of resources were consumed developing a flawed product nobody seems to use. 

You can’t make this kind of change voluntary and optional. It must be well-led, adequately resourced, accountable, and part of core business.

Introduction

Anne Skewes was the first DCJ Executive DEN Champion I worked with as DEN Chair. She brought passion and sensitivity, and a willingness to be an activist, to the role. Anne became Executive DEN Champion in late 2017 and continued until the end of the financial year in 2019 when the division of which she was Deputy Secretary was transferred to another department.

We were talking recently about how change happens and Anne touched on a theme, a perspective, unfamiliar to me. It was a culture of permission to drive change. It was interesting talking to somebody who was there but seeing what we were doing from a different angle – adding some fresh insights into that extraordinary period between late 2017 and mid 2019.

Here I want to reflect upon some of the insights Anne triggered.

A culture of permission

Leadership is fundamental here. The then Secretary, Michael Coutts-Trotter, was committed to supporting staff with disability. He was accessible and responsive – to the point of directly intervening to put an end to the repeated bullying of a staff member with disability. 

In early 2019 I sent him a slightly cranky email and was promptly invited to a meeting. I turned up nervous. I had never been invited to a meeting with a Secretary before. Anne was also present, which was a relief to me. He and Anne listened to what I had to say. I walked away with an agreement that members of the DEN could address the Board. I expected that to be some months hence, but it turned out that we had a scant 2 weeks.

Over that time Anne worked with me and 6 members of the DEN’s Guidance and Action Team (GAT) to prepare for the presentation. This had to be done well. We had been allocated around 90 minutes and we wanted time for discussion. I allowed around 30 mins for story telling – that gave us around 5 mins to each tell the Board members about our experiences as people with disability in the department. How well we performed would reflect on all of us.

We did well. The atmosphere was open, safe, and caring. The storytellers had a strong sense they had permission to tell their stories frankly. Most of the stories were shockers – serious bullying and discrimination that had, in some cases, persisted for many years. The Board members were clearly moved by what they heard. The GAT members were moved by the Board’s response. 

We walked away knowing we had permission to be daring and demanding – albeit in a strictly professional manner.

The importance of the collective 

Anne reminded me that the members of the GAT who attended that Board meeting were members of a group that had been storming, norming, and performing for 5 months. As they prepared for the presentation, they became a team. Later, the story of the Board presentation became part of the GAT story. The spirit of permission to change became part of the GAT culture – and hence the DEN’s culture.

The old-style DEN organisation was to have the secretariat function provided by HR and a Chair and Deputy Chair. In practice the Deputy Chair role was redundant. I held that position in 2016 and did nothing – because nothing was asked or demanded of me. When I became Chair in November 2016, I became aware of an array of presentative functions that had never been reported back to DEN members.

I created the GAT in September 2018 to identify DEN members keen to get involved in making stuff happen. What I had established was a true collective of passionate individuals. No longer would a DEN Chair be the only available person to represent the DEN. Now there was a queue impatient to push for change.

Preparing for the Board presentation was challenging for some who had never previously told their stories beyond a small group of intimate friends and family. Without the support of fellow participants, it is unlikely they would have been able to tell their stories. Anne’s support before, and in the debrief immediately after, is warmly remembered.

Of courage and storytelling

Story telling is a fundamental human instrument for conveying messages of moral force. It has been this way since our beginnings. This is why storytelling by staff with disability has so much potential to stimulate the will to change.

For a person subjected to bullying over years telling their story to their organisation’s executive Board could be a daunting experience. Creating psychological safety and trust was critical. The mere fact of an invitation was, of itself, a powerful signal.  

Still, it takes courage to be vulnerable in front of people who are, for the most part, powerful strangers. Winning and holding their attention, let alone gaining their sympathy, can be enough to trigger anxiety. Without the support of the collective this would be a lonely and scary experience.

The opening up of a potential for change

Anne helped me see that the Board presentation in February 2019 was a confluence of singular people and circumstances. 

The Board comprised the Secretary and Deputy Secretaries, so these were people at advanced stages in their career. As a group they shared a commitment to principled conduct. But they were also insulated from the realities of being a staff member with disability. The singular exception was Anne, as Executive DEN Champion.

The GAT members, who were, in an important way, the injured party, remained focused on positive change, not grievance. The GAT had been evolving as a group for not even 5 months at that stage. They were still hurting from their own experiences and were not yet convinced of the Board’s willingness to listen to, let alone accept and be respectful of, their stories.

The February 2019 Board presentation brought together two powerful forces – Demand for change (the GAT) and Permission for organisational change (the Board). It took a singular decision to make the event happen and then some essential preparation and planning on both sides to ensure the event was successful.

The GAT and the Board met and talked, and things took off. The people involved were instrumental in triggering a process of powerful change. The event itself was extraordinary in that it was unprecedented (no staff group had presented to the Board before). As it happened, the DEN returned to the Board in November that year to give a progress update and lay out change challenges for the future. The opportunity to present to the Board twice in one year was remarkable. It also affirmed the DEN as a respected change agent in the department.

What injected the quality of the extraordinary into the situation was that a connection which united a passion for shared values and goals between two groups was established. That connection between the DEN and the Board, and the relationships that ensued, is what made the difference. Anne, as a committed and active Executive DEN Champion, played a vital role in establishing and maintaining that connection.

Anne was succeeded by Paul O’Reilly. Paul shared Anne’s approachability, commitment, and activism. The circuit stayed active.

Conclusion

The atmosphere that establishes the permission to drive change fearlessly embraces all altitudes and degrees of power. If any element is disconnected the whole is diminished and the potential for change is lessened.

Times when everything is connected and working together at maximum potential are rare. They do not happen by accident or magic. The people involved recognise the vital importance of connection, commit to it, and then act. If anything makes them remarkable people, it is that they do these things at the same time. But they are not ‘remarkable’ really – singular maybe. Anyone can do this.

The more interesting truth for me is that the people involved were ‘good’ people who understood the value of alliances and partnerships as the bedrock of positive change. They also had the ideals, confidence, and courage to build and sustain the established connections.

Organisations are complex environments. Creating positive change within them requires a deft touch, circumspection, and insight. An alliance that blends the vision of the Board, the lived experience of DEN members, and the insight of D&I will generate powerful energies for change.

There was a shared desire for change. That became ‘Demand’ (the DEN). And ‘Permission’ (the Board and D&I). Demand (which must also be impatient) without Permission produces only tension and misunderstanding. Permission without Demand produces only sentiment. 

Demand and Permission are necessary for a circuit to stay connected and for positive change to happen. This requires sustained commitment, effort, and skill. This is something we can all do.

Anne said she has a “personal passion for equity and justice”. A lot of us have that. She observed that she valued working within an organisation that has strong values – and was “prepared to walk the talk”. That’s a value I am confident most of us share. Anne was a vital part of triggering a process of permission to create positive change that continued to ripple through the department long after she had gone.

What finally makes the Permission to change a powerful impetus is that it begins with oneself. If we are prepared to make ourselves vulnerable to personal change, we are not inclined to impede change in others. In fact, we will celebrate and support it. This is something I have seen in all the people who have been potent permission-givers and change agents.