Introduction

A recent post attracted some interesting feedback. In response to Take the positive potential approach a reader asked for follow up posts, which I am happy to provide, but in 3 parts.

This is the first part in which I will endeavour to offer “some concrete strategies or actionable steps for implementing these principles in practical settings” and on “how individuals in an organisation can address power dynamics which could significantly influence the pace and effectiveness of inclusion initiatives.”  

Positive potential and personal power

The moment we see things in terms of deficits which must be corrected, rather than potentials to be nurtured, we throw away our personal power. Correction requires the assent of the correctee, who must also agree that they are in need of correction.

Any manager will tell you that the hardest conversation to have is about performance standards. This is even more difficult if (a) the other person does not see there is a problem, (b) you do not have any recognised authority in relation to that person, and (c) the other person is at the same level or senior.

Identifying a problem that can be resolved chiefly by another person thinking, feeling, or behaving differently may have some rational foundation to it, but you have just handed the power to change to that other person. Yet you are the one who has identified a need for change. Your success chances are as close to zero as they can get.

The thing about seeing the positive potential for change is that you don’t have to ask permission to nurture change. We welcome nurturing behaviour reflexively. But, let’s be clear, you can’t perform nurturing behaviour while harbouring deficit sentiments. We have all experienced overt nurturing behaviour that comes across as coercive with a hint of moral blackmail.

The most important question you must ask yourself is whether your desire for greater inclusion is fuelled by grievance and frustration or driven by compassion and concern.

Being the change you want to see

Older books on management and leadership pay no attention to key ideas like emotional intelligence, psychological safety, or the importance of empathy. These days there is a wealth of contemporary research-based thinking on leadership.

If you want to be a change agent, you must be an effective and skilled leader. Leadership isn’t about positions in an organisational structure or hierarchy, it’s about influencing behaviour through your actions.

Probably the biggest impediment to the rate of uptake of desired change is that the champions of that change are sincere but not skilled. They rely on the moral power of their position. This is often reflected in the assertion of rights. But how is such a right realised? Other people must change their behaviour to permit the right to be lived. But how do they do that?

Understanding the practice of effective leadership is essential. This puts the onus on the change agent to nurture others – psychologically and morally – through modelling the desired behaviour.

There are many excellent books on leadership. Here are my two favourites:

Fearless Leadership: How to Overcome Behavioral Blindspots and Transform Your Organization by Loretta Malandro and Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. by Brené Brown 

Another key text is The Fearless Organisation by Amy C. Edmondson. The full tile adds: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. This is a critical idea. You don’t get positive learning and growth without psychological safety. And you won’t get psychological safety if you take a deficit approach.

I have found it interesting that my favourite authors in this field are women. They bring the nurturing element in ways that male authors don’t so well. This is tough work as well, as the titles convey with ‘fearless’ and ‘dare’. Its about the courage to look at yourself as a leader/change agent and bring your own standards up where they must be for success.

Understanding that workplace cultures evolve

When I left full-time work, I had the leisure to research and reflect. I put a lot of energy into grappling with the problem of change resistance and a seeming aversion to accountability. These had been perplexing me for the whole time I had been DEN Chair. Change resistance had been described in quite a few books but no explanation as to why was offered. I had to delve into organisational and evolutionary psychology to get a few clues.

Organisations must be change averse, as must individuals. We must have a bias toward stability. As a result, we adapt more slowly than is ideal when change is necessary for survival. There’s a reason that change management is a thing requiring considerable skill. And when it comes to individuals thinking of the field of psychotherapy. Change isn’t easy, even when we want it.

Organisations operate in a complex environment with political, economic, cultural, technological, and now climatic forces demanding responses constantly. Organisations are run by people having a go a running the show as best they can – and not always doing a great job. Organisations are staffed by people doing the best they can to handle work demands and personal demands as best they can – and not always doing a great job either.

This is the reality upon which a change agent wants to impose different ways of thinking, feeling an acting. Neuroscience tells us that changes to our behaviour require considerable cognitive effort. How does the change agent work with that?

There have been powerful currents of evolving values that have changed workplace cultures over the past 60 odd years. The significant themes of inclusion and diversity are efforts to influence how those values are expressed in the workplace cultures.

How effective have those efforts at influence been? The positive changes made indicate some degree of success has been achieved, but evidence of ongoing resistance to responding to the evolving values means more work must be done.

While the impetus for positive change persists what also must evolve is the way change advocates and agents do their bit. This is what seems to be missing when we envision formulas for success. We can contribute to the trend toward better human-centred values by adding our nurturing good intent to the steady but slow stream of change, and we can add skilled interventions to strategically address roadblocks we encounter.

Conclusion

How can individual change advocates in an organisation “address power dynamics which could significantly influence the pace and effectiveness of inclusion initiatives”?

The short answer is that they can become more skilled at what they do. Well-intentioned but unskilled efforts will harvest the ‘low hanging fruit’. But what works the first time won’t next time when all the low hanging fruit are gone. The next phase of stimulating positive change requires more skill.

This isn’t surprising. Virtually every job working with people has become more complex, demanding higher levels of skill. What is surprising is that it has taken so long to understand that this complex and challenging role of change advocate/agent is worthy of being seen as a professional level function.

Personal power to drive positive change is derived from two key factors:

• Understanding the nature of the challenge, and
• Developing the skills needed to be an effective change advocate/agent for greater inclusion.

On a personal level, it was the opportunity to step away from deep engagement with the problem of change resistance and a chance for almost fulltime research for 18 months that helped me look at my own practice with fresh eyes. A feature of my time as DEN Chair was a commitment to professionalism and to a relentlessly positive approach. I hadn’t formulated that as a theory at the time.

“Concrete strategies or actionable steps” are of value only if you have the skill to execute them. At the risk of straying from the theme of nurturing leadership I did discover the following book while looking up the details of those above. Leadership Strategy and Tactics: Field Manual by Jocko Willink takes a military perspective. Sometimes we need this. Below is part of the blurb from Amazon:

Leadership Strategy and Tactics takes the guesswork out of leadership by translating theory into practical skills and manoeuvers that leaders at all levels can apply, practice and execute.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling co-author of Extreme Ownership, this book is a powerful and pragmatic step-by-step guide to leading any team, in any situation, to victory.

It’s partly about understanding the problem and developing the skills to address it. It is also partly about understanding that sometimes the challenge is to support evolving values and behaviours through nurturing behaviour and other times about problem solving in a more direct and strategic way.

Ultimately, we have to be the change we want to see. That’s where our power to create positive change resides.

Note: I use Amazon information on books because it is the only source I know of that covers the range of accessible options [ebooks and audiobooks]. If you are into 3D books, do please support your local independent bookshop.

 

Introduction

One of the many joys that escaped my grasp when I was hits by GBS was that of reading books – at least the 3D variety. I have been a reader all my life and holding a book has been something I have delighted in. 

In the aftermath of GBS my ability to pick up, carry, hold, and read a book made from paper radically diminished. What was once a sensuous delight became a struggle, a chore, and finally a something to be avoided. I felt the sense of loss keenly. 

But as I was recovering, I bought one of the first iPhones. I had a Nokia 3310 which was a nice little phone, but with my now incompetent hands it was a struggle to use it. It took me a week of many hours of practice each day just to be able to pick it up and hold it to my ear. It took longer to dial numbers. 

The iPhone was not only far easier to use it introduced me to the world of podcasts and then audiobooks. I then bought an iPad as well and discovered ebooks. 

Now well over a decade later I have become a devotee of audiobooks in particular and ebooks to a lesser degree. If I can’t get an audio version of a book, there’s usually an ebook version available. Sadly though, few non-fiction books produced before ebooks and audiobooks became popular can be found in other than their legacy 3D format. 

These days there are still many books aren’t published in ebook or audiobook formats. They can be had only in paper between hard or soft covers. Often they are intended for academic libraries.

Below I will argue this is not only an out-of-date attitude, but also deeply non-inclusive. It isn’t just about people with disability. People who are time poor or whose lifestyles make lugging 3D books around problematic also benefit from higher degrees of inclusivity brought by ebook and audiobook formats. 

Inclusion and the evolution of technology

In the past 15 years or so technology has evolved in ways that make life far easier for people with disability.  AI has the potential to revolutionise accessibility in ways we can scarcely yet imagine. 

Books have been transformed into sources of information that can be accessed by people with disabilities using technologies of their own choice. They are no longer confined to the print format that has been standard since the invention of the printing press. 

I am ignoring braille here intentionally because it has limited utility and I want to focus on the wider utility of technologies beyond the needs of people with disability. 

My notion of inclusion here is wider than disability.  Reading has traditionally been an activity undertaken as a single focus while usually sitting down whilst in the possession of a substantial item resting on a table or held. 

Ebooks and audiobooks have transformed this picture. 

I have the Kindle app on my phone and my computer. I frequently go out with just my iPhone. Now I can read any of maybe 10 books at any time on my phone. I can adjust the font size to meet my needs. 

So, on a device smaller than any one book I can access multiple books to read with ease. 

The phone also is my primary source of audiobooks. Paired with a Bluetooth headset (I prefer Shokz) I can listen to audiobooks as I drive, walk, exercise or do chores, as well as sitting or lying down. 

Between ebooks and audiobooks the opportunity to ‘read’ has expanded massively. Whether the desire has matched the expanded potential I can’t say. But it is the opportunity I want to focus on, because it applies to people with disability as well as anybody who might benefit from greater opportunity. 

Reading has been transformed because now we can be read to as well as reading on our own account. This isn’t new. Our parents read to us, and public broadcasting services had daily book readings. What is new is that this experience can now be on demand and personalized.

Conclusion

I loved holding books. I loved collecting them. I have a wall in my home which, apart from a door into a room, has a large built-in bookshelf. It is still substantially full of books. But is more décor and memory than a resource.

The only books I have bought in the past decade are ebooks and audiobooks – and I mostly access them on my phone. Between my iPhone, my computer and my audiobook and ebook providers my new library takes up no additional space.  It has no additional weight. The books, a source of ideas and information, have become information. 

The old format of 3D books occupying space and having weight is actually legacy technology which has served the world wonderfully well for centuries. But we are in the digital age now with means of storing, distributing, and accessing the content of books in new ways that make books and the ideas they contain far more universally accessible. 

Publishers still put books out in 3D form as a first, habitual reflex. Sometimes, often in fact, that’s as far as things get. 

I think we must come to see 3D books as legacy technology that panders to nostalgic hankerings for how things used to be. I am sympathetic to that sentiment, but not supportive. 

There are questions about whether audio input sticks as well as print. I think this is a question of habit rather than anything essential to our nature or our brains. We, after all, developed an audio-based culture long before print. 

When writing was developed the sages of the day feared it would reduce the powers of memory, and they were right. Digital technology is doing the same thing. How many critical phone numbers do you now remember? Your partner’s? Your parents? 

Technological evolution creates and destroys. It mostly advances inclusion, but it helps if we are intentional about it and employ the principles of Inclusive Design from the outset.

There are economic factors that make human spoken word audiobooks not a viable option for every published book. But AI may change that in the coming years.

The ebook should be the automatic inclusive format for all published books, with the 3D variety an indulgent nostalgic non-inclusive legacy format.

Maybe not too far into the future we can instruct our personal versions of Siri to read to us from our chosen ebook when we don’t have the chance to sit down and read it ourselves.

Introduction

A recent chat with an associate reinforced a message I got the day before when I was listening to a podcast that featured a chat with Ernesto Sirolli. We are inclined to look for deficits – failures to conform to our notions of the ideal. We should, instead, be seeking potential – and opportunities to activate it.

Sirolli inspired me to completely rethink how I worked. That was back in 1989. His genius was to develop an approach to enterprise facilitation based on deep psychological and philosophical precepts. I have applied his insights to every other aspect of my professional life.

If we understand that things aren’t broken, but that non-ideal states are revealed, we can act in more effective ways. These non-ideal states have always been that way. What has changed are our values. Now we want the way things are to conform to our evolving values. That’s progress. That’s evolution.

There’s also a tension between what is and how we want it to be. Understanding the nature of that tension is essential if we want to succeed at Disability Inclusion.

Against change

But one of our biases is to resist change. There’s a great deal of hype about how we live in a world of constant change. But that’s misleading and has led many of us to misunderstand the difference between things that change readily (like weather) and things that change slowly (like our behaviour).

As a result, we are inclined to see resistance to change as a deficit, especially when the change we want is good, and continued resistance has clearly adverse consequences. This includes causing harm. But our feelings don’t change reality, just our reaction to it. Resistance to change is natural, and its not a deficit. It is a potential, and that’s a positive thing.

Some of us have made radical lifestyle changes because we have become highly motivated by self-interest. We might imagine this allows us to believe behavioural change is easier than it really is. 

Some of us change our behaviours because we are moved by how another person experiences us. Respect and compassion can be great motivators when they are activated. But researchers tell us that people in leadership roles have a diminished capacity for empathy. And other folks are slow to be empathic for a variety of reasons related to their own life experiences and circumstances.

Our default setting is to resist behavioural change even when there might be what other people see as compelling reasons to make the change. This is our normal. Seeing this as a deficit misses the better option of seeing a positive potential.

When we misdiagnose the cause of resistance to change, we risk creating responses that do not work, and which waste time and effort, and generate a negative perspective on the challenge we have identified. This negative perspective captures the change advocate and the change resistant.

Another important insight is that while we might want to drive change in our area of focus and interest, we must also be alert to ways in which we resist change related to other people’s areas of focus and interest. Are we, as Disability Inclusion advocates, as passionate about inclusion demands from others?

If we are not, we risk failing to advance Disability Inclusion, despite our intent.

The flip

Our workplaces are evolving partly because our values have been evolving. We can look back to the 1960s when rights activists triggered changes to the way we engage with the people who we now classify as members of ‘diversity groups’. Over that 60-year period our values have continued to evolve faster than our behaviour. That’s why we still have diversity groups and Inclusion and Diversity teams today. What was obvious 60 years ago is still obvious today – and yet behavioural change still lags behind our acceptance of evolving values.

There’s always a lag between the adoption of a value and the expression of that value in behaviour. Some communities will adapt quickly, usually because they are motivated by self-interest and compassion. Other communities will adapt more slowly. 

Large organisations tend to adapt more slowly and unevenly because they are comprised of individuals who do not tend to have strong personal bonds to the organisation or the majority other staff members. We must remember to see an organisation’s workforce as a community with distinct attributes.

We can begin to understand that within the evolution of inclusive values there are opportunities to enhance the rate of adoption of those values as behaviours. We can look at an organisation to discover how to transform resistance into adaptation.

This is a positive action that seeks out potential, not a negative one that identifies failings. 

The assertive militancy of the 1960s and 1970s that kicked off powerful equity and social justice movements was necessary and may still be so today. But there’s a fundamental difference between triggering political change and nurturing organisational communities to adapt to now accepted ‘new’ values.

We must learn how to transform aspirations into consistent behaviours.

A challenge arises when we ask people to engage in intentional behavioural change at a personal level. This is about nurturing, not militancy – persuasion through example, not coercion. Its about activating potential, not fixing faults. There are no faults – just untapped potential.

How do we, as Inclusion Advocates, communicate the change we want when we are frustrated and perplexed? I have spent 3 years pondering this question. We must flip our perspective. We cannot be vexed by something that is not strange or in violation of good order. 

There’s always a temptation to project our ignorance upon others as violations of ideals we have assumed to be universal. I can look back on what I failed to achieve, among many successes, and now see it was because I didn’t understand the real challenge.

Resistance is normal. Change is necessary. If things change slowly, do we blame the resistors or the change agents? If we think in terms of moral values, we champion the change agents and blame the resistors. But if we think in terms of competence and ask who has the conscious intent to bring about change, we have a question. How competent are the change agents? Can they do better? They can.

Our emerging values are about Inclusion. Disability is just a particular element on the spectrum of attributes embraced by our growing passion for Inclusion. We must embrace change resistors and understand their needs. In essence we must model the inclusivity we are seeking as a universal attribute of our own behaviour.

There is a critical distinction to be made. Organisations have legal obligations to be inclusive. But meeting that obligation involves people who are responding to inclusion demands on a personal level. They are not purely rational agents dispassionately complying with policies and laws. This is personal whether we like it or not. There are no exemptions or free passes.

Change is slow

When we see the 60-year time scale we can appreciate how much has changed, but also how much more is needed to enable our behaviours to reflect our ideals/values. We are getting there, slowly.

Part of the reason change has been so slow may be that the change advocates have not been as skilled as they imagine. Often the possession of a moral right has been assumed to be sufficient. Once people are made aware that their attitudes/actions are harming others they will change. Right? Wrong.

To the extent to which change has been supported by crude efforts at persuasion those efforts at persuasion have been substantially ineffectual. To figure out why, we have usually identified the problem to be associated with recalcitrant attitudes. We have often missed the chance to question how effective or even appropriate those efforts at persuasion have been.

Conclusion

Advocates for Disability Inclusion, and Inclusion generally, must be clear on the cause of the problem they are addressing. Interpreting it in deficit terms – imputing wilful failure by other people to act or change – requires a coherent response. This is tricky because it is hard to work effectively with people you fundamentally blame for not behaving as you want.

Well-trained social workers employ a ‘strength-based approach’. This looks at a person’s growth potential rather than their problems. In my terms it looks at a person’s adaptive capacity by assuming that they do want to behave in ways more conducive to their (and other people’s) wellbeing.

Organisation’s workplace cultures are generally sources of abundant goodwill. Manifestations of change resistance are not evidence of the absence of goodwill. Change resistance is the norm. Sadly, so too is weak empathy. That abundant goodwill is potential for steady, if slow, positive change. If we are more skilled as advocates then the rate of change may be higher.

Translating good intent into changed behaviour requires intentional conscious action until the behaviour is changed. That means we must devote considerable cognitive effort to bring about that change. While some may have no desire to expend that effort most folks are happy to devote some effort – depending on what other demands are being made on them.

Because of this reality, change in organisational cultures can be slow and patchy. Inclusion advocates must not only model the behaviours they want to spread across the culture but remain focused on positive potential and be patient. That is hard work – there’s no escaping that.

Each organisation’s workforce culture has subtle nuances that only insiders will know well. If the focus is on positive potential, strategies for stimulating change can be developed and successfully applied if those nuances are accurately identified, respected, and embraced.

Our success depends on how we interpret, and respond to, the resistance we meet. A ‘positive potential’ interpretation works best. Disability Inclusion advocates are working at the leading edge of positive evolutionary cultural change. It’s a novel place to be and we are still discovering how to do our work well.

This is new stuff. There are no established methods to follow. We are still developing them. We can be innovators and continue to build upon earlier successes, or we can bumble along with inept good intent. 

Inclusion is a 60-year-old social justice theme, but our communities are expressions of constantly evolving realities. Inclusion is still the ideal, still the goal, but how it is communicated and how it is realised must continue to evolve.

Introduction

The Neuroleadership Institute (NLI) is blunt. If you have a brain, you have a bias. Bias isn’t an eradicable fault in our minds. It’s a feature, but not one we manage well in all circumstances.

Below are a few quotes from a NLI article by Komai Gulati from 2020. I’ll come back to this article later.

“Evolutionarily, biases act as adaptive processes that allow us to use prior knowledge and experiences to inform our decisions and actions in the present.”

“Unfortunately, in our modern world, not all biases serve to benefit us and those around us. In fact, when left untethered, biases can seep into hiring, promotion, feedback, and management and lead to poor decision-making and sub-optimal working environments.”

“For leaders, it’s important to learn to mitigate that bias before it negatively impacts decision-making and work environments.” 

Let’s adapt that last quote:

“For decision-makers, it’s important to learn to mitigate that bias before it negatively impacts decision-making and work environments.” 

What a difference a meaning makes

Mitigate – Verb – make (something bad) less severe, serious, or painful (Oxford English Dictionary – OED). 

It is unfortunate that a well-intended use of a word can undo a positive line of thought. What is to be mitigated is not bias per se but inappropriately applied bias.

How do we know when a bias is inappropriately applied? When we have an obligation to be fair and impartial we are at risk. Unfortunately, one of our inherent survival-oriented biases leads us to over-estimate any of our abilities, and this includes our assessment of our ability to be fair and impartial. We can, and will, sincerely believe we are being unbiased when, in fact, we are not.

This doesn’t mean we have to live in fear and loathing of biases. They are our friends in many situations – mostly when our personal interests are legitimately being served. In fact, without these functional biases, we might be incapable of timely and effective action.

When we accept that bias is our default mode, we can employ reflective assessments to determine when our employer’s interests might be impeded by our biases. Our employer’s interests and our interests do not naturally intersect at all times.

One interest is a prohibition against discrimination that affects both public and private sector organisations.

Discrimination has two important meanings. Many years ago, it meant only “recognition and understanding the difference between one thing and another.” (OED) Now we mostly understand it to mean “the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people” (OED).

What has happened in this evolution of meaning is that we have condensed our expression to remove the word ‘inappropriate’ as a qualifier of the original idea of discrimination. Being discriminating used to be a good thing, because it meant discerning or selective in a positive way.

We can be biased in ways that serve our personal needs in what we think is a good way, but which violate our employer’s anti-discrimination obligations. The easiest way to understand this is to look at our natural tendency to prefer people who are like us. That is perfectly fine in our private lives, and out of line when we are acting as employees making decisions as a representative of the organisation we work for.

Don’t choose alone

Recruitment is rife with bias. Selection panels are often assembled by the hiring manager who might have activated their preference for people like themselves, and so have ended up with 3-4 people with a similar bias potential on their selection panel.

The solution is to intentionally ensure that decisions (recruitment or otherwise) are not made in isolation (as one person or a group thinking alike), but in company that can bring diverse perspectives to bear on the decision-making process.

This will not eliminate bias leading to inappropriate factors being considered in discriminating (choosing) between options (like which candidate to hire), but it dilutes the risk.

On a personal level, self-reflective awareness of the risk of a bias being misapplied in certain settings is essential. But if decision-making is shared among a diverse group of equally self-aware colleagues the quality of decision making is elevated.

Understanding bias better.

NLI’s has done great research on unconscious bias and has condensed 150+ biases into five key bias groups that are reflected in NLI’s SEEDS Model®: 

1. Similarity: The tendency to view people who look or think like us more favorably than people who are different 
2. Expedience: The tendency to rush to conclusions in an effort to minimize cognitive effort 
3. Experience: The tendency to believe that how we see the world is inherently truer than someone else’s perspective 
4. Distance: The tendency to assign greater value to those things that we perceive to be closer to us, rather than further away 
5. Safety: The tendency to over-account for negative outcomes instead of positive ones 

These bias groups are the foundation of our personal unconscious processes for dealing with our lived reality. They are not objective, but we can use them effectively when we are acting on behalf of people who share our worldview. The problem comes when the people impacted by our decision-making don’t share our worldview, and they expect us to embrace their worldviews in our deliberations. This is an obligation to be inclusive.

Complexity, diversity and pluralism

Our culture, and the communities within it, has been evolving rapidly over the last 60 years. Anti-discrimination legislation places obligations upon organisations to make fairer choices in workplaces that continue to grow more and more diverse.

This means that an obligation to be less biased is now more urgent than it was in the 1960s. Under the pressure of such a level of change we can feel under threat. Biases are survival strategies that must adapt as the environment changes. When we feel under threat we are more likely to rely on our biases.

If we understand biases as cognitive shortcuts, we can understand that what is important is not that we exercise biases but whether our biases are adapted to our current environment and in service of our goals and values.

If we do not agree with the broader tend toward greater diversity, we will activate our present biases against that trend. This must be a conscious choice – to adapt or not. If we choose to adapt, we must accept that there is a cognitive burden we must bear as we intentionally change our goals and values to align with the larger cultural trend.

Biases are a legacy of earlier evolutionary responses – choices became unconscious and automatic because they proved to be beneficial (to individuals, to families, to tribes, to communities, to cultures). For an adaptive response to the current evolution of our culture to eventually become equally unconscious we must do intentional work on our self-awareness. We must change how we behave intentionally.

Conclusion

The NLI article sums up the situation neatly:

“As today’s (organisations) are making a genuine effort to address the biases prevalent in their workplaces, research shows that simply acknowledging the existence of bias is not enough to prevent its negative effects. To that end, NLI offers a three-step process for reducing the effects of bias: Accept, Label, Mitigate.” 

“Biases form the invisible lens through which we all subconsciously see the world. Accepting your own biases, as well as others’, involves understanding that bias is a natural, inevitable part of human cognition — not unique to you, your (organisation), or your employees. Labelling bias using the SEEDS Model® makes it easy to adopt a shared language to call out bias in respectful and meaningful ways.” 

Bias is perhaps the greatest barrier to disability inclusion, and it is often mistaken as a fault to be eliminated rather than a reflex to be evolved. It is therefore critically important that people with disability have a clear understanding of what they are trying to change.

I encourage the reader to visit The Neuroleadership Institute’s website to explore the array of ideas on bias and diversity, equity and inclusion. I have no connection with NLI. Their content on bias is just the best I have seen.

Introduction

Leading a staff network is under-valued because, outside of those who hold leadership roles, it is rarely examined in the context of professional development. It isn’t usually seen as requiring a professional skillset.

Here I want to explore the demands of staff network leadership in relation to the NSW Public Sector Capability Framework. There are 20 general capabilities divided into 5 groups. Below I have identified 16 capabilities that could be applied to a staff network leader. I will go on to briefly discuss each.

Personal Attributes

• Display Resilience and Courage
• Act with Integrity
• Manage Self
• Value Diversity

Relationships

• Communicate Effectively
• Work Collaboratively
• Influence and Negotiate

Results

• Deliver Results
• Plan and Prioritise
• Think and Solve Problems
• Demonstrate Accountability

Business Enablers

• Project Management

People Management

• Manage and Develop People
• Inspire Direction and Purpose
• Optimise Business Outcomes
• Manage Reform and Change

Personal Attributes

Staff network leaders of necessity contribute a very substantial level of their own time to the role. Sometimes this can create tension in their personal lives. In addition to efforts to negotiate an accommodation of their staff network role within their formal role can raise challenges that must be handled sensitively and deftly. The need to display resilience and courage, and manage self is fundamental to being an effective staff network leader.

A strong positive personal reputation in relation to network members and the agency in general is essential. The need to act with integrity is foundational to effective staff network leadership.

No staff network functions in isolation. Aside from intersectional links with other staff networks, those who might be allies and champions have their own styles and priorities. The ability to genuinely value diversity is essential.

Relationships

The relationship capabilities are central to leading a staff network effectively. The ability to communicate effectively is foundational and is perhaps the most complex and nuanced of the capabilities. It includes private conversations with individual members, running small and large meetings, and engaging with managers and executives. Writing skills must also be well developed in a variety of formats.

Working collaboratively is critical. This may include working with other staff networks or engaging with business units to achieve network objectives.

Because staff networks aren’t part of the formal structure the ability to effectively influence and negotiate is magnified in value.

Results

An effective staff network must be results-oriented. It must provide benefits to members, and it must deliver a business outcome (improving staff welfare and agency culture are 2 good examples). Hence delivering results is a key priority.

Time and attention are scarce resources for volunteer staff networks. Effective prioritization and planning are essential to ensure intended benefits are delivered.

Because staff networks sit outside the standard organisational operational structure the need to think through risks and opportunities and solve problems can be significant.

Staff network leads must demonstrate accountability to members, whose interests they represent, and to the agency, whose resources (time, funds, and attention) are relied upon. The agency, the members, and staff more generally are all critical stakeholders.

Business Enablers

Of the 4 capabilities project management was the one that was most applicable across all networks. Leading a staff network itself can be a major project. As well, reform and change related activities are best seen as discrete projects.

People Management

Staff networks are voluntary, so people management skills must be developed to a high degree. Inspiring direction and purpose are critical to a network where engagement is voluntary. 

Managing and developing people is vital with members who participate in network activities which may be new to them. This is especially the case with leadership teams where members may not have leadership experience and need support to build confidence in their capacities.

The challenge of optimising business outcomes is essential if a network is to provide benefit to the organisation to justify the time and resources applied to the network. These outcomes not only benefit members and staff more generally, but also the agency as a whole.

Networks can be actively involved in reform and change, so the need to influence and manage change and reform processes can be central to network activities.

Conclusion

In many respects, being DEN Chair was the hardest role I have ever had. It was more complex than any previous role. Most of my previous roles involved engagement with the public in some way (individuals, service providers and businesses – usually in ways that were dynamic and challenging – but always within a clearly defined set of parameters.

I have described being a staff network lead as being a ‘wildcard’. You don’t have a place within the clearly defined hierarchy of status, responsibility, and influence. But you must respect it and work with it. There is great opportunity but also great risk. You must be a diplomat able to engage with staff at all levels about matters that can be complex and delicate.

I hope I have shown that being a staff network lead can be more challenging than many other leadership roles. The fact that it is voluntary and requires a lot of additional time adds to pressure to perform at a high standard. People who put their hands up to take on a leadership role are driven by a passion for the cause. But they rarely know what they are taking on – in terms of the complexity and the nature of the challenges.  

Recognition of the skills required can transform how we value staff networks and support their volunteer leaders.

Staff networks, or Employee Resource Groups, exist because there is an assumption of benefit to be had from their activity. Or maybe they are merely tolerated because their creation is a matter of policy and compliance is performative only. The latter situation is the worst-case scenario for a network lead. The magnitude of difficulty is magnified. Getting good results when the organisation’s senior leadership is not committed to the desired positive change is a far greater challenge. Network leaders who succeed under such circumstances will have earned our respect. Its hard enough when senior leaders are actively supportive.

Introduction

Strategic planning is honoured more in name than action. Maybe we should just call it planning, but strategic has such an aura of importance about it. It might be useful to visit a dictionary to refresh our understanding of these words. 

Strategic: relating to the identification of long-term or overall aims and interests and the means for achieving them.

Plan: a detailed proposal for doing or achieving something

So, a strategic plan identifies long-term aims and provides a detailed method for achieving them.

There are two elements – a goal and the means of getting to it. 

In 2019 the 15 members of my then employer’s (now the Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ)) DEN’s Guidance and Action Team (GAT) was privileged to participate in a 2-day facilitated planning workshop. It wasn’t called a Strategic Planning workshop. We called it an Action Planning workshop. We needed to lay down the foundation of the DEN’s future actions and culture. We had presented to the Board in February that year and we returned to the Board in November with a bold spreadsheet detailing what we wanted to achieve. 

What gets counted gets done

In my time in DCJ I was frequently required to prepare project plans, which I did with a sense of despair. They were signed off and forgotten. Even when I went back to a manager to review the plan, I was mostly met with a blank look – “You are taking this seriously?”Well, yes. The whole point of making a plan is to follow it. 

That doesn’t mean a plan is followed rigidly. In the “fog of war” of reality, circumstances will drive the need for changes and revisions. But while the plan must be adaptive it still must be followed. 

While our original Action Plan was a great foundation, it was essentially a manifesto for influence. It had a bold time frame and clear success measures. But with 13 action areas it was wildly ambitious. It was what we wanted rather than what we had contracted with the department to make happen in a clear and precise way. 

This was a vital distinction. Setting a set of aspirational goals for DEN wasn’t the same as contracting a set of outputs with the organization. That was where we wanted to get to, but a lot had to change first – and we were exploring what that was. 

I recently looked at that plan, developed around this time (September) in 2019. Some of the actions are still being pursued. Most actions have been achieved, but well after our bold 2020 target date. However, there were only 2 actions that remained unfulfilled – greater awareness of invisible disabilities and a degenerative disease and disability transition program. 

Planning for cultural change

Culture is the accumulated expression of lived experience, and it is grounded in behavioursand actions. There are actions that can be planned, executed, and measured in terms of outputs but the outcome can often only be hoped for. 

Strategic planning is about planning to maximise the chances of your desired outcome happening. Straight planning works when we are dealing with outputs, not outcomes.

The distinction is critical. Outputs are the consequences of rational and predictable actions. Outcomes are the benefits conferred by such actions and more. Well intended outputs do not assure desired outcomes. Influence upon culture is independent of outputs but is also interdependent.

We need to ensure that our organizations’ culture is conducive to turning outputs into outcomes. With most public sector organizations, we are dealing with a reservoir of goodwill that may need to be assured it can freely express a willingness to be inclusive. Sometimes an organization’s culture can be dominated by change exhaustion or workload demand and hence be more in a survival mode than a celebratory one.

In 2019 the DEN was committed to generating positive cultural change. The 2019 DCJ’s annual People Matter Employee Survey (PMES) score for disability was 4% of staff. In 2022 it had doubled to 8%. The DEN’s approached paid off. It had laid the foundation for continued cultural evolution.

That doubling of the percentage of staff with disability signaled a critical shift in confidence by those staff – but that would not have been possible without a wider change across the organization’s culture.

Planning for procedural change

This is harder because it requires agreement at an organizational level that things will be done differently at a policy, procedural and practice level. Cost may be directly involved. Changing policies and procedures is slower than we’d like. It always is.

When I joined the DEN in 2010, I wanted a return-to-work policy for people with acquired disabilities not related to work-related events. This morphed into the idea of a workplace adjustment passport. It has taken nearly a decade of steady change in attitudes, maturation of ideas and the evolution of methods. There had to be a cultural shift first. What seemed self-evident at the level of living with disability has slowly evolved into a workplace adjustment passport, a flexible working policy, accessible technology, and other forms of accommodation of needs – but for all staff and not just those with disability. 

The Disability Inclusion movement may have been the most focused drive for change, but it wasn’t the only influence. 

Conclusion

We plan everything of consequence. The more complex the task the more detailed the plan must be. 

I exited hospital in March 2009 after 10 months. Going home was a profoundly desperate need that had to be planned on so many levels. I was still facing at least 6 months of intensive home-based physiotherapy. It wasn’t well-planned and I was constantly discovering needs that had to be met by my own makeshift effort rather than the health system. 

My return to work was good-spirited but ramshackle. I was a novelty to my employer and myself. We struggled through, though sometimes causing more pain that was necessary. We were all learning how to be adaptive and inclusive on the job. 

The following year the DEN was established and now multiple staff with disability and key people from HR shared discovering what a DEN could be. It took 9 years before the potential of what the DEN could be was evident. It had sufficient agency to imagine what might be possible and plan to achieve clear goals. 

Over that time the idea of Disability Inclusion was maturing across the sector as well. The idea was also evolving inside the organization, as its culture changed. We had created a collaboration between the DEN and the organization. We had shared goals. We could now think about planning for positive change in ways that are more effective than our earlier efforts.

We can see that there is an essential difference between project planning and strategic planning. I still think the word ‘strategic’ is often used just because it sounds important. However, when we understand that strategic planning embraces the outcome of actions, not merely the output, the real power of that meaning can become apparent.

What is the outcome of effective Disability Inclusion action? An output might be that accessible technology is readily available, that recruitment is fairer, that workplaces are more accessible. But the outcome is that equity of access to opportunity and equal standing in the organizational community is no longer a ‘gift’ that can be withheld by action or constrained by inaction. It is a right and dignity that is acknowledged without ever having to be asked for.

The outputs are matters of process. The outcomes are matters of culture. Each influences the other. An ERG must seek to influence both, but its highest goal must be cultural change. Outputs are stepping-stones on the path to the outcome, but never the destination. The outcome is a ‘guiding light’. This is the foundation of the strategy for success.

Success is built on effective strategic planning.

Introduction

Now and then I listen to audiobooks on communication, with an emphasis on selling. I do this to remind myself just how important it is.

Selling is not an idea many people have positive emotions about. That’s understandable. Back in the 1980s I did a week-long course with a now non-existent insurance company. I learned how to manipulate people into buying. It was unethical and I knew it. I didn’t last long as an insurance salesman and cancelled the only policy I sold. I felt bad that I had put a family into financial stress through my manipulation. Maybe they would have still bought insurance without that manipulation? Maybe not. Nevertheless, I was immensely grateful that I became conscious of the process of manipulation. I could choose not to act that way.

A decade later I had a regional role in northern NSW with the Department of Community Services. I was licensing aged and disability residential services and disability workplaces. I was often out in the field 3-5 days at a time. 

I borrowed a 6-cassette course on conflict resolution from the department’s library. Over the next few months, I played the cassettes repeatedly, using each visit to a service to practice the skills described. That exercise transformed how I worked and served me very well in my in that job and subsequent roles when I was involved in contentious or fraught situations with service providers.

I also had some tapes of Zig Zigler on salesmanship (without the flagrant manipulation). They came from an associate who encouraged me, with no success, to become an Amway distributor. I listened to them repeatedly. Zigler is perhaps the most prolific author on this theme, with books from 1982 to 2011.

Over the subsequent years I have become aware how those three experiences have profoundly influenced my professional life in powerful and positive ways.

There’s nothing more unpleasant than being the target of poorly executed selling. That’s what we remember. Beautifully executed selling is something we rarely see – because when it is done well, we don’t see it as selling. 

Selling is also called influencing and persuasion and negative the connotations that fit both words are easy to bring to mind. It is quite simply an activity that we have little respect for, or trust in.

Ethical selling, influencing, persuasion – acts of relating where everyone feels good, and the outcome is good, is what we generally try to do on a day-to-day basis. But we so often fail to achieve our desired objectives because we lack the skills needed to be effectively persuasive.

We all sell

The act is natural to us, the word has been given a bad rap because we recall it being done badly and/or unethically. 

Learning to sell well (and ethically) is something we should all be striving to do. 

Selling is not just the pitch. For a time, it was popular to talk about one’s personal ‘brand’ (maybe it’s still a thing?). Every aspect of who we are is bundled into the act. 

We can use less loaded words like ‘communicator’, or serious words like ‘negotiator’. In the end we all want to be able to convey ideas we think are valuable and generate actions that create good outcomes.

Being able to sell well is a skill we should value and celebrate. The question of ethics is real and must be addressed.

How do I sell disability inclusion?

ERG leaders have the necessity of selling thrust upon them, but they usually do not appreciate this reality, and are often unprepared for the challenge that now faces them.

Let’s rephrase the question as “How do I influence people to be more inclusive of people with disability?” We could also say “How do I persuade people to be more inclusive of people with disability?”

Without the loaded language the task takes on a more noble tone.

What is important is that influence or persuasion is a form of communication and relating that can be done skillfully and ethically or poorly and unethically. It can be also done skillfully and unethically and poorly and ethically. We often do the last when we want to do the first. 

So, the answer to the question is: “Skillfully.”

Conclusion

In previous posts I have explored the forms of resistance advocates for disability inclusion encounter. It is important that we don’t misdiagnose the reasons and motives for the resistance met. It is equally important that we do not expend time and energy on remedies that do not work, or which work to only a limited degree. Time and energy are scarce commodities for both the influencer and subject of attempts at persuasion.

Skillful ethical selling/influencing/persuading serves everybody well.

Some books from my audiobook list

These are also available in hardcopy and ebook formats (except the Dale Carnegie book)

• Influence – Robert B. Cialdini (1984)
• Exactly What to Say – Phil M. Jones (2017)
• How to Talk to Anyone – Leil Lowndes (1999)
• How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work – R Kegan & LL Lahey (2000)
• How to Win Friends & Influence People in the Digital Age – Dale Carnegie & Associates (2011) 
• The Surprising Science of Meetings – Steven Rogelberg (2018)

The Cialdini book is a classic and a must read. In fact, I have just discovered he has another book that seems to be as good – Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade. I bought the audiobook version immediately.

There are a lot of books on the selling/influencing/persuasion theme, including looking at the darker side of unethical manipulation. Books on marketing are also helpful. You will find something that suits your needs.

I included The Surprising Science of Meetings not because it is about communicating so much as the environment or setting for the act of selling to occur. Where and when we seek to persuade are just as important as the how. 

Introduction

Over the past few months, I have had the privilege working with ERG leaders – disability and others – though the intersection with disability is a persistent accompanying theme in most cases. 

Leading an ERG effectively is a demanding and tough job. It’s not a case of putting on one’s leadership hat a couple of times a month. It is a passion that is constantly present. 

Here I want to reflect on and celebrate the role of ERG leadership. 

The wildcard role

Most significant organisations these days have a formal DEI team that sits within a defined hierarchy and has a clear status. Now DEI teams have their passions and challenges too, so I don’t want the reader to infer that what I say about ERG leads doesn’t apply to DEI teams. 

Some things do not, however, apply and one of those things is the wild card nature of an ERG leader. 

I have met NSW public sector ERG leads who have been at grades significantly below the usual manager grade of 11/12. This includes 3/4, 5/6, 7/8, and 9/10. Of these grades, typically 9/10s and some 7/8s may lead teams. 

Depending on circumstances it is not usual for staff under grade 11/12 to engage directly with executives. One is generally definitely seen as a subordinate in status, power, influence, and skill. 

ERG leaders must perform key management functions, but without any official standing beyond their role title. And to make things just that little more interesting the members of their ERG are all volunteers. While there may be explicit recognition of the fact of being an ERG lead, all else is essentially contingent. 

Who an ERG leader is is really down to the luck of the draw. Any ERG could end up with a person with substantial proven leadership skills and experience or somebody with nascent potential which may or may not flower during their leadership term. 

Possession of potential plus passion is the mark of a truly interesting wild card. 

The potential isn’t rare. There are always people with potential at lower grades, though some may be stuck there through circumstance or bias. Becoming an ERG leader can unplug that potential and when it is mixed with passion for the ERG’s cause great things can happen. But being a wild card is also a risk.

The art and science of leadership

Doing leadership well isn’t easy. It is an art and a science. Knowledge of the science can be acquired through self-directed learning, training, coaching, or mentoring. The art can be developed only through passion-fueled practice.

Typically, though, leading an ERG is under-appreciated. To be fair, sometimes ERGs bring this upon themselves because of perceptions created when ERG leaders who have the passion and commitment get stuck for want of understanding the science side of leadership equation. This can be more often true of new ERG leaders with no formal leadership experience.

Being an effective leader takes knowledge plus the necessary personal attributes.

Leadership is a function, not a role

In books such as Fearless Leadership by Loretta Malandro (2009), The Fearless Organisation by Amy C. Edmondson (2018) and Dare to Lead by Brene Brown (2018) we develop an understanding that leadership is less a formal role and way more about personal attributes. So, people who are not leaders can find themselves in leadership roles. But equally so, people who are leaders may not find the opportunity to get into a formal leadership role. Happy the days when the two come together.

For ERG leaders whose backgrounds have given them limited formal leadership opportunity and whose status in the organisation is decidedly subordinate, moving into their new role may precipitate a conflict between their passion and ability and their reflex to be responsive to their normal position in the organisation’s hierarchy.

For them, being a wild card is a distinctly uncomfortable and even perilous position to be in.

An intense learning curve

Books like Primal Leadership by David Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee (2001), Quiet Leadership by David Rock (2006) and Leadershift by John C. Maxwell (2018) remind us that the art of leadership can (and must) be continually refined. It is often an ongoing journey of self-discovery and personal development.

For those new to ERG leadership roles settling into that role can be a demanding time, especially if critical guidance isn’t available. While organisations are happy to facilitate ERGs it is rare that there is commitment to supporting leaders to develop into their roles.

Becoming a great ERG leader is a big challenge that those with the passion needed to drive them will meet. But they must also seek out the guidance they need. 

Conclusion

I have been deeply impressed by ERG leaders emerging from the middle to lower ranks in organisations. Their passion for their cause gives them the energy to meet the considerable demands of their roles.

Leadership is a function before it is a role. And whether it is looked at as either, or the happy marriage of both, it must be seen as an art and a science. Natural leaders still must develop the rational skills that give their potential expression of the art the necessary coherence.

Being a wild card isn’t easy, but it is full of great potential if played wisely. This is part of the art of leadership that can’t be learned anywhere but on the job. This is perhaps the most important, challenging, and rewarding insight for any ERG leader to embrace.

There is a future potential for organisations to recognise that ERG leadership in an outstanding opportunity to develop and hone leadership skills, and to invest in supporting emerging leaders.

Introduction

I had a chat recently with a friend who works in the NSW Department of Customer Service (DCS). It is a public service agency whose customer base is the whole of the NSW community. My friend has a deep passion for accessibility, and he thinks about it in ways I find deeply inspirational.

Here are some reflections arising from our chat. I focus on inclusion rather than accessibility. You can’t have inclusion without accessibility – but you also can’t have accessibility without a spirit of inclusion.

Service means different things in different contexts

In one sense all public sector agencies serve their community. They are all services. But sometimes that service is fraught because the service users, or those upon whom the service is imposed, do not endear themselves to the service providers. In other cases, the services provided are more remote from the community. They make the other services possible.

What makes DCS different is that its customers/service users are generally seen in a positive and direct way. I have dealt with DCS often. Its commitment to customer service is sincere. You can explore what it does here – https://www.nsw.gov.au/departments-and-agencies/department-of-customer-service

Because of its different approach it has engaged its internal audit team to assess its services in terms of their accessibility. That’s a strong positive move which reflects confidence in DCS’s willingness to be held accountable.

This is in stark contrast with other agencies which provide services in areas which engage with community members in deeply problematic situations – like police, corrective services, child protection and housing and homelessness. Issues of accessibility and inclusion are no less relevant, but the complexity of these roles is such that it doesn’t lend itself readily to an internal audit assessment. This is not a criticism, just an observation. There are complex reasons why this is so, and its not a theme I can cover here.

In essence you can do some things with the idea of service in one context, but not another. This distinction is important because it tells us a great deal about how we understand what service is, and how we apply that understanding.

Accountability is a problem

Bullying and harassment of staff with disability is an ongoing issue in the public sector. It could, theoretically, be solved simply by having an effective reporting and response mechanism. Reality is different. Our psychology gets in the way of ideals all the time.

There is a huge difference between accountability in the delivery of accessible services in a positive spirit of service delivery and holding staff in leadership roles accountable for the mistreatment of subordinate staff. It should happen, but it mostly does not unless the offence transgresses against norms severely and cannot be downplayed.

In recent months I have been made aware that NSW public sector agencies have been obliged to develop and implement policies related to sexual harassment and bullying and harassment. This misconduct is clearly a breach of the sector’s code of conduct, but instead of strengthening response processes which affirm accountability, the policies are revised – as if the policy is the issue. It isn’t. It’s the failure to act effectively in response to complaints that is the problem.

Service and accountability on a personal level

DCS demonstrates that understanding service in a particular way can make a desire to be accountable a matter of pride. But we don’t see how an organisation operates as a form of service – more a kind of managing a mechanism. The messy business of managing how staff conduct themselves isn’t seen as a service. It is a necessity that is difficult to do well at the best of times. This attitude is changing among organisations who are committed to adopting the latest research-based thinking on how to attract and retain high quality staff.

There is a need to distinguish between managing how an organisation operates and what it does – but please do see that the idea of service applies in both cases. These days staff members are not mere cogs in the ‘machine’ of production but more like the tools (as intelligent moral agents) without whom the business of the organisation cannot be realised. Part of the function of managing staff is providing a service to them – giving guidance, ensuring safety, providing accessible working conditions and so on. 

While staff members may be subordinate in a necessary organisational hierarchy, they are not so when it comes to dignity, status, or value. In days gone by hierarchical inequity also embraced organisational and social status. In a way it still does in the sense that more power/responsibility usually means higher pay which can translate as opportunities to participate in specific social groups. But that seeming inequity is relative rather than absolute – as it used to be thought to be.

There is some interesting thinking on the idea of the ‘servant leader’ in which leadership is an act of service rather than the exercise of power. Please do google the idea. 

The wealth of work on leadership and service to be found does suggest that being a leader/manager is much harder than it used to be. The NSW Public Service Commission released a campaign to support employment of people with disability a few years ago. It included a manifesto which included the phrase: “Today leaders inspire with self-awareness and empathy.” What the campaign lacked was guidance on how that might happen. 

Self-awareness and empathy are not attributes included in selection criteria for manager/leadership roles. It seems that we expect that people in those roles will spontaneously acquire those attributes simply because they are asserted to a good thing.

On a personal level, being self-reflective and self-critical can have limited appeal, unless one is self-motivated in that direction.  A job is generally taken to be a means toward self-fulfilment because of the income earned. It is not necessarily seen as an act of service in itself. This is an important distinction because if we see a job is a means to an end, we assume it to be the same for everyone else. The goal is to get by and get to the chance to be self-fulfilled outside of work.

This makes perfect sense, and in days gone by that was the pretty much rule. There were exceptions, of course, but they were exceptional. These were people who found fulfillment in their work as acts of service. The norm was that the staff member was essentially a ‘wetware’ component in the means of production – whatever the output was. Customer service was a thing that stood alone, externally focused. That was the only kind of service imagined.

Leading with self-awareness and empathy sounds nice. It is a form of service towards those who are led. But to suggest that it will naturally arise is to view how organisations work with great naivety. There will be some for whom such is a natural expression of who they are, but they are in the minority. To get to that quality of servant leadership there must be a cultural commitment to it at organisational level.

Things have changed

In the past few decades, organisations have recognised the need to treat their staff differently. This became pertinent when the idea of ‘knowledge work’ gained a foothold. What that meant was that apart from possessing certain knowledge staff had to be also able to exercise judgement, communicate effectively and be competent in interpersonal relations. The means of production shifted from processes to people in whom knowledge, skills and attributes of character are key requirements.

This change has arisen from changes in social values, reflected in the expectations of staff to be treated as a person of inherent worth and dignity. Disability inclusion has arisen as a theme because of this change – as have other DEI themes.

But what has changed more slowly than the social values has been the capacity of organisations to adapt. They are still locked into the habits of how things have been done since way back when. Staff are still seen as subject to organisational control rather than care. The cobwebs of the command and control mentality still linger in our workplaces and exert their dragging influence.

In a control mentality causing harm to a staff member as a component of the means of production is no big deal, because they can be replaced. With a care mentality causing harm invokes a sense of empathic concern which triggers action to ameliorate the harm and address the cause.

For many organisations this transition is slow. The control mindset is so entrenched and pervasive it is difficult to dislodge. Back in late 2020 or early 2021, before I quit fulltime work, my employer released a new policy on grievances/complaints handling. I was astonished and dismayed to see references to ‘managers’ and ‘workers’. Such out of date language is possible only if the old mindset still endures. I thought the policy persisted in the same old quasi-legal adversarial mentality that forced a separation between the interests of the organisation and the interests of staff. Staff injured by misconduct (for that is the cause of so many injurious consequences) are seen not as people needing care and empathy, but as risks to the leadership ingroup to be managed. It’s the old ‘them and us’thinking and not the ‘we’ of shared care and responsibility that mark emotional and psychological maturity.

The watershed moment

We are in a transitional phase at the level of organisational culture – moving from component thinking to real caring. Our legislation and policy champion caring but our management and leadership recruitment practices still echo component thinking. How do we hit the top of the ridge into a new watershed territory?

Typically, we are dominated by prevailing mentalities which resist the new. We resist investing in the emergent insights because they devalue old authority, and the cost is seen as an impost rather than an investment. We naturally resist change, and the object of organisational leadership should be to work through that resistance, not reinforce it. 

Leadership guides are clear here – you must model the change you want others to adopt. If you want inclusivity, behave inclusively. If you want accessibility, make it a priority in your own conduct. If you want accountability, allow yourself to be held to account.

Businesses live and die by their vision and capacity to adapt and embrace the new. Kodak, once the definitive name in photography, missed out on the digital revolution. It didn’t make it to the top of the ridge.

The public sector has no such imperative to adapt to survive. The worst it may face is limitation in funding and be subject to political guidance of variable merit. As such adaptation to the emergent paradigms about valuing the dignity of staff is patchy – uneven in distribution and quality.

What I love about DCS is that it is modelling the idea of service as a discipline governed by principles and standards. True, this has a primary external focus, but it must have an internal reflection as well. True, this might have an initial focus on accessibility, but accessibility benefits all because it is inherently inclusive. Its something that could infect the whole culture.

DCS also has a cultural steering committee. This is an idea new to me, and one I will explore and write on. In essence such a committee intentionally influences the organisation’s culture. At some stage the culture must shift into care-centric territory in a way that will steadily accelerate the rate of evolution toward workplaces that are inclusive, equitable and diverse – and compassionate, caring and kind.

You can’t be outwardly caring while remaining internally locked into component thinking. It’s been tried and it doesn’t work. Authenticity is necessary – if only we could see that at every level of our organisations.

Conclusion

Shifting from a control mindset to a service mindset is a stage along the evolutionary pathway, and what we can do to move it along is important. 

A friend, Ernesto Sirolli, the pioneer of enterprise facilitation in the 1980s, wrote of the importance of doing enterprise facilitation as if “people really matter.” (see https://sirolli.com/philosophy) That was my first encounter with a formal idea of a methodology for doing anything in which the individual mattered most. The enterprise facilitator served the client. It wasn’t a case of an expert delivering instruction and information. It was a relationship of care.

These days there is abundant evidence that staff who are cared for work better and harder than those who are not. A diverse and inclusive workforce isn’t just nice to have because legislation and policies say we must. It is more productive and more stable. The cost of making this happen is an investment.

That cost isn’t just money. It is time and attention. There’s an intellectual, emotional, and cognitive effort required. There’s also a philosophical shift that is necessary.

There is one thing that is blindingly apparent in organisational development over the past few decades, and in management and leadership in particular. It is that there is an expectation of higher levels of psychological maturity as a necessity among knowledge workers. This includes emotional intelligence. We are not going to see such qualities predominant in our workforces unless leaders and managers embody them and model them. 

We will get leadership that is routinely self-aware and empathic only when those attributes are intentionally sought in recruitment and fostered development practices by leaders who already possess them.

We are disposed to be biased toward those who are like us. That can cause problems for how we realise our ideals for diversity at times, but it also gives us insight into why bullying and harassment of staff with disability remains a problem despite all the fine words about how such conduct “will not be tolerated.” It may also explain accessibility is still not assured in procurement practices. But bias can have positive outcomes when the right people are the decision-makers.

It is time to reimagine the idea of service as something that applies to every aspect of public sector employment and not just in engagement with external customers/service users. Leadership as service, not control, is more grown up, more emotionally mature.

Finally, organisational workplaces are communities in which intense human relationships are formed. A relationship between a leader and a subordinate staff member is more complex than we mostly understand. There’s an imbalance of power often between social equals expressed in ways that are emotionally stilted. When that power imbalance is inexpertly handled it can trigger biases that lead to exclusion and conflict and eventually unintended psychological harm.

The idea that the ‘higher’ serves the ‘lower’ is alien to many – and yet it is fundamental to our best ideas on leadership. The experience of exclusion, bullying and the persistence of inaccessibility familiar to many staff with disability wouldn’t be a thing in a servant leadership culture.

This week I was obliged to pay $1135 for a major ‘service’ on my car – a 2012 Toyota Aurion. I paid it gladly despite the pain. I have deep affection for the car, gratitude for its performance and reliability, and pleasure in driving it. It is ‘serviced’ regularly. The cost of servicing the car is an investment in my ability to be mobile. I look after it in a pragmatic respectful way. I make sure it performs well and is safe to drive. Now if I could treat people as well as I treat my car… 

Introduction

What triggers and perpetuates our capacity to engage in exclusionary behaviour in the face of earnest assertions that such conduct will not be tolerated? It is not as mysterious as it may seem.

Most of us are kind and caring, although we don’t always make this known to others readily. Some folks are not. Mercifully they are not common in our organisations. Though there enough of them to make their conduct dangerous to vulnerable people.

It is tempting to see failures to act inclusively and find reason to assign blame. Efforts at promoting inclusion are often information-based. There is an old myth that if we give people information, they will adapt their behaviour. When this inevitably doesn’t happen, we assume a lack of interest and caring – and thus we see a moral failing. We can feel excluded from a moral framework that affirms our human value – and it can feel uncaring. It isn’t, or rather, it very rarely is.

In advocating for disability inclusion, I was, early on, frustrated and bewildered by the way organisational leaders, who were so enthusiastic to my face, so often failed to follow up. The sense of righteous urgency I felt ran into resistance and obstruction, a lack of accountability, and an unreflective insistence that certain conduct “will not be tolerated” while evidence it was being tolerated was everywhere abundant – and apparently ignored.

We got changes and improvements by persistent, insistent effort. But these changes were not as great as sought, nor as timely. Perpetrators of egregious conduct against staff with disability remained unrebuked and unrestrained despite what seemed to be reasonable efforts to intervene.

What was going on? When I quit my full-time job in June 2021 after 19.5 years, I finally had the time to explore this question in depth. I spent the next 18 months in close to fulltime research. Below is a summation of where I am up to in the quest to understand. I wanted to know if I was diagnosing the problem correctly.

The question is complex

Large organisations like government departments are novel developments in human history. They are evolving a behaviour we described, a few decades back, in terms of organisational psychology – and as our knowledge has advanced this has fragmented into myriad specialisations. 

Organisational behaviour, and the culture that is generated is constantly evolving in response to social, economic, and technological changes.

A significant social change for us [and here I am thinking specifically of NSW, though it is generally the case] is our continuously changing pluralistic multi-cultural community. Government commitment to ensure that the public sector workforce reflects the community it serves is an essential, but novel goal. This also comes with an obligation for mutual respect and inclusion within the workforce – a necessary expectation. But it is one that places an interesting burden of intentional behaviour upon staff. Exclusions and even enmities that might be normal in one’s private life should not be continued in the workplace.

Organisations and communities are made up of individuals and groups. This brings in individual psychology in two important ways. A certain amount of our behaviour is hardwired and inherited from our primate ancestors. We have reflexes and biases built in. Then we have our individual experience-based behaviours. These are complex and influence every aspect of our lives – at home and at work.

Let me summarise all this briefly:

• Our organisations are novel and evolving forms of behaviour.
• Our community is a novel and evolving form of living together.
• Our workforces and novel and evolving forms of working together.
• While we are generally people of goodwill and kindness these qualities are not uniformly distributed, while there is an expectation that a public sector workforce should/must exhibit these qualities in a uniform way.

The goal of creating an inclusive workforce which is universally safe for the diverse array of people who make up our community is a necessary one. But we have hugely under-estimated the effort needed to achieve it. We need to step back and review our beliefs in the light of contemporary research. This isn’t an easy task as it is scattered through books, articles, and podcasts.

Exclusion is a feature?

It is. Inclusion is intimate. We reflexively don’t reject those who look/behave like us, but neither do we actively include, unless they are known intimates – like family members – and even then, not always.

In terms of include/exclude options we are more disposed to exclude. That’s safer on the whole. This is a reflex that goes way back to when survival was tough. But its not all black and white. We will exclude strongly or mildly, motivated by fear or strong aversion all the way down to mild dislike or lack of interest.

We overcome a reflex to exclude by re-assessing the individual or group in a new context. I was born in Northern Ireland. My father’s family were staunchly Protestant and militantly anti-Catholic. When I was growing up in western Victoria, while my father joined the Protestant church and perpetuated his loathing of Catholics, I thought that was a dumb attitude in a small country town. I had schoolmates who were Catholics, and I valued their friendship over any nonsense my father was into. His beliefs and passions didn’t fit my context, and I had no motive to perpetuate them.

Some changes are simply down to intergenerational changes in context, like mine. The young adapt quickly. But sometimes cultural aversions are deeply rooted and do not fade quickly. There can be many motives to exclude that begin as a cultural foundation, and which may be added to by personal experience. This is especially the case with intergenerational trauma, which may lead to complex PTSD being experienced in a home or community setting.

This may seem like it has nothing to do with disability inclusion, but it has a lot. Many cultures exemplify the unblemished. We may be heirs to cultural values that do not honour disability as being just part of the spectrum of being human.

Our instincts are to favour those without disability when it comes to choosing a mate. But if we have close family members with disability our responses may be very different. We encounter caring and inclusion up close.

While we can recognise that exclusion is something we are hardwired to enact, the reasons for doing so may not be valid all the time.

For example, advances in technology, such as JAWS and screen readers, mean that blind people can no longer be justly excluded from roles they were unable to perform in in the past. Activation of an exclusionary response must now be modified by insight into the context and by extending personal inclusion to the individual.

There are multiple reasons why disability might trigger an exclusionary response. They can be contextual, cultural, or personal. Because of the changes in our cultural values, technologies, and social obligations we must be careful in running with any impulse to exclude, lest we are unkind and unjust.

Disability and intersectionality

People with disability are distinguished from other ‘diversity groups’ who are subjected to exclusionary and discriminatory behaviour because we add the attribute of requiring accessibility. In that sense people with disability can have an impact that benefits all people, whether they are a member of a ‘diversity group’ or not, because improved accessibility can help us all.

However, we must not see people with disability only in terms of accessibility. We cover the spectrum of human attributes and identities. No ‘diversity group’ will have no people with disability as members. As a result, inclusion challenges may arise from a ‘diversity group’ attributes, or identity, as well as the simple fact of living with a disability and the accessibility challenges associated with that disability.

The difficulty of changing behaviour

Changing how we behave is more about motivation than information, as anybody trying to break a bad habit knows. Motivation driven by goodwill and compassion is better than feeling forced to comply, although, to be honest, fear can be a great motivator to change, as well as stay the same. So, kind persuasion is better than policing.

Changing behaviour takes effort. It imposes a cognitive load on our brain. It requires attention, repeatedly, and sometimes constantly. The extra energy required isn’t just mental, it’s also emotional. And for that extra energy to be applied it must be redirected from somewhere else. That can include feeling angry or fearful. We change our behaviour because the new behaviour serves us better than the old, and the new thoughts and emotions are better than the old ones.

Most staff work hard at jobs that demand their attention because of workload and the nature of the job, and they may have private lives that may also demand their emotional attention to a very high degree. They don’t have a lot of extra energy to put into being more inclusive, no matter how much they may want to.

Change on a personal level, even when we are willing, may take much longer than we hope for.

In-groups and out-groups

We all form in-groups and out-groups – the people with whom we feel we belong, and those with whom we feel no great connection. Often these groups are formed unconsciously, because we are more inclined to belong to a group whose members are more like us. We can thus unintentionally exclude people, not because we don’t like them, just because they are not sufficiently like us for us to feel comfortable about bringing them into our in-group.

There are, of course, intentional exclusions from group membership because of biases or fears that are not based on reality, and which are unjustified by any measure of fairness.

In-groups and out-groups also occur because of organisational status. Managers and executives may prefer each other’s company over their direct reports. This becomes a problem when it comes to holding a manager or executive to account over discriminatory or abusive conduct. It can seem like in-group disloyalty to hold one of your own to account, whereas disciplining a direct report is much easier.

The challenge for in-groups is to become more self-critical and to set high standards for their members. This is especially the case where the in-group’s organisational status gives them high influence in setting workplace culture and maintaining conduct standards.

Leaders lose their capacity for empathy

Researchers have been discovering interesting, but unsurprising, truths about being in charge. Leaders’ and managers’ capacity for empathy decreases with increase in their power and influence. In some sectors a lack of empathy was thought to be a good thing. Employees were no more than parts of the system of production and could be discarded when necessary.

This is another instance of what we think is a bug being a feature. In large organisations, like an army, too much empathy at the top will impede operations – if the general cares too much about the foot soldier for example. On a personal level I am all for lots of empathy in armies. But I do recognise why this might be a problem in the face of awful necessity.

However, government departments are not armies, and their workforces are not soldiers. The loss of empathy among those at the top has the potential to injure staff who are subject to bullying and harassment, exclusion, and other forms of discrimination because there is little empathic motive to stop it.

The risk is that those in charge do not invest the effort needed to understand the challenge to make inclusion a reality through intentional efforts. Inclusion becomes a peripheral matter to be addressed when the ‘real business’ is taken care of. But that’s when a workforce’s capacity to respond to change is already taxed heavily.

Declaring that discriminatory conduct “will not be tolerated” is pointless when the will to be intolerant is weak, and the means enact to a response to that discriminatory conduct are scant, unevenly, and ineptly applied. Misconduct by leaders in relation to their staff seems rarely to be called to account.

Yes, progress is made, but against a headwind of ingrained habit, reflex, bias, and little insight as to why that resistance persists.

There are strong arguments based on contemporary research that a safe and inclusive work culture boosts productivity, improves performance and increases the retention of skilled and experienced staff. From a ‘return on investment’ perspective, ensuring the welfare of staff should have high priority as part of the ‘real business’. 

Conclusion

I do not despair of the slow pace of change because I have been instrumental in speeding it up. We can do better by being informed by authentic, strategic and intentional insights, so we do not waste precious attention and willingness to act on efforts that are not productive.

The worst thing we can do misdiagnose the cause of resistance to the change we want to create. Misdiagnosis leads to the wrong treatment. The consequence may not be terminal, but it will still be injurious.

The NSW Public Service Commission is, I believe, requiring agencies to develop a bullying and harassment policy. Clearly bullying and harassment is an active concern, and staff with disability are disproportionately the ones most affected.

But these policies aren’t about preventing bullying and harassment, otherwise you’d think they’d be called a preventing bullying and harassment policy. This would, you’d think, make much more sense. The problem has been misdiagnosed and the treatment will be futile. The NSW public sector code of conduct forbids bullying and harassment. That’s a policy.

What can you do? Please think about what I have written here. I am not claiming it’s the full answer, but it’s a good start. We have only so much time, attention, and emotional energy to invest in bringing about the changes we want, and there are a lot of folks who are sincere allies with the same limited budget of time and attention. To make desired changes stick we need to understand why there is resistance and set our sails accordingly.

The challenge is to take a novel and complex reality for what it truly is and shape our efforts to get closer to our goal/ideal in the most effective and efficient way.

Google ‘Sailing into the wind’. We can still make good progress into a headwind. It just takes knowledge and skill.