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The book Behind Gold Doors-Seven Steps to Create a Disability Inclusive Organization is an allegory about Jade, whose manager asks her to lead a disability inclusion initiative. On her way home that evening she was in a terrible accident. While unconscious, she meets seven people who teach her about what it takes to create a disability inclusive organization. She wakes up to find that her life has forever changed and brings a more personal motivation for her to create a disability inclusive organization.
See the seven steps as articulated in the book to help you in your disability inclusive organization journey. |
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To be an effective advocate for DI change, the DI Champion needs to understand the facts about disabilities. Knowing what constitutes a disability and the statistics, stigmas, terminology, barriers, laws, and attitudes about disabilities is crucial to getting an organization on the road to being disability inclusive. Disabilities 101 provides information on the following:
A good output of this step is a PowerPoint or equivalent presentation containing results of the DI Champion's research. Creating a presentation is particularly helpful for use in later steps to educate the organization. |
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Knowing the facts of disabilities is a great first step on the disability inclusive organization journey, but for the initiative to take hold the DI Champion needs to be able to answer the following: Why should we conduct a disability inclusion initiative? Unless there is a compelling case as to why it should be done, then the DI initiative won't get done, plain and simple.
Why Disability Inclusion? focuses on the importance DI to an organization and includes the following:
A good outcome from this step is a PowerPoint or equivalent presentation which articulates the potential benefits to the organization based on what others have done and a plan for moving forward with the initiative. |
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Steps 1-Know the facts about disabilities and 2-Articulate the why of DI are key inputs into getting the boss (or executive sponsor) on board with conducting a DI initiative. This isn't just a question as to whether or not disability inclusion should be important to an organization; I would suspect most any executive would attest to DI being important. It's just as much a question as to when it should be done. Executives are constantly making choices about what to do, what not to do, when something gets done, and what can be pushed off until later. The DI Champion needs to be able to understand and express not only the importance of DI, but that it's something that doesn't end up on the "someday we'll do it" list. The DI Champion needs to be persuasive on the absolute need of DI to help the executive sponsor prioritize it appropriately. It may mean that DI rises to the top of the to-do list or it may mean it falls somewhere lower depending on competing initiatives. What it shouldn't do is end up on the "someday" list, which means for all intents and purposes that it will never get done.
To get the executive sponsor on board, the DI Champion needs to create a compelling case for change (some organizations may refer to this as a project charter or project proposal). A disability inclusion good case for change answers the following questions:
The output from this step is one of three outcomes: approval to proceed, follow-up with more information before granting approval, or denial to proceed. If there is a denial to proceed, be clear in understanding the "why" behind the denial and decide if the case for change could be improved upon and re-presented to the executive sponsor. |
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Assessing the disability inclusion current state involves looking at the organization as it exists today to understand what the organization does well and what can be improved upon. A comprehensive understanding of the current state, or some may refer to it at the "as-is", creates a baseline for the DI DNA change plan. The organization is reviewed on five dimensions: people, processes, technology, ecosystem, and infrastructure. What follows is an explanation of each and the types of information the DI Champion would gather. Strongly consider utilizing external expertise in the assessment to get an unbiased view of your current state.
1. People Dimension
2. Process Dimension
3. Technology Dimension Document the as-is technology accessibility for following:
4. Ecosystem Dimension
5. Infrastructure Dimension
There are also several assessment tools to help the DI Champion understand the current state, as follows:
The output from this step is a current state assessment report with any material gaps for the people, process, technology, ecosystem, and infrastructure dimensions. Consider creating as a PowerPoint slide deck to be used in future education for executives, managers, and individual contributors. You may also consider conducting a review with the executive sponsor to brief on findings and demonstrate progress. |
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This step can be done concurrently to Step 4 - Assess the current DI state. The DI champion will need the help of a cross-functional (i.e. people from human resources, facilities, information technology, etc.) team of managers and individual contributors across the organization to serve as ambassadors of the DI initiative. The influencers should possess several qualities, as follows:
In addition to the influencers making the case for disability inclusion in the organization, they also serve as the listening system for questions, issues and concerns arising from people across the organization. Those questions, issues and concerns and associated responses should be logged and stored in a common repository accessible to the DI Champion and influencers. Information deemed acceptable for broad consumption should be made available to the broader organization. The outputs from this step is a current list of DI influencers and a content repository where materials are available to the DI Champion and influencers. |
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Step 3 articulates an agreed-upon statement of the DI goals the organization desires to achieve. Step 4 assesses the DI current state. Now that the goals and current state are defined, Step 6 lays out the plan to get from current state to a disability inclusive organization. For the people, process, technology, ecosystem, and infrastructure dimensions the DI champion must do the following:
There are a number of resources the DI Champion can utilize in helping to define the disability inclusive organization, as follows:
The DI DNA Change Plan is a discrete project with a defined start and end with resources applied to execute the project steps. It should be run like a professional project with good project management discipline. To do so consider the following:
The output of this step is a professionally executed project plan staffed by qualified team members to successfully migrate from the current state to a disability inclusive organization. |
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Changing an organization's DI DNA is not something that ever really ends. It's true there may be an initial push to change the current state people, process, technology, ecosystem and infrastructure tasks. But just as with any large program there is continued maintenance, understanding trends, and deploying new components that keep the DI DNA fresh and relevant. If the DI Champion and executive sponsor lose interest or get redeployed, then the likelihood of the program continuing to evolve and drive benefits is reduced. There are five major things that need to be done to keep the DI momentum going, as follows:
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