Mindset Matters: How Disability Continues To Inform Management Practice And Enhances Organizations Human Capital Needs (Part Two)

Since the inception of the Mindset Matters column, one of the key elements has been to buck convention and continually illustrate the significance of the disability narrative as a throughline for the growth of business culture. This column is no exception, it builds upon the previous one exploring the very notion that great business thinking can derive from the lived experience of disability, and we are at a moment within the current economic cycle where this type of acumen is needed more than ever.

In an era of rapid interest rate hikes and weaker consumer demand many companies have been forced to shed thousands of jobs and trim their workforce within the last year. This along with the pending end to the public health emergency brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses are faced with new challenges and are being forced to recalibrate their overall strategy. It is at this moment that we will find what distinguishes great leaders from the more moderate ones who are just trying to get by. For those companies willing to take risks and resolve the tensions before them, this is the time to recognize that through the lens of business thinking the disability narrative can be both an antidote to many organizational ailments and a pipeline for human capital growth.

The last column began to express the idea that one of the key characteristics of the disability narrative was the innate ability to embrace integrative thinking as a central component of daily life. Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto describes in his magnificent book, The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking that this type of reasoning is “the ability to hold two opposing ideas in their mind at once, and then reach a synthesis that contains elements of both but improves on reach.” Martin then goes on to write that “Integrative thinkers understand that the world imposes constraints on them, but they share the belief that with hard thinking and patience, they can find better outcomes than the unsatisfying ones they are presented with.” It is these very ideas that are seminal to the growth of business in the current economic climate of today. This type of creative thinking is drawn from experience which ultimately provides a level of mastery that can find its way to progress. What we are left with is a fundamental question, how do organizations go about implementing such a process?

It is this very question that makes way for the argument that the disability narrative must be embedded into the code of the current business culture. In this moment of flux, leadership has an opportunity to reevaluate their organization to see what’s needed both internally and externally to increase value, drive growth and firmly develop a competitive advantage. Organizational culture is at a tipping point where diversity becomes a critical initiative that opens various possibilities in these uncertain economic times. Yet, it is the disability stance and style of integrative thinking that can help redefine the future elements of business practice.

Where the disability narrative can be most effective in this time of transition is helping with a combination of attitude, tools, and an awareness of the need for originality as a cornerstone of progress. The disability narrative has always been built on the premise that the status quo simply doesn’t suffice, and that change needs to be part of the natural order. For businesses to survive, leaders must see this as a core tenant of their management style. Secondly, the disability narrative is always looking for innovative tools to enhance progress. Finally, when we look to experience, the disability narrative reminds us that life can have moments of discomfort. It is this discomfort that leads to a continual need for originality and a deepening necessity to inquire about how to achieve more effective solutions. While all of this is great in theory, future business practice must come in the form of helping to cultivate the disability community as a pipeline to human capital needs.

For companies to effectively generate creative resolutions hiring persons with disabilities is a fundamental need for any organization. Developing a Disability Confident culture is at the heart of talent management. It is the instigator for a more comprehensive diversity hiring strategy overall and offers businesses greater insight into the very mechanics of the future of work. Part three of this series will look further into the process of thinking through culture and how the disability narrative is part of the connective tissue that informs businesses of the need to be mindful of the choices they make for the betterment of their organization.