By Rob McInnes, © Diversity World, 2003
Recently, it was my great pleasure to thank a gentleman named Michael
Coleman for a keynote speech that he delivered to the 2003 National
Summit of the US Business Leadership Network. Employed by IBM as Vice
President of Global Operations - Business Partners, Small and Medium
Business, Michael is a member of IBM's Senior Management Group (one of
the top 200 executives in the company). Michael had just delivered an
instructive presentation entitled “Win With Ability: A look at People
with Disabilities in Today's Environment”. He was particularly qualified
to address that topic both because of his senior position with one of
the world’s exemplary employer of people with disabilities – and because
he himself has a significant disability. (Prior to joining IBM in 1975,
while serving with the U.S. Marine Corps, Michael had lost both his
hands.)
What made Michael’s presentation even more poignant was that it was
his last official act with IBM. After 28 years with that company, his
retirement was to begin once he stepped off our platform. As Michael
spoke I had to wonder, throughout those 28 years, how many people had
changed their preconceptions about people with disabilities – simply by
encountering Michael in his day-to-day working life. At least in person,
Michael’s disability was of the “in your face” variety- he uses metal
hooks in place of his hands. I knew that voluntarily or not, Michael had
been an ambassador for people with disabilities in every encounter
throughout his career.
He was an ambassador by default. People with significant and/or
obvious disabilities are still notoriously absent from North American
workplaces. In most workplaces, people with disabilities, as a group,
remain a unfamiliar entity to all the owners, executives, managers,
supervisors and workers. When one person with an obvious disability
enters their world of work as an employee, a vendor or a customer, like
it or not, that person becomes a representative of all the other people
with disabilities who might want to do business with that company in the
future – or seek employment there.
It can be a heavy and unwelcome responsibility – the same one borne
by countless women, African Americans, Asian Americans and other
minority representatives who boldly went where few had gone before in
their workplaces. I am sure that many of them would have been quite
happy just to bear the demands of their own careers – without the added
responsibility of breaking the trail for others that would follow.
Nevertheless, if you are the first, even the second or third person with
a significant disability in a workplace you likely have no choice in it
- your presence and actions will affect the opportunities and
experiences for those that follow you. Of course, for those who embrace
the role of change agents, this may also be a welcome dimension to their
careers.
Interestingly, about one week after Michael Coleman’s presentation, I
had the opportunity to speak to delegates attending a national
conference of a large service agency for people with disabilities. One
of the delegates, a job developer, related that he had recently escorted
a blind job seeker to a job interview. The job seeker was accompanied by
his guide dog. Almost immediately after the initial introduction, the
employer had bent down and greeted the dog as well – patting and
speaking to it. The job seeker firmly stated: “Please don’t do that, he
is working.” The job developer said that he knew at that moment, the job
was probably lost because the awkwardness of the situation had put up a
barrier between the employer and his job seeker. His question to me was
“What can we do to educate all employers about disability etiquette so
that this kind of situation does not occur?”
As you can probably guess, my response was to turn the tables and
suggest that it would be better to educate people with disabilities on
how to effectively handle those encounters than to try to educate all
employers. The response of that job seeker had not only created a
needless barrier between him and the employer, he had lost a perfectly
wonderful opportunity to create a bond. I am certain that the employer,
instead of the curt rebuff that he received, would have truly been
interested in a friendly explanation of working dogs, proper etiquette
and the rationale behind it - the kind of dialogue would have set the
stage for a productive interview.
Sadly, I noted, beyond being detrimental to his own job search, that
job seeker’s response likely made that employer even more reluctant to
knowingly encounter or interview any other people with disabilities in
the future.
To my own amusement and that of the audience, I then waxed eloquent
and stated; “We have to teach people with disabilities to seize such
opportunities, pregnant with possibility, and give birth to them!”
Exaggerated as that statement was, it still made a sound point. For
their own sakes and for the sake of others who may follow, people with
disabilities still can’t afford to be cavalier about their interactions
with employers. There is too much in the balance – too much to lose and
too much to gain.
In a world where people with disabilities as a whole are still trying
to break into the foreign soil of the workplace there is still a great
need for effective ambassadors.
We need more companies like IBM – companies that don’t hesitate to
recognize and seize the talent of people with disabilities. We need more
people like Michael Coleman – people who openly demonstrate that their
disability is only incidental to their competence.
