 Who gets to decide what’s possible?
Today – people in positions of power, leaders, teachers, and parents like you determine who gets the opportunity, time investment, and support to help realize their full potential. While some people will “make their own path,” most individuals do not achieve success alone. Someone accepts a student into a college program; a manager gives the promotion or selects a new hire for an open role. So that takes us back to the question of who gets to decide what’s possible. As leaders, we can promote and support our people or hold them back. Yet, who are we to judge and determine any human’s potential. When we think about neurodiversity and disability inclusion – we understand that moving forward is an exchange between marginalized individuals and those in power to improve outcomes and equalize access, opportunities, and products. How quickly we forget that this principle can (and should) apply in all domains of human existence. What would happen if you asked your child or employees what they wanted to do and what they aspired toward, and then you supported those goals without judgment or bias on abilities?
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 It takes a village to prepare leaders for the future of work. The talent shortage, the great resignation, the future of work. All these concepts are front and center in leaders’ minds. There is much we can learn from sharing our experiences in our search for talent, regardless of industry, region, or type of role.
Many thanks to Amanda Willard from Amazon for joining my class and discussing talent management, workforce planning, and talent acquisition trends with the Human Resource Management students at USC Bovard. Her insights provided these future HR leaders with strategies and lessons they can apply to enhance their own organizations’ efforts. As we all compete for talent, we also need to be mindful that we can be catalysts to connect talent to opportunities. We need to work with community partners to find and cultivate talent. A candidate who may not be right for a role at your company could be just the person a colleague in your network needs. Everyone wins when we focus on desired outcomes – finding the right talent for the right job and providing opportunities for the diversity of skills in the world. #BetterTogether  A few weeks ago, I was honored to guest lecture on Disability and Discrimination as part of a Human Rights course with students in the Master of Social Work Program at Azusa Pacific University.
We discussed how discrimination based on disability manifests itself in social work and community outreach programs. The students learned there is considerable work yet to be done to shift mindsets from a charitable and medical approach to disability inclusion to understanding the constructs, importance, and impacts of shifting to a social model of disability. Ultimately, we want to employ a human rights approach where individuals of all abilities are fully contributing equal members of society and respected for their inherent dignity. During activities, the students discovered how difficult it can be to convince a biased person (implicitly or explicitly) against people with disabilities when those beliefs are deeply ingrained as part of thinking due to personal experiences. We discussed how disability-inclusion advocates and social workers need to be mindful to meet people where they are – and understand that adopting a social model of disability and human rights approach requires a change of the decision-makers and people of power, which is the most challenging part to change. Self-Directed Learning at Work – The Myth that is Costing Organizations Millions
New solutions that are aligned to current trends in personal technology use, such as video-learning and on-demand courses, are incessantly peddled to organizations as the ticket to the future of learning for employees. And why should leaders question the validity of these products? Search engines like Google are used for people who readily seek information on topics of interest. Forums like TedEX, Kahn Academy, and YouTube drive millions of users who leverage these websites to absorb countless hours of learning. Corporations strive to capture this self-directed, on-demand learning behavior in their own organizations, and the efforts continuously fall flat, leaving many stumped and searching for a solution.
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Dr. Theresa Haskins
Providing advice, research, how-tos, and insights—all in the name of helping you create a more inclusive world! Archives
April 2022
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