Is your organization guilty of checkbox diversity? You know, “Let’s hire one person from a marginalized group and call it a day on our DEIB efforts?” Today’s show explores how to avoid checkbox diversity and leaving out important groups in DEIB strategy to create a meaningful inclusive culture that transforms mindsets, boosts business performance, and allows people to do their best work for you.
Dannie Lynn Fountain and I talk about how to avoid checkbox diversity, the importance of considering the intersectionality nuances in your DEIB efforts, why you need to strategically invest in your Employee Resource Groups if you want to make the right DEIB moves, and how remote-first companies with asynchronous communication are leading the way for inclusive cultures. You’ll also hear the scary wake-up call that COVID is the largest mass disabling event of our time and that potentially one in two people will have some sort of disability that companies must accommodate if they want to attract and more importantly retain the best talent out there.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
- For every person that is speaking up, there are dozens that are not. As organizations, we need to be more aware of what our employees need, even when they are unsure if they can speak out.
- So much of disability is invisible. Remote-first allows for accommodating not only working style but also how much of a person they show you, which can help to reduce bias.
- Before COVID, 1 in 4 adults had some disability. That number has drastically increased due to the long-term effects of COVID or other directly correlated comorbidities to up to 1 in 2, based on some estimates.
- So much of what we think as accommodation, we think of as needing to be this rigorous process full of bureaucracy that requires form submissions, and doctor-supporting evidence, when really, it’s actually quite simple.
“If you say the current working environment accommodates the extroverted, outgoing, or high-functioning individual, that really puts the word ‘accommodate’ into perspective. Because that’s the reality.” — Dannie Lynn Fountain
Episode References:
Book: A Woman Makes a Plan by Maye MuskEmpathy Edge Podcast – Cynthia Owyoung: Diversity and Inclusion Deliver Real Results. But Have We Made Progress? About Dannie Lynn Fountain, Staffer at Google: #IamRemarkable Global Inclusion Lead, Author, Keynote Speaker
Dannie Lynn Fountain is a passionate storyteller who helps companies focus on people. By day, she’s a staffer at Google hiring the world’s most talented software engineers and by night she supports clients and brands with HR-focused diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies. She’s also a multi-passionate human – beyond working in HR, Dannie Lynn is a five-time author, licensed IRS Enrolled Agent, and founder of the #sidehustlegal movement. She has been interviewed or quoted in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Bustle, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Cosmopolitan, Digiday, The Everygirl, Girlboss, and more. Dannie Lynn’s most recent book is Ending Checkbox Diversity, published October 2022.
Connect with Dannie Lynn Fountain:
Website: https://www.danniefountain.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dannielynnfount
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dannielynnfountain/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dannielynnfountain/
Substack: www.livros.substack.com: bookish content / books Dannie’s read / etc
Book: Ending Checkbox Diversity www.checkboxdiversity.com
HBR Article: https://hbr.org/2023/01/should-you-disclose-an-invisible-marginalized-identity-at-work
Don’t forget to download your free guide! Discover The 5 Business Benefits of Empathy: http://red-slice.com/business-benefits-empathy
Connect with Maria:
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FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host Maria Ross. I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society, it’s great for business. Is your organization guilty of checkbox diversity? You know, let’s hire one person from a marginalized group and call it a day on our dei B efforts. Today’s show explores how to avoid checkbox diversity, and leaving out important groups in your D IB strategy to create a meaningful inclusive culture that transforms mindsets, boosts business performance and allows people to do their best work for you. Danny Lynn fountain is a passionate storyteller who helps companies focus on people. By day she’s a staffer at Google hiring the world’s most talented software engineers. And by night she supports clients and brands with HR focused Diversity, Equity and Inclusion strategies. Danny Lin is a five time author, licensed IRS Enrolled Agent and founder of the side hustle gal movement. In addition to many media appearances, Her most recent book is ending checkbox diversity. Today we talk about how to avoid checkbox diversity, the importance of considering the intersectionality nuances in your D IB efforts, why you need to strategically invest in your employee resource groups, if you want to make the right d IB moves, and how remote first companies with asynchronous communication are leading the way for inclusive cultures. You’ll also hear the very scary wake up call that COVID has been the largest mass disabling event of our time. And that potentially one in two people will have some sort of disability from long COVID that companies must accommodate for if they want to attract and more importantly, retain the best talent out there. Take a listen. Welcome Danny Lynn fountain to the empathy edge podcast. I am so excited to talk to you about checkbox diversity, and what that is and who is guilty of it. And also talking about the groups that we often exclude from the DEI be conversation when we’re talking about it. So welcome to the show.
Dannie Lynn Fountain 03:24
Thank you so much for having me the there’s such important topics. I’m so excited.
Maria Ross 03:29
I love it. Well, first of all, tell us a little bit about your book, ending checkbox diversity. What do you mean by that term? And what does it look like?
Dannie Lynn Fountain 03:37
Yeah, checkbox. Diversity is kind of an after effect of conversations that were had around affirmative action. It’s like the evolution, essentially, of just saying, Oh, we’re holding an event, we’re building a team or starting a company, we need a black person, a queer person, a Latinx person, and only choosing these folks for the sake of an identity or identities
Maria Ross 04:04
that they hold. And then it kind of stops there. Like there’s no further equity and inclusion work. There’s nothing beyond their identity being stay announced at the start of the event or chindan, their bio, it kind of just ends there. And so ending checkbox diversity is taking a look at frankly, the D IB work that we’re doing, where the sake of PR and digging a little bit deeper into, you know, how we can actually do this to transform the workplace transform culture, and also just transform the basic human respect that people get at work. Yeah, I mean, and I find that in these talks I have with folks, it is just sort of a like Let’s fill out the pie chart of how many different types of people we have in the organization and In the hiring seems to be a very concrete action, they can get their heads around. So they do it. And then they end up not retaining those people because they haven’t actually created a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion where those people feel welcome where they feel they can be themselves or that their contributions are valued from their different perspectives. So what is that chasm there? Is it because companies don’t know what to do once they get the people in the door? Do they feel like just oh, that just means we need to do a bunch of like events and trainings. And that’s going to make our culture inclusive and diverse, like, where is where are folks falling off the cliff, in terms of bridging the gap between the hiring and the retention?
Dannie Lynn Fountain 05:45
Yeah, sort of all of the above. I just listened to an audio book by mainmast her to be completely clear, I did not realize what Elon Musk’s mother and the book overall was okay. But there’s one piece that she talked about was being fashion industry at plus sized older woman, and fashion houses being able to say, Oh, by hiring her as their model, they get to check the plus size and the altar woman bar. And we see this in corporate America in event management, in all these other spaces as well, that if we can check the boxes, if we can check multiple boxes with one person, like even better, instead of taking a moment pausing, considering what our world, our society actually looks like, I believe and I may be misquoting this, but I believe this status that by 2050 will be a majority minority country. Globally, we are already a majority non white world. And so it’s not about having one person to check the boxes of XYZ identity. It’s, hey, society doesn’t look the way your company the way your event, the way your VC fund. Look, it needs to go deeper than that. And so that’s the first piece representation is literally the starting point. Right? It’s only at first. Yeah. Yeah. Taking it through the rest of the way. We have components of how those identities are represented throughout the event. Can those identities engaged in the event with psychological safety? Can they participate to the same extent? And then which is the piece that often gets locked out? Is the event accessible? Is the event literally accessible for all and when I say accessible for all, I don’t just need wheelchair ramps, I mean, closed captions, I mean, quiet spaces for introverts, I mean, all of these different components. And same for companies to companies think about the EIB, and oh, we’ve got the folks in the room. They’re not quitting. Great. We’ve done our job, right. They’re hired and I’m studying. But there’s so much more to it than that. So really, it it’s kind of building these muscles, they get stronger over time, versus donning a t shirt. And you’ve done the job sort of perspective.
Maria Ross 08:21
Yeah. And I think what you’re getting at is that it’s more of a mindset transformation, in that it’s not just about getting the right people around the table. It’s about how are we incorporating them into the work we do their perspectives into our strategy? Are their voices being heard? Are we recognizing, are we promoting? Are we listening to these groups? And so that’s, that’s a much slower burn in terms of being able to transform like, like we said, it’s very easy to just, you know, it’s very concrete to say, we’ve hired this person, and now we’re bringing them in. But to your point, you know, that you were joking about like, Yay, they’re staying the problem is they don’t stay? Because yeah, do you feel like the token person in the room or person in the company? And are they bringing in friends, colleagues, their network of people, because it’s a place where they feel like they belong. And I’m just going to mention here because I did a great interview with Cynthia, our Young, who wrote a book called All are welcome. And it is a literal, step by step playbook on how to create a more diverse, equitable and inclusive culture. Like no doubt, read it if you need the action steps kind of a situation. So with your book, I know you’ve talked a little bit about about invisible, marginalized groups. So when we think dei B, we immediately think of race, and now we’re starting to even think of sexual identity, gender identity, but
Dannie Lynn Fountain 09:57
who’s being left out Yeah, so there’s two ways that you can think about invisible marginalized identities. First, you can think about the identities that aren’t part of the common conversation. So here an obvious one is disability. Again, there’s another stat that says 90 plus percent of companies care about diversity, they have diversity as a part of their annual plan. But only 4% include disability and that, so that’s one component. The other lens of looking at invisible marginalized identity is about facilitation. We, as humans, gravitate towards organizing the people in our spheres around us by labels, either visually, or through the way that they communicate, assigning you labels based on the presentation that you choose the way that you speak, depending on if it’s virtual, or in person, how we’re interacting. But so much of our presentations can be invisible, I don’t wear a sign on my head, that tells you my neurodiverse status. Frankly, my queer status, unless I’m with my wife is largely invisible in my presentation. So it’s both of these components. And there’s, there’s a double edged sword that comes into it, you get to walk into spaces, and not necessarily have those identities visible. But inversely, if you’re familiar with the queer concept of coming out, you don’t in my case, I don’t just come out as queer on a frequent and ongoing basis, I come out, it’s all of these other invisible identities on a frequent and ongoing basis, as well. So it’s both of those pieces, it’s the pieces, the identities that are invisible in our conversation, as well as those that aren’t immediately evident, to our mind need to organize. Hmm,
Maria Ross 11:52
I am constantly noticing, in recent years, maybe it’s my work with empathy, I don’t know how many things are not set up for people with disabilities. And just to give you a random example, we might have talked about this on our pre call, I noticed in public restrooms. And I noticed this because I have an eight year old boy, right who’s shorter, they placed the hooks, they placed the soap dispenser, they placed the paper towel dispenser so high up that if you were a different height, if you were in a wheelchair, if you had some sort of physical disability, you would not be able to reach those items. And I know that’s just like the tip of the iceberg when we’re talking about accessibility. But, you know, to your point, it’s not it’s also not just about those big events and those big conferences or team meetings where it’s like, oh, we’ve got the wheelchair ramps, right. It’s, you know, how are the desks and tables set up? How far are we making people walk to different tracks or different sessions? What is the bathroom situation? So there’s just so many things to think about. And I am not a de IB professional. I’m not even an executive, but I can imagine it can be overwhelming of like, at what point? How much can I possibly think about before I actually can take action and move forward? So what would you say to executives, and leaders listening to this saying, I really want to be more inclusive, but I feel like there’s so much I have to look at and think about that. How am I going to get my work done? Right? So what would you say to people like that?
Dannie Lynn Fountain 13:31
I think there’s two pieces here. The first piece is the business case, which I hate to go to because we shouldn’t be rooting respect for others, like giving someone the ability to access the space the same as everyone else. We shouldn’t be having to root out in a business case. But that’s how execs think. Frankly, it’s expensive not to be thinking about inclusion. It’s expensive in lots of market share. It’s expensive in terms of the folks that you’re able to cater to, it’s expensive in terms of if you have to redevelop something. So first, I’d say it’s expensive not to and also, I’m just thinking about I used to work in sales. Now I work in HR. There are annual planning cycles for literally every component of business. We spend months and months and months deciding business goals, take some of that mental energy and allocate it here. We spend months talking about okay, why is this the right quota? What are the data points that feed into that is it going to be attainable for a good amount of the sales organization? Put the same energy here so first piece is the business component and second piece is for every one person who’s speaking up. There are a dozen that are not i Two years ago I weighed 400 and 10 pounds. And I work at a company that professes disability equity inclusion, all of these components as being things that they care about and focus on. But I spent my entire time in our Chicago office with shin splints and leg cramps, because not a single chair was wide enough for me to sit in. And so I spent the entire almost three years I worked in that office perched on the edge of chairs. And, obviously, eight hours a day is a long amount of time to do work. When you go home, you want to disconnect for me, it wasn’t just eight hours a day of work, it was also eight hours of a calf workout, and a glute workout perchick, myself on the edge of tears. And I, for whatever reason, didn’t feel that I could speak up without it. So there’s also that component of it too, you think this vocal minority in your workplace or your event feedback Ford is or your online communities are experiencing this, but there are so many more people being impacted than just those who are. So those are the two major reasons I would say, Yeah, Spensive not to, and it impacts more people than you. Right, right. And I know that a lot of leaders say like, I I don’t know the best way to ask and find out because I feel like if I point out the differences, I’m shining, you know, I’m
Maria Ross 16:25
singling someone out, or I’m mixed, you know, or they get mad because they’re expecting them to speak for everyone who’s in that group. So they’re sort of caught between a rock and a hard place of I want to have these conversations, and I want to get input from these people that are impacted, these groups that are impacted. But I’m also offending people when I asked, so what would you say to a leader that’s caught between that rock and a hard place? What’s the best approach?
Dannie Lynn Fountain 16:52
Yeah, I have two answers here as well. First, we live in the information age, if you have a question, any search engine will return you millions of answers in less than a second, start there, but also pay people for their labor. I recently received an invitation to be on the Event Planning Committee for an event this fall. And the Event Planning Committee it was eight months of unpaid labor. And as much as I want this particular event to be more inclusive, actually, I filled out the previous year’s survey with a lots of feedback. I mean, I’ve a lot on my plate. And so what I did instead is I was like, Hey, I work in dei consulting, here are my fees for three different options of how I could help with three different price points. The event turns a profit has million billion dollar companies as sponsors, and it wasn’t a financial priority. That yeah, so much, instead of asking folks to be on voluntary committees, turning to your employee resource leadership group and using them as three consultants on these issues, nascent one, Hey, someone for their labor, because that that How
Maria Ross 18:11
will an even the investment, even the investment and ERGs as a strategic lever, because I think you would probably get more more reciprocity, from ERGs if they knew they were supported with budget for the initiatives that are important to them to do to put on events or Yeah, exactly. And so most companies have them as like, Oh, that’s a cute little volunteer organization. Instead of looking at an erg, I got this from Cynthia’s book, actually, looking at it at it as a strategic input to the business that you would invest in just like you would invest in a consultant, you would invest in outside experts to come in, you’ve got this group of employees that feel passionate about this topic, invest in that erg. And there’s some reciprocity there, right?
Dannie Lynn Fountain 18:59
Oh, yeah. Yeah. You think about retention, when you think about employment brand, when you think about these components, er, G’s are one of the single highest ROI activities a company can do. Even at billion dollar companies ERGs get like 510 $1,000 budgets a year, and the amount of retention that they turn around through employee community building the amount of calls that they take with potential candidates, convincing them to come to the Oh, yeah, if you invested just double what you are already investing in the ERP. Yeah, we see tremendous amount of change and grow. I love that.
Maria Ross 19:39
So let’s talk a little bit about intersectionality. Because I know that that is very important to you. What for folks that don’t know what do we mean in the DEI world by intersectionality? And how does it impact our D IB efforts?
Dannie Lynn Fountain 19:54
Intersectionality for a very, very, very basic definition is the holding of to Who are more marginalized identities. So, for every individual, let’s say it’s someone who identifies as biracial and queer, to marginalized identities, both of those identities individual individually influenced the way that someone experience says the world. But layered on top of each other can be doubly impactful. So when we talk about intersectionality, we’re talking about the way that we experience life, the way that we experience work changes through the addition of those lines is, so since we were just talking about employee resource groups, a great example of this is women focused employee resource groups tend to default to the white straight woman perspective. When you talk about a women employee resource group, there are women from Infinite backgrounds who may be members and have very different experiences, then that kind of North Star that most women identifying Employee Resource Groups gravitate toward. So intersectionality really is just taking a moment to recognize that layered identities add nuance, and then again, to use a business word, optimal using for like the best experience, creating experiences, that folks who hold multiple marginalized identities can thrive in. A great example of this at Google is the mixed Googlers employee resource group. It’s a employee resource group for mixed race employees. But it’s become so much more than that. The phrase mix has, frankly, become a celebration for folks from two religion household, folks from a variety of experiences where their intersectionality is mixed. And it’s just such a celebration of support for employees that doesn’t have to be single identity tied to just building that and can be so helpful.
Maria Ross 22:05
So talk to us a little bit about one of the identities you mentioned, which I’m always trying to talk about, especially in context of my son’s school, as I try to spend like year three trying to get a diversity, equity and inclusion group going there is to get them out of the mindset that it just means race discussions, right? It can be gender identity, and especially, especially among children neuro diversity. And you mentioned neuro diversity earlier, I’m a survivor of a of a ruptured brain aneurysm. So I have aspects of neurodiversity that I deal with, but I’ve only, I’ve only been, and I haven’t delved into this widely, but I was very struck when I took a behind the scenes tour at Airbnb years ago, that their whole office design is based on different working styles and neurodiversity. They’ve got pods for collaboration, they’ve got little, you know, little telephone booths for folks that need to be in complete quiet. They’ve got reconfigurable office furniture, so you can work however you need to work for that particular meeting or that particular project. And I was struck by the accommodation of multiple ways of thinking, multiple ways in which our brains work, and how it is such an important aspect of our ability to perform well, which again, impacts the company’s bottom line. So do you see some examples of companies that are accounting for neurodiversity? And how are they doing it?
Dannie Lynn Fountain 23:36
Yeah, I think so. Um, three things that you mentioned first, bit children’s faces are one of the most inclusive for neurodiversity. At the moment, which is wild. There’s been previously many neurodivergent identities were found to be in children, and it was believed that they couldn’t like manifests later in life. So an adult diagnosis was just out of the question. So it’s not only B, this is something that was built for children first, and we’re very still stuck in that mindset. But also, so much of what we think as accommodation, we think of as needing to be this rigorous process full of bureaucracy that requires form submissions, and Doctor supporting evidence, when really, it’s actually quite simple. Yeah. So thinking about folks who identify with ADHD are are clues on like myself, feedback and writing, feedback in writing in advance of a meeting. That’s not hard. Hopefully, like as a manager, you’re prepping for a meeting anyway. So giving me 30 minutes an hour a day, to internalize the feedback that you want to provide before we chat about it. Not super hard. Like you’re saying the different ways to operate like the open floor plan workspace.
Maria Ross 24:56
Oh, it does my head and I can’t. I can’t Yeah,
Dannie Lynn Fountain 24:59
yeah. Noise Cancelling Headphones are not the like Halo inducing. So
Maria Ross 25:05
because it’s visual, it’s visual stimulation as well. And yeah, and this, this was profoundly a difference for me after my brain injury, I used to work in an open floor plan.com Back in, like 99 and 2000. And I thought it was rad. And then I remember, you know, I came back to San Francisco, I had been working in my own business for a while and this was post brain injury. I visited somebody actually, ironically, at a Google office. And I was like, oh my god, I’m in a war zone. Like I can’t. Uh, how how do you function in this? I just wouldn’t be able to do it.
Dannie Lynn Fountain 25:38
Oh, yeah. I used to my dad used to be right outside of n k and micro kitchen where Googlers can go get snack. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
Maria Ross 25:47
Like, yes. seated near the bathroom on. Like, what? Yeah. But
Dannie Lynn Fountain 25:51
to your question of companies that are doing this Wow. controversial opinion here. It’s the remote first ones. It’s the companies that because parallel to all of this, we see remote first, as an accommodation or something that needs to be battled for or validated when there are swaths of our workforce who work better. And for those that don’t function well, so low, there are countless solutions, co working spaces, which most remote first companies provide co working stipends. Anyway, I’m co working spaces, coffee shops, excetera. So, in my opinion, remote first companies, remote parts, companies who also believe in asynchronous communication, let’s get Nish here, I heard the one that I think are doing the most service for not just neurodiverse, but all disabled individuals. Because so much of disability is invisible. We have this mindset of the wheelchair. Yeah, how much of disability is invisible, and remote first, not only accommodate warping style, but also accommodate? How much of myself do I show you. And I don’t just mean literally on a screen, like in a video call, I get to choose. I mean, and so many more ways than that. I mean, I can control if you see my text, or my stems, I can control if you my mute button on and off can control, forcing myself to think. So it’s not even just accommodations, it’s getting to control how much of myself I put out there to then until the rest of the world catches up, reduce the bias on me. And when I say on me, I mean, the disabled individual. So very long answer. But
Maria Ross 27:45
no, I think it’s an important point. Because if you really are after helping people do their best work, to Let’s Get Real, increase your revenues, right? attract more customers, do all the things that you want to do for the sake of your shareholder, then we shouldn’t be able to, and I hate even to say the word accommodate, because it sounds like you’re coddling somebody. But all we’re saying is let people do work in a way where they can do their best work. And when you apply, you will love the like the dividends that come from that?
Dannie Lynn Fountain 28:23
Oh, yeah, I think when you say the current working environment, accommodate the extroverted, or outgoing, or high functioning individual that really puts the word comedy into perspective. Because that’s, I mean, that’s the reality. That is
Maria Ross 28:42
the reality. Exactly. And you also end up not attracting the best talent for different roles when you do that, because you’re leaving out a huge part of the population. Whether you know, if you’re gonna say, Oh, I’m not gonna hire that person, because they’re autistic, or I’m not gonna hire that person, because they’re in a wheelchair, we don’t have wheelchair ramps, like, that’s how you get around it is to figure out creative solutions to create the workplace where that person who’s going to do the best job for you in that role
Dannie Lynn Fountain 29:09
can shine. And it’s really that practical. You don’t I mean, I know it really I’m preaching to the choir. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So
Maria Ross 29:19
I do want to talk about as we kind of wrap up here, I want to talk about something that you said that has stuck with me since our pre call. And you talked about the impact of COVID. And not just on remote work, hybrid work, you know, blurring the lines between personal and business, which is often the angle I’m coming at it from, but tell me your concern about COVID long term effects, especially as it relates to the EIB.
Dannie Lynn Fountain 29:49
So, pre COVID, approximately, one in four adults in the United States had some type of disability. And that’s a pretty high number I think the actual percent is like roughly 26%. However, COVID is very quickly being identified as a math disabling event, the largest disabling event in our history and on and on, largely due to bump while COVID. And by that it’s a not only the long term effects of actual COVID, some folks have persistent cough, some folks never regain their sense of taste. But the comorbidities that start to stack up of symptoms that can be directly traced back to COVID. If one in four Americans pre COVID, were disabled in some way. And we struggled in corporate America, and event spaces, etc, to, again, that word accommodate those with disabilities. And COVID-19 is a math disabling event that’s impacting millions. So that one in four, I’ve seen some stats predicted as high as one in two, once all of the data starts to settle. What are we going to do? We we are so resistant. Like that stat I mentioned previously, only 4% of companies consider disability currently in their diversity plans. And that’s just their diversity plans. That’s not hiring. That’s not HR in general. That’s not day to day job. That’s Yes. Right. Ei planning. What are we going to do when up to one in two Americans are disabled, it’s going to come to a head, there is going to be a crisis. And all of the disability advocates who long before I even open my mouth, were doing this work for years and years and years, are looking at corporate America. Like we told you was one in four not inox. And I am very wary and scared of how resistant corporate America event space is. Online communities even our too accommodating disability, it is terrifying.
Maria Ross 32:14
Well, I mean, I guess the optimistic viewpoint is that it’s going to be the forcing mechanism that’s required for transformation. There what you ought to be able to you won’t be able to deny it anymore. Because Oh, yeah, won’t be able to hire people anymore. Badly. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, the opposite is the glass half full woman to me is saying like, wow, if that’s what it takes, is that that punch in the face is what it takes to get you to wake up and realize that you have to do something about this, like, shame on you for waiting for so long. But you get to a point where you can’t sustain the status quo anymore. So it could be a good catalyst for change. Hopefully, not that I wish now that I wish mass disability on people, but Right, yeah,
Dannie Lynn Fountain 33:00
my hope, frankly, is for the rebrand of disability, again, we’re so focused on the wheelchair. And when even today, the majority of those who have disability would not associate with a wheelchair icon. That’s my hope is we can crack the entrenched perspective, that disability equals wheelchair.
Maria Ross 33:23
Well, you know, it’s, I’m just gonna get really vulnerable for a minute. After my brain injury, when I was sort of slowly I was recovering, and I was getting back to work and jumping in, you know, everyone, everyone, all my doctors were like, Wow, you’re so high functioning, you’re you’ve made this miraculous recovery. And I, at first was like, am I going to tell clients that this experience happened to me, because I don’t want them to think I’m going to be bad at my job, or that I will be able to do the work, they’re hiring me to do and, and even when I would go to rehab sessions, or work with groups at the hospital, they would refer to us as disabled. And I remember, it rubbed me the wrong way. Because I thought, well, I don’t, I don’t need help walking. I don’t need you know, so I fought against that own label because of my own bias of that label. Right. And it’s, I think it’s doing away with, you might be disabled, but it doesn’t mean you can’t do the work. It doesn’t mean you can’t do a fantastic job. It doesn’t mean you can’t thrive just because you have a disability. And so, again, the optimist in me is like, maybe unfortunately, that’s what it’s going to take is that the majority of us, so it’s not a minority of people anymore. So I don’t know, but big, big questions. So I love this conversation. I love the work that you’re doing. I hope everybody checks out your book ending checkbox diversity, which was published in the fall of last year, and we’re gonna have all your links in the show notes standing land, but for folks on the go or exercising right now, where’s the best place? they could find out more about your work or get in touch with you.
Dannie Lynn Fountain 35:03
Yeah, LinkedIn and Instagram at Danny Lynn founded on both for just constant content just got segues so much of what we’ve already talked about here. I love it.
Maria Ross 35:16
Can you give us one last golden nugget of advice for leaders, sort of taking a deep breath and going, Oh, my gosh, we’ve got a lot of work to do, what’s a good first step they can take?
Dannie Lynn Fountain 35:26
I think we have all become so focused on our limiting how much privilege we do or don’t have, that we’ve lost the focus of, let’s lift everyone up. I don’t care. If you believe that the identity that you called if you have or you don’t have privilege, that’s not the point. The point is, there are folks who are hurting. Let’s lift them up.
Maria Ross 35:58
I love it. Let’s end it right there. Thank you so much for being a guest today and sharing your insights. Thank you so much for having me. And thanks everyone for listening to another great episode of the empathy edge. If you’re enjoying the podcast, you know what to do. Subscribe, follow share with friends or colleagues. And please leave a rating and review wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, please remember that cashflow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
