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March 29, 2005
Summary for March: Unique Confidence-building Experiences
I appreciate all the interesting insights you’ve posted on eSight’s "Swimming in the Mainstream" (SiM) blog during March about how to develop self-confidence for obtaining mainstream employment when you have a disability.
I've selected some snippets from that conversation to illustrate eight qualities I believe would help me as a job interviewer identify job candidates with a disability who could help extend my company's success.
"‘Swimming in the Mainstream’ Insight: Unique Confidence-building Experiences" details those eight qualities.
This new article in eSight’s Employer Resources section illustrates three benefits you gain by joining the discussion on eSight’s SiM blog.
Benefit one: By sharing your experiences with others on eSight’s SiM blog, you grow personally and help other eSight members find meaningful work.
Benefit two: Through eSight’s online collaboration, you generate insights which can be transformed into resources, such as this week’s featured article, for helping prospective employers expand their perceptions about the potential they can find in job candidates who happen to be disabled.
Benefit three: As an eSight SiM blog participant, you can fully tap the Internet for showcasing your career accomplishments in a rapidly growing network which includes prospective employers in the U.S. as well as across the globe.
Note that this week’s featured article includes links to the offering statements of the eSight SiM blog participants it quotes.
To increase an awareness among employers about disability employment issues and facilitate networking between prospective job candidates and prospective employers, we will e-mail this week’s featured article to our extensive outreach e-mail list, which includes a wide range of employers.
You can also gain immediate visibility for yourself under this ongoing eSight networking initiative by submitting a two-sentence "offering statement" which describes what you can do for a potential employer.
Read the "offering statements" others have posted.
If you have further thoughts to add to the discussion capped by "‘Swimming in the Mainstream’ Insight: Unique Confidence-building Experiences," please do so here.
Posted by Jim at 06:40 PM | Comments (0)
March 22, 2005
Growing Through Failure
Today’s most progressive companies use failure in everyday job situations as learning situations for individual employees who show exceptional promise. They view the experience of failure as a competitive edge.
The theory: Within a safe environment (such as a company which does not dock – but encourages – employees who try something new which may end up in failure), individuals develop more rapidly through failed-and-analyzed ventures than a string of unexamined successes.
Inclusion in the real world of work for people with disabilities, therefore, needs to offer the experience of both success and failure.
But that doesn’t always happen because those of us with disabilities are often shuffled into jobs which are safe but stifling. It’s part of a paternalism that we often experience as a result of good intentions on the part of friends, parents, spouses, career counselors, hiring managers, supervisors and co-workers. Such paternalism can lead to situations in which we experience neither meaningful work nor enlightening failure.
There often may be many paths to failure but only a few routes to success. That’s why, over the course of our careers, it may be even more important to know what does not work for us than what does.
Here’s one example from my own career.
After I retired from a “safe” job in corporate communications and organizational development at a company where I worked for 28 years, I decided to build on the success I had in helping senior management effectively use corporate communication audits.
I became a Midwest consultant for a leading communication research firm on the West Coast.
But I found that, even though I worked hard at honing my skills in consulting, marketing and self-employment and I was using my experience in communication research, my disabilities severely limited my ability to recruit and convert management clients. I even tried delegating the personal contact work to others for a "piece of the action."
After working for four years within the communication research realm, I had generated a total of $20,000 in billings during that period. One year I had no income at all and had to rely on savings for living expenses.
However, I did learn three important lessons from that “growing space” experience. It doesn’t pay to beat a dead horse to death. Corporate communication research is a very hard “sell.” And my heart is in helping people address disability employment issues through the Internet.
Four years of putting myself in the shoes of CEOs prepared me for helping eSight become a bridge for connecting business leaders to talent in the disability community.
In terms of employment, what does not work for you? When did you make that discovery? How have you used that knowledge to gain meaningful employment?
Posted by Jim at 06:05 PM | Comments (2)
March 15, 2005
Turning a Potential Pitfall Into a Stepping Stone
Ron Eldard stars as the lead character, Detective Jim Dunbar, in ABC-TV’s new series, "Blind Justice." In the first episode, we see Dunbar racking up at least 12 small successes as the new guy on the investigation team. He’s not only new; he’s also blind.
Dunbar:
- Paces out the office to avoid repetition of his first-day stumbling over desks due to a lack of guidance from those present who are sighted.
- Makes it clear to his new co-workers he’ll do his own paperwork by using a screen reader on his computer.
- Sets things straight with his co-workers about the role of his guide dog, Hank.
- Establishes personal credibility (which is questioned due to initial claims by a suspect in a serial killer case who takes advantage of his visual impairment).
- Addresses directly the low expectations and the paternal instincts his co-workers and Lieutenant Gary Fisk initially demonstrate in their reaction to his demand for doing field work and carrying a loaded gun while on the job.
- Gains a partner, Karen Bettancourt, who initially begrudges the assignment largely because she sees him as a roadblock in her career. She considers him a roadblock because she is taken off an important case involving a serial killer to be his partner and she doesn’t want to end up being his chauffeur.
- Earns the first indications from Bettancourt that she respects his skill as a detective.
- Shows he can carry his own weight on the investigation team.
- Encounters (and addresses directly) open hostility from one of his colleagues, Detective Russo.
- Works under the impression that Fisk is looking for an excuse, just one slip up on his part, to take him off the team or out of the field. That doesn’t lock him up; he just proceeds with caution.
- Avoids the trap of becoming known as a "hotshot" and "attention grabber" among his co-workers and superiors.
- Demonstrates that he’s not above doing grub work.
Quite a feat for one short episode (and technical consultant, Lynn Manning, who is himself blind), but that’s TV.
What struck me is that only five of those 12 hurdles (the first five listed above) are unique due to Dunbar’s visual impairment and job assignment. The other seven are issues "newcomers" (with or without disabilities) often face as they join a new work group.
We heard stories this past week from eSight members about learning how to keyboard, how to write for publication and how to drive a car. Those are "swimming in the mainstream" skills that many people master.
Those acquired "Swimming in the Mainstream" skills become significant stepping stones for people with disabilities because they often require extra effort, more preparation, and more time than ordinary.
But, the more critical stepping stones (gaining support of a partner, carrying your weight for the team etc.) often call for discernment and judgment – matters of character and experience not directly related to an individual’s physical ability or disability.
This concept of turning a pitfall into a stepping stone on the job reminds me of two eSight articles I’d like to recommend to you. They are:
Share the Load: You Don't Have to Be the Weakest Link Due to Your Disability
Turn Your Disability Into an Advantage as a Business Leader
In "Blind Justice," Dunbar shows how to carry your own weight and use your disability as an advantage on a job.
Success is not always reaching for higher rungs but dealing effectively with sometimes not-so-shallow pitfalls which can make a career ladder unstable.
One hard lesson I learned as a member of senior management some years ago, for example, is to not leak confidential information to even the most trusted members of your staff. Your most valuable asset, as an employee, is your reputation for being trustworthy – to those you lead and as well as to those you report.
Our discussion question this week is this:
What pitfall – related or not related to your disability – have you effectively addressed so it has not derailed (but, in fact, propelled) the development of your career?
Jim Hasse
Posted by Jim at 11:36 AM | Comments (4)
March 09, 2005
Small Steps in Self-confidence
Last week, seven individuals on this “Swimming in the Mainstream” (SiM) blog tackled the issue of how to build the self-confidence required for obtaining a meaningful job in today’s work environment.
As a result, one bit of general advice bubbled to the surface: Cherish the small successes in achieving your goals because they can form the foundation for your self-confidence.
These two SiM bloggers probably said it most eloquently:
Paul wrote:
“The greatest joy is success in spite of one's disability. Exceeding expectations is far more rewarding than just ‘meeting expectations.’ Small steps may seem insignificant until one looks back at the journey and the point from which it began.”
Priya urged:
“Get in touch with what kind of work has meaning and would be realistic for you to do. Then make a commitment to pursue it. Get the training you need, volunteer to get experience and gain confidence. Small steps and successes toward the goal builds confidence. Don't give up if it gets hard or challenging. Keep going and you will accomplish your goals!”
Mike Burks is a veteran IT professional, but he’s also realizing the same value of looking back on where he’s been most successful as he prepares to launch his campaign to find a new job.
Take a look at the progress he’s made just in the last two weeks. Mike is keeping a journal of his job search as it develops on a day-by-day basis on eSight’s Job Seeker's Network blog. Be sure to offer him your encouragement and advice.
There are three eSight articles which may be timely for both you and Mike on the SiM blog as you contemplate the first small steps you took in your career for gaining self-esteem.
Those three articles are:
"How to Define Success in Terms Meaningful to You"
"My Critical First Steps in Building a Resume ..."
"How to Use Key Success Factors in Your Resume"
A small but significant happening I remember is learning how to keyboard on a clunky old electric typewriter in 1958 while I was in high school. It’s not something I’d put on my resume, but keyboarding was my key to going to college and getting a job at the beginning of the “Information Age.”
That “Small Steps in Self-confidence” introduction provides background for this week’s discussion topic here on Sight’s SiM blog:
Even if it seemed insignificant at the time, what small success helped you gain self-confidence in your ability to work at a meaningful, mainstream job?
Posted by Jim at 08:45 AM | Comments (2)
March 01, 2005
Self-confidence for Obtaining a Meaningful Job
I had parents who knew I needed to develop confidence in myself so I could live independently, despite my disability.
They gave me opportunities to stretch my wings. For instance, between seven and 13 years old, I stayed with four different families – my “weekday parents” who gave me the opportunity to attend an orthopedic grade school 60 miles from home. It was difficult for them. It was not easy for me.
Still, I was shy and neurotic as a kid with a string of hidden phobias. I only began to hit my stride during my mid 30s.
The one thing that has helped me during my 62 years is my desire to be independent. That has been my passion. It was even greater than my fear of going out into the mainstream work world at 22 and the questions I received from relatives about giving up a comfortable job and changing my career at 51.
From a vantage point of looking back over 40 years of working in the mainstream, I can see how that overriding desire for independence pulled me through the tough times.
For a little more detail about how I learned to live life “forwards” (Kierkegaard’s expression), see “Growing Space,” a true story from my book, "Break Out: Finding Freedom When You Don't Quite Fit the Mold."
Here is our discussion question for this week on eSight’s “Swimming in the Mainstream blog:
What tip would you give someone with a disability about how to develop the self-confidence for obtaining a meaningful job?
Posted by Jim at 06:02 PM | Comments (10)