organizations well we must be talking
about a nonprofit organization then
because surely a business doesn’t care
about these things right business is
tough and these things have nothing to
do with making money and that’s the
focus of business isn’t it it’s to make
money I think the focus of business
needs an adjustment it’s been influenced
by economic thought leaders with phrases
like increased shareholder value and
maximize profitability well then why do
some leaders say shareholder value is
the last thing we should focus on what
should we be focused on them we need to
get way out in front of shareholder
value we need to create a structure that
allows human beings to develop to their
fullest potential and in order to
develop to our fullest potential we need
to understand the perspectives of other
people that is empathy we need to be
more empathetic and compassionate with
each other accept culturally our empathy
is declining a 2010 study done by the
University of Michigan revealed that
college students were more empathetic
thirty years ago and that students today
are 40 percent less likely to understand
the perspective of another person and
they’re less likely to have concern for
people who are less fortunate than
themselves these people
are now these people those college
students are in the workforce which
means there’s an increase in the
quantity of people who could really care
less about what you think and we all
know the word for this selfishness right
and if more people are worried about
themselves then we’re placing less value
on our relationships and as we devalue
our relationships were less capable of
seeing the holistic value of another
person and as a result we are not
developing to our fullest potential we
need to bring empathy and compassion
into our business culture but how I know
that study reveals a drop in empathy
overall but it’s it’s not universally
true so let me share with you how we did
this where I work at widen we created a
structure that values the whole person
see most organizations they value one
thing it’s your productivity we
absolutely value your productivity too
but we also value the unique talents
that each individual brings with them
and how they contribute those talents to
our culture because how you build an
appreciation for another person’s by
using professional skills and unique
talents in fact every day people show up
at widen and apply their professional
skills to help our customers and to help
each other but they also apply their
unique talents so let me give you an
example of what this looks like at a
recent customer appreciation event we
hosted over 200 customers in Madison and
we let these unique talents shine
through an advisor on our sales team he
shared his balloon art skills at our
opening reception a customer service
person on our content team he baked
incredible cupcakes for the event
an event planner on our marketing team
she shared her concert hall piano skills
for a video story to people on our color
production team they use their
professional photography skills to
capture the event and our video expert
he shared his musical talents with his
popular band for our evening
entertainment you see the the structure
that we’ve created is what allows these
talents to shine through and I refer to
this as eudaimonia it’s a greek term
from 4th century BC it means happiness
health and prosperity see I don’t even
view my role as the traditional chief
executive officer my job as the CEO is
the chief eudaimonia officer I need to
figure out how to bring the happiness
health and prosperity of all these
individuals together both their
professional skills and their unique
talents because it is the collective
combination of these that creates a
unique wyden experience now the reason I
talk about this structure and I give you
these examples is because this is how we
were able to increase the empathy and
the compassion within our organization
we didn’t go out and buy a book on the
five ways to become more empathetic we
didn’t hire a trainer we didn’t watch a
webinar we needed to find the right
people who had professional skills that
could apply to their day to day
occupational tasks and they had the
unique skills that could teach us
empathy and compassion because how you
build an appreciation for the full value
of another person is by working
alongside those whose perspective is
different than your own so let me
introduce you to a few of the people
that helped make this happen
this is Justin and this is Rob these are
my colleagues and they helped me and
more than a hundred people at widen do
our jobs better because they’re teaching
us how to be more empathetic and
compassionate now I’m not talking about
being sympathetic because they have
developmental disabilities they don’t
need our sympathy we need to appreciate
their professional skills and their
unique talents because it’s different
than our own we need more people with
developmental disabilities in the
workforce I think part of why we have a
decline in empathy overall is because we
haven’t welcomed people with
developmental disabilities what what do
you mean we haven’t welcomed people with
developmental disabilities
well the ugly truth is we have a dark
history of how we’ve treated and how we
continue to treat people with
developmental disabilities
they’ve been institutionalized they’ve
been isolated
they’ve been deemed life unworthy of
life they are sterilized by force and
they are aborted the abortion rate for
children with Down syndrome is 90% 9 out
of every 10 children are aborted and we
wonder why we have a decline in empathy
we’re trying to eradicate an entire
group of people
because it makes us uncomfortable to
have to coexist with people or different
than us no you might think it’s
ridiculous of course we’re welcoming and
accepting of them maybe are we including
them how many of your colleagues have a
developmental disability a few
statistics reveal not many of you an ADD
Vysya peered at the rate of employment
among people with developmental
disabilities is low and it’s remain
unchanged for the last 10 years 15% of
people with developmental disabilities
have a paying job 40% want one but they
don’t have one so it’s time to stop
cheering from the sidelines and calling
it acceptance it’s not good enough this
is your call to get in the game now you
still may wonder how does employing
people with developmental disabilities
increase the empathy and the compassion
in a business culture now I’ll testify
to what has unfolded before these very
eyes but let me share some research
that’s been done on families who have
children with developmental disabilities
to articulate the impact when families
are asked about their experience they
shared that they learn to recognize
strengths in others with greater clarity
they learn to have an increased
acceptance of diversity they learn to
not place limits on what people are
capable of they learn to have a more
positive attitude they learn to have
increased tolerance and compassion to
find excitement in the little things
they learn to strengthen communication
and overall they say they’ve become
what are we talking about families here
are we talking about business because
those sure sound a lot like what every
business is looking for listen to them
again except alongside some company and
job postings I found and a few business
acceptance of diversity not placing
limits on what people are capable of a
more positive attitude increased
compassion and tolerance appreciation
and excitement and the little things
strengthen communication and an overall
improvement in becoming a better person
it is what businesses are looking for
now I can vouch for all these but not as
a parent as an employer I am someone in
the workforce experiencing the same
positive impacts learning the same
things how can I prove it to you though
beyond just this witness measure it by
businesses measure lots of things and we
should continue to measure things so as
to constantly improve but are we
measuring the right things are we
measuring the things that indicate we
are developing people to their fullest
potential we started to better
understand our own empathy and
compassion by measuring things like
dignity and integrity and a variety of
wellness dimensions and what we found
was that an increase across those
measurements tightly correlated with the
start of employing people with
developmental disabilities
another reason to measure though is to
remind us that this is not about doing a
social good the measurements remind us
that something is being given to us so
how do you get started with something
like this let me tell you how we did
this we did two things
the first thing we did is we partnered
with an outstanding community
organization called the community
support network they provide job coaches
and they help bridge the gap between
people with developmental disabilities
and businesses and the second thing we
did is we hired a popcorn manager we
bought a commercial popcorn maker and we
hired the first-ever wyden popcorn
manager Andrew goes round and tallies up
how much popcorn to make pops it bags it
and he delivers it Andrew was the first
of several hires that we made and today
5% of my colleagues have a developmental
disability what if you were to apply the
same percentage to your workforce I’ll
tell you what’ll happen the demand for
people with developmental disabilities
would be more significant than any other
career function we need 7 million people
helping us to combat this disturbing
decline in empathy we need 7 million
people with developmental disabilities
teaching us how to understand the
perspectives of others the problem is
there’s only one point eight million
people available for these 7 million
jobs why don’t we see this demand
represented in the market today we’ve
yet to embrace the value that diversity
provides increasing our understanding of
other people’s perspectives is necessary
for us to advance on our potential this
is our focus you need to experience the
joys of working alongside people with
developmental disabilities we’ve done it and now it’s your turn thank you