[Music]
by show of hands how many of you have
interviewed and hired someone before how
many of you had to do it at the age of
eighteen how many of you had to be
completely naked in front of this newly
hired person just simply days after my
name is Dave Dame and I have cerebral
palsy but cerebral palsy doesn’t define
me I’m one of the world leading experts
in agile and organizational change what
is agile agile is a framework that helps
us deal with the complexity and not
knowing it’s not about doing everything
faster rather we do short tight time
boxes we quickly do something inspect
and adapt and then we apply the learning
rate of weight to try it again or solve
the next biggest problem or challenge
I’m going to share with you today of how
I use an agile mindset to help navigate
a world that wasn’t ready for somebody
with cerebral palsy is that exact same
tool set that I use to help
organizations manage their disability
they don’t have cerebral palsy they have
the lack of inability to change from the
status quo when I first entered the work
world I had a degree graduated from
university ready to go unfortunately
the work world wasn’t ready for me I
applied to many different jobs and out
of all the jobs I applied to I could
only get into half of them because my
wheelchair couldn’t get in the building
for me to have the interview finally ten
months later I got my first job it was
great my first job was I was a learning
logistics coordinator
for one of the big three automotive and
it was a lot of paperwork and a lot of
folders as you can see my hands don’t
really lend itself to people working
folders but I struggled to do it anyways
it took me 12 hours to do when my Pierce
could do in 8 hours but it wasn’t
working the long extra hours that
bothered me on my first day I learned
that my wheelchair can fit in the
bathroom stall if that was today I would
easily ask for a modification but back
then in 1995 it took me so long to land
my first job I was already feeling
insecure that it was taking me 4 hours
longer to do what other people could do
in 8 hours I decided to hold it for
every day for 3 years I could have gave
up in any moment but I’m glad I
proceeded through because a couple years
later my company decided to invest into
the personal computer so I could quickly
what I learned was I changed the way I
did my work from all the paperwork
folders
I quickly utilized the computer to
automate it and reach ange everything I
did and there was this newfangled thing
called the internet that came out so
instead of keystroking and all myself I
decided I’m the website so vendors could
enter it themselves so what was taken me
12 hours before I was now getting done
in 3 hours the guy in the wheelchair was
getting done his work before lunch who
and from then my career change from me
just being grateful to have a job that I
became the person it helped redefine the
way people they did work as my
colleagues role is starting to get
computers I was the one that was getting
him to look at their jobs redesigning it
to give them those efficiencies and then
he had me go from department to
department helping finance change the
way they did budgeting having marketing
changed the way they did marketing
trying to get efficiencies everywhere
and then my career over the last number
of years took me from company to company
city to city instead of me begging for a
job I was getting poked to get them to
change now there are three common things
I found in navigating my life for the
disability as the same three things
organizations have trouble navigating as
they’re trying to get more agile are
ready to change that is the
embracing the vulnerability and giving
up control and having resilience to
continue to try again and again from the
applied learning that agile gives you so
vision when I first come into a company
they’re like Dave we want to be agile
I’m like okay why you know I want to be
agile agility with our business outcomes
it’s just like chasing your tail running
in circles so I have to work with them
do you want to go after more customers
do you want to deliver to customers
quicker or do you want to employ
technology differently to meet them
any of those are great reasons to go
agile but what I got to get them to do a
set of vision because now that you’re
gonna get a capability the organizations
moving quicker you’re going to need to
be able to reshape your vision more
frequently and setting visions are scary
because we’re looking into the unknowing
we’re making our guests best on what we
feel where we want to go the company to
go and we have to have the confidence
and think we go there and so what I
really need to do is help them establish
a comfort to set that vision and luckily
for me my parents were visionaries
themselves in 1971 when I was born my
parents were told David may never live
past 12 David may never be able to speak
clearly if at all and even if he does
don’t expect much from David because the
world isn’t set up for somebody with a
disability so they advised my parents to
put me in institution this way at least
could be comfortable and what time I had
left and I wouldn’t be a burden to them
as they would have to take care of me in
1971 having cerebral palsy this was the
status quo but luckily my parents were
visionaries themselves they wouldn’t
accept that they could see were somebody
with the cerebral palsy could go have a
life impact people fall in love and do
whatever they didn’t know how we were
gonna do it but they knew if they took
an agile approach by just trying
something and and then doing it inspect
to see how it went learned and if it
didn’t work find another way or try
again but it was in that way they could
set a vision another thing my parents
had to do as well as organizations is
embrace vulnerability of losing control
you might remember the three questions I
asked at the beginning at the age of 18
this is exactly what I had to do I
decided to move away from home to go to
university I had to hire I had to
actually recruit a higher
people that were complete strangers that
we’re going to simply see me naked days
later I would have to trust these
strangers to touch me in places that
I’ve been conditioned to never let a
stranger have you touch but this was the
vulnerability I would have to embrace if
I ever wanted to be independent I’m
going to ask you an audience look around
and make eye contact with somebody you
don’t know hold on make eye contact
kind of awkward isn’t it what if I told
you that immediately after my talk you
were going to be naked and this and that
this person was gonna shower you right
this was the vulnerability that I had to
accept and it wasn’t just my
vulnerability my parents had to have
vulnerability they had to give up
control to me that I would hire and make
the right decision to trust their son
that they spent the whole 18 years
taking care of into their hands and when
I go into organizations
I gotta get leaders to strip their
control and push decision-making down to
their whole team’s around them because
in most organizations all the decisions
are made by few people at the top which
takes a long time for people to get
responses to those answers that is the
biggest thing that are holding
organizations back are waiting for
decisions let me ask you how many of you
in this room are waiting for a decision
from somebody in your organization and
how to move forward good I like this
participation how many of you are
holding up decisions to keep people from
moving forward I can tell who the middle
managers are excellent put their hands
up for both but if we’re going to be
able to move more agile we have to push
down the decision-making control which
make leaders feel vulnerable right
because this is the thing that gave them
courage and closed and now they’ve set a
vision and they gotta trust all their
teams around them that they’re gonna be
able to enable their vision and the
team’s themselves are nervous because
they haven’t had to make decisions
before but the beauty is using agile
they can do a number of experiments see
which one is best and choose the best
one instead of the first one because
they didn’t have to wait for a decision
so this gives you more speed to move
forward and you know what else this
gives you it
gives you to teach people to be
decision-makers when I first became a
leader my biggest fear was now I have to
start making decisions previously too
then I just executed other people’s
decisions but now I gotta make a
decision which is scary but by leaders
pushing those decisions down early
they’re able to teach them to experiment
get their team’s comfortable with being
wrong because you can fix a wrong
decision quicker than you can fix a
non-decision and you build that
resilience all the way through and the
best thing is you’re creating leaders
out of everybody around you getting them
to be able to pick themselves up fall
back down get back up because of failure
we gotta change the word from failure to
learning learning has to become a
first-class citizen and if if people can
feel safe to fail then they can learn to
move on but you know what else is builds
it builds resilience because no longer
is somebody gonna stay with the company
their whole career right now we might
have four or five years in the same
company so it’s important we build the
capacity or capability for people to
make decisions and move on no matter who
comes in and comes out we build that
resilience and my father did that for me
every day when I used to have to go eat
my breakfast lunch or dinner we had
stairs in her house and I had to climb
on my hands and knees of every step for
a meal and I would always ask my dad hey
Dad can you build a ramp to make it
easier for me to go up and he never did
years later I asked him to say you know
what why did you never build that ramp
for me and he said that simple
I’m not always gonna be here to build
ramps for you you’re gonna have to learn
to climb and struggle when I’m no longer
here
two days later he passed away it’s been
25 years since my dad died and I’m glad
that I’ve been able to live the vision
that him and my mother set for me fat
even after he’s gone I’ve had to set my
own vision fight my own battles and move
forward and do things that he could
never imagine where I can be on stage to
give an idea for you to go into action I
want to leave you with this for you
leaders that are in the room get
comfortable at standing a vision get
comfortable in the unknowing and push
those decisions down close to your team
members to get them to feel empowered
for those of you that have leaders go
and ask to get those decisions try to
get that autonomy and empowerment to
move forward because if you can see a
different world then you’ll have a
different world available to you
thank you
[Applause] you
by show of hands how many of you have
interviewed and hired someone before how
many of you had to do it at the age of
eighteen how many of you had to be
completely naked in front of this newly
hired person just simply days after my
name is Dave Dame and I have cerebral
palsy but cerebral palsy doesn’t define
me I’m one of the world leading experts
in agile and organizational change what
is agile agile is a framework that helps
us deal with the complexity and not
knowing it’s not about doing everything
faster rather we do short tight time
boxes we quickly do something inspect
and adapt and then we apply the learning
rate of weight to try it again or solve
the next biggest problem or challenge
I’m going to share with you today of how
I use an agile mindset to help navigate
a world that wasn’t ready for somebody
with cerebral palsy is that exact same
tool set that I use to help
organizations manage their disability
they don’t have cerebral palsy they have
the lack of inability to change from the
status quo when I first entered the work
world I had a degree graduated from
university ready to go unfortunately
the work world wasn’t ready for me I
applied to many different jobs and out
of all the jobs I applied to I could
only get into half of them because my
wheelchair couldn’t get in the building
for me to have the interview finally ten
months later I got my first job it was
great my first job was I was a learning
logistics coordinator
for one of the big three automotive and
it was a lot of paperwork and a lot of
folders as you can see my hands don’t
really lend itself to people working
folders but I struggled to do it anyways
it took me 12 hours to do when my Pierce
could do in 8 hours but it wasn’t
working the long extra hours that
bothered me on my first day I learned
that my wheelchair can fit in the
bathroom stall if that was today I would
easily ask for a modification but back
then in 1995 it took me so long to land
my first job I was already feeling
insecure that it was taking me 4 hours
longer to do what other people could do
in 8 hours I decided to hold it for
every day for 3 years I could have gave
up in any moment but I’m glad I
proceeded through because a couple years
later my company decided to invest into
the personal computer so I could quickly
what I learned was I changed the way I
did my work from all the paperwork
folders
I quickly utilized the computer to
automate it and reach ange everything I
did and there was this newfangled thing
called the internet that came out so
instead of keystroking and all myself I
decided I’m the website so vendors could
enter it themselves so what was taken me
12 hours before I was now getting done
in 3 hours the guy in the wheelchair was
getting done his work before lunch who
and from then my career change from me
just being grateful to have a job that I
became the person it helped redefine the
way people they did work as my
colleagues role is starting to get
computers I was the one that was getting
him to look at their jobs redesigning it
to give them those efficiencies and then
he had me go from department to
department helping finance change the
way they did budgeting having marketing
changed the way they did marketing
trying to get efficiencies everywhere
and then my career over the last number
of years took me from company to company
city to city instead of me begging for a
job I was getting poked to get them to
change now there are three common things
I found in navigating my life for the
disability as the same three things
organizations have trouble navigating as
they’re trying to get more agile are
ready to change that is the
embracing the vulnerability and giving
up control and having resilience to
continue to try again and again from the
applied learning that agile gives you so
vision when I first come into a company
they’re like Dave we want to be agile
I’m like okay why you know I want to be
agile agility with our business outcomes
it’s just like chasing your tail running
in circles so I have to work with them
do you want to go after more customers
do you want to deliver to customers
quicker or do you want to employ
technology differently to meet them
any of those are great reasons to go
agile but what I got to get them to do a
set of vision because now that you’re
gonna get a capability the organizations
moving quicker you’re going to need to
be able to reshape your vision more
frequently and setting visions are scary
because we’re looking into the unknowing
we’re making our guests best on what we
feel where we want to go the company to
go and we have to have the confidence
and think we go there and so what I
really need to do is help them establish
a comfort to set that vision and luckily
for me my parents were visionaries
themselves in 1971 when I was born my
parents were told David may never live
past 12 David may never be able to speak
clearly if at all and even if he does
don’t expect much from David because the
world isn’t set up for somebody with a
disability so they advised my parents to
put me in institution this way at least
could be comfortable and what time I had
left and I wouldn’t be a burden to them
as they would have to take care of me in
1971 having cerebral palsy this was the
status quo but luckily my parents were
visionaries themselves they wouldn’t
accept that they could see were somebody
with the cerebral palsy could go have a
life impact people fall in love and do
whatever they didn’t know how we were
gonna do it but they knew if they took
an agile approach by just trying
something and and then doing it inspect
to see how it went learned and if it
didn’t work find another way or try
again but it was in that way they could
set a vision another thing my parents
had to do as well as organizations is
embrace vulnerability of losing control
you might remember the three questions I
asked at the beginning at the age of 18
this is exactly what I had to do I
decided to move away from home to go to
university I had to hire I had to
actually recruit a higher
people that were complete strangers that
we’re going to simply see me naked days
later I would have to trust these
strangers to touch me in places that
I’ve been conditioned to never let a
stranger have you touch but this was the
vulnerability I would have to embrace if
I ever wanted to be independent I’m
going to ask you an audience look around
and make eye contact with somebody you
don’t know hold on make eye contact
kind of awkward isn’t it what if I told
you that immediately after my talk you
were going to be naked and this and that
this person was gonna shower you right
this was the vulnerability that I had to
accept and it wasn’t just my
vulnerability my parents had to have
vulnerability they had to give up
control to me that I would hire and make
the right decision to trust their son
that they spent the whole 18 years
taking care of into their hands and when
I go into organizations
I gotta get leaders to strip their
control and push decision-making down to
their whole team’s around them because
in most organizations all the decisions
are made by few people at the top which
takes a long time for people to get
responses to those answers that is the
biggest thing that are holding
organizations back are waiting for
decisions let me ask you how many of you
in this room are waiting for a decision
from somebody in your organization and
how to move forward good I like this
participation how many of you are
holding up decisions to keep people from
moving forward I can tell who the middle
managers are excellent put their hands
up for both but if we’re going to be
able to move more agile we have to push
down the decision-making control which
make leaders feel vulnerable right
because this is the thing that gave them
courage and closed and now they’ve set a
vision and they gotta trust all their
teams around them that they’re gonna be
able to enable their vision and the
team’s themselves are nervous because
they haven’t had to make decisions
before but the beauty is using agile
they can do a number of experiments see
which one is best and choose the best
one instead of the first one because
they didn’t have to wait for a decision
so this gives you more speed to move
forward and you know what else this
gives you it
gives you to teach people to be
decision-makers when I first became a
leader my biggest fear was now I have to
start making decisions previously too
then I just executed other people’s
decisions but now I gotta make a
decision which is scary but by leaders
pushing those decisions down early
they’re able to teach them to experiment
get their team’s comfortable with being
wrong because you can fix a wrong
decision quicker than you can fix a
non-decision and you build that
resilience all the way through and the
best thing is you’re creating leaders
out of everybody around you getting them
to be able to pick themselves up fall
back down get back up because of failure
we gotta change the word from failure to
learning learning has to become a
first-class citizen and if if people can
feel safe to fail then they can learn to
move on but you know what else is builds
it builds resilience because no longer
is somebody gonna stay with the company
their whole career right now we might
have four or five years in the same
company so it’s important we build the
capacity or capability for people to
make decisions and move on no matter who
comes in and comes out we build that
resilience and my father did that for me
every day when I used to have to go eat
my breakfast lunch or dinner we had
stairs in her house and I had to climb
on my hands and knees of every step for
a meal and I would always ask my dad hey
Dad can you build a ramp to make it
easier for me to go up and he never did
years later I asked him to say you know
what why did you never build that ramp
for me and he said that simple
I’m not always gonna be here to build
ramps for you you’re gonna have to learn
to climb and struggle when I’m no longer
here
two days later he passed away it’s been
25 years since my dad died and I’m glad
that I’ve been able to live the vision
that him and my mother set for me fat
even after he’s gone I’ve had to set my
own vision fight my own battles and move
forward and do things that he could
never imagine where I can be on stage to
give an idea for you to go into action I
want to leave you with this for you
leaders that are in the room get
comfortable at standing a vision get
comfortable in the unknowing and push
those decisions down close to your team
members to get them to feel empowered
for those of you that have leaders go
and ask to get those decisions try to
get that autonomy and empowerment to
move forward because if you can see a
different world then you’ll have a
different world available to you
thank you
[Applause] you
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