The Competitive Edge

Attention employers! Are you looking for better margins, higher productivity, and employees who really care about their work? Then you need to meet Randy Lewis and hear what he has to say about what happened when his company began hiring people with disabilities. We’re talking about Walgreens, the largest drugstore chain in the United States with annual sales of $72 billion and the razor-thin margins characteristic of most retail business.

What is Walgreens doing to improve those margins? Among other things, under an innovative program led by Mr. Lewis, Senior Vice President in charge of product distribution to 7,773 stores, Walgreens is intentionally hiring people with disabilities and including them fully in the work of the company. Not as part-time courtesy clerks wrangling shopping carts in the parking lot, but as critical components of one of the largest most sophisticated distribution operations in North America.

How does Walgreens do it? With high productivity standards that are the same for all employees “Everyone can do the job,” says Mr. Lewis flatly, “there is no difference. Full time, side by side, same standards, same pay.” Yet over 40 percent of the employees of the distribution center that served as the pilot project for Walgreen’s inclusion campaign have a disability of some sort – autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, physical disability, deaf-blind, you name it.

Mr. Lewis reports two surprising insights from what started as an economic experiment and is now spreading throughout the Walgreens organization and beyond to other corporations like Proctor & Gamble, Glaxo Smith Kline, and IBM.

First, although Walgreens made significant investments in assistive technology and workflow design in their integrated distribution center, what they learned is that “it’s not about the technology; it’s about making the decision to go forward.” Because in the end, the biggest barrier to employment most people with disabilities face isn’t their particular condition or special need, but the attitude of everyone else around them.

As Mr. Lewis points out, people with disabilities die a death of a thousand cuts. The system is designed for everyone else and is rigged against them – from transportation to the interview process to the fact that they may talk and look different from what people are used to. But in Mr. Lewis’s view the unkindest cut of all is that most people think people with disabilities can’t do the job.

Everyone at Walgreens can do the job. Mr. Lewis tells us about Darrell, a 52-year-old man with mental retardation who had never worked before but has become number one in productivity on the receiving dock. Or Harrison, 19-years-old with autism and no employment prospects, who performs at 150 percent of standard on the receiving dock managing Walgreen’s 25,000 different products but doesn’t know how to perform simple arithmetic. Or Angie, a young woman with cerebral palsy who after receiving straight A’s all through college and graduate school, sent out 400 resumes, had 30 interviews, and did not receive one single job offer until she came to Walgreens where she does a fantastic job.

The second even more surprising insight was about who benefits from inclusion. Of course the employees with disabilities benefit enormously. People with disabilities often face isolation with few social relationships. But on the job, Mr. Lewis reports, “everyone becomes a chatty Cathy” and develops a new sense of belonging and contribution. The real surprise, though, was the effect on people without disabilities. In Walgreens operations that have embraced diversity and inclusion, the cooperation is better, the teamwork is better, and the sense of shared purpose is stronger.

The result? Of the 14 distribution centers operated by Walgreens, the inclusion pilot has the highest productivity and the best economic performance of them all. As Mr. Lewis puts it, employing people with disabilities isn’t just as good as your current workforce, “this is better.” Walgreens is not a charity helping the poor. It is a highly competitive business that earns only 3 cents on the dollar.

But Walgreens has discovered a competitive advantage by tapping into what might be called a secret reservoir of talent, ability, passion, and commitment were it not so obviously sitting right in front of us the whole time. “We know this works,” Mr. Lewis says. “This is the best thing we have ever done.”

Watch the video here.

Are you interested? My direct line is 206 378 6377. Let’s talk.

The Human Spectrum

The strategy announced a year ago by The American Psychiatric Association to revise the definition of autism will effectively eliminate the autism “epidemic” simply by changing what we mean by the word autism itself. The APA’s strategy has two paradoxical outcomes. First, it neatly absolves society of the burden of supporting a significant population of people whose needs are not changed in the slightest by the clever redefinition of the label that describes them.

 

But at the same time, the APA’s strategy also acknowledges how universal this condition we call autism actually is. In a way, the autism spectrum has become so universal it can no longer be considered “special.” But the fact remains that all people have basic needs — for medical care, for education, for employment, for a home to live in, for dignity and respect — and that all people have something important to contribute to the common good. This is true of everyone, regardless of what their particular version of the human condition might be or where they fall on the universal spectrum of attributes of which we are all composed in infinite variety and combination — the human spectrum.

I recently ran across Temple Grandin’s remarkable account of her experience as a person with autism. In her fascinating book Emergence: Labeled Autistic, Dr. Grandin (she has a doctoral degree in animal science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) describes her unique way of perceiving the world as an asset that gives her distinct advantages over “neurotypical” people. Dr. Grandin, as she has gradually come to realize, is a “visual thinker” which gives her tremendous advantages as a designer of complex industrial equipment. But at the same time the unique way in which her mind works makes it difficult to understand more abstract concepts like algebra or the complexities of human emotion and relationship.

As a child Dr. Grandin was blessed with a strong family and support system. Like many children with classic symptoms of autism, she “had a violent temper, and when thwarted,” she says, “I’d throw anything handy … [and] … screamed continually.” By the age of three her behaviors had reached such a desperate state that doctors were recommending she be placed in an institution. Yet her parents and teachers continually worked to develop her talents. “Too often,” she recalls, “teachers concentrate only on the deficits and may neglect strengthening the talent area.” Now by any standard Dr. Grandin is a highly successful professional as Professor of Animal Sciences at Colorado State University and designer of livestock handling equipment used worldwide.

The point is not to glorify disability or to understate the daunting challenges often posed by developmental conditions like autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome and so on. Rather, the point is to deal with the challenges while focusing on the possibilities — on the unique gift and contribution that every person brings, and on the qualities that are evoked in everyone when people of all abilities are engaged with one another. I have yet to meet a parent in my work who, despite a lifetime of dealing with sometimes overwhelming physical and behavioral challenges, did not in the end feel their child had unique gifts to offer.

I think, for example, of the mother I met recently whose adolescent daughter has profound developmental conditions that include being nonverbal, wheelchair-bound, tube-fed and a frequent long-term guest at Children’s Hospital. The biggest challenge, says her mom, is not the tubes and diapers and medical worries, but rather the lack of play dates. Because her daughter, whose radiant smile in the presence of friends could light a small city, loves other kids above all things. She is not a university professor or frequent talk show guest, but she has this in common with Temple Grandin — her differences, her very challenges, speak to her inherent worth as a human being and evoke wonderful qualities in everyone around her.

We are all on the spectrum, the human spectrum. And this is a good thing because the world needs people of all abilities and the unique gifts we bring to each other. Please share your experiences with us!