>> CHEN: Welcome to the Excelability Podcast. This is a series of conversations on success with people who happen to have a disability. Together we’ll uncover the attitudes, habits, techniques, and practices that enable these individuals to achieve astounding success.
>> FLURRIE: Actually, it was only at college where it was pointed out to me the irony of having deafness doing music. Disability is a strength to this company. If we don’t have people with disabilities, we are not gonna be able to create the crazy, amazing things that’s going to empower people. And really, it’s about mentorship because it’s been probably the most crucial thing that I’ve done in my career, is learned from others.
>> CHEN: Welcome again to the Excelability Podcast. I’m your host, Jack Chen. Today we have the pleasure of speaking with Jenny Lay Flurrie, Microsoft’s chief accessibility officer. As Microsoft’s chief accessibility officer, Jenny advocates for people with disabilities both inside and outside of Microsoft. Jenny began her career in customer service. Jenny has had many challenges along the way, moments that she calls brick wall moments. One example of this are the challenges that Jenny experienced while obtaining her Bachelors in music at a time when her deafness was moderate to severe. I’m excited to share Jenny’s story with you today. Please feel free to contact team Excelability to share your comments, questions, or feedback or to share your own story with us. We’d love to hear from you. You can find information about this podcast and previous and future episodes at www.teamaccelability.com. That’s www dot team E-X-C-E-L ability dot com. You can follow us on Facebook at Team Excelability or on Twitter, @teamxlability. Hey, Jenny. Thank you so much for being with us on Excelability today to talk about disability and success. We really appreciate you taking out time and being with us and really look forward to hearing what you have to say on the topic.
>> FLURRIE: Thank you for having me.
>> CHEN: Fantastic. Let’s go ahead and get started. Jenny, I’d like to explore disability a little. Can you explain for our audience what particular disability it is that you have and maybe, for our audience that doesn’t understand your disability, some of the things that you are challenged with on a day-to-day basis in your experience?
>> FLURRIE: I have deafness. I’ve had deafness for most of my life. It’s been a progressively declining deafness over the last several years. I won’t reveal my age. That’s terribly rude for a woman to do. You know, I would never really call them, you know, challenges or, you know, of that nature, but there’s definitely–it does alter the things and the way that I work. You know, I think with deafness you do have to think about how you’re going to be in a room, what you need to be successful to advocate for that. You know, I work day-to-day with a combination of, you know, lip-reading, captioning, and interpretation, and I flick between each of those depending on what I’m doing in everyday, so there is definitely a lot of methodical planning that goes into my daily work and just the logistics of that that is, you know, above and beyond what other peers without deafness have to do on a daily basis.
>> CHEN: Exactly, and so can you give us a couple of examples of things that people who don’t’ have deafness might not realize about what’s challenging, what’s difficult, or what’s different for you in your experience in navigating your world?
>> FLURRIE: I think what’s different for me, I’m a very visual person. You know, I definitely came up the route from a small child to being a very strong lip reader and a very strong body language and, you know, understanding what’s happening in a room by looking at the room and looking at individuals, so I’m a very visual person, and that’s an interesting thing when a lot of my day is spent on calls like this one, so, you know, that’s where we look at each of the meetings that I have. We actually categorize them. Some of them I can do independently through lip-reading, particularly if they’re morning meetings, which is when my energy is high, and then in the afternoon if there’s, you know, lots of people in a room, I will walk in a room. I will make sure that I’m positioned right. I will often close blinds so I’m not looking at the outside sunlight, which can be very glaring when you’re trying to look at either a captioning screen or an interpreter face and hands, so it really is just methodical thought that really goes into it and a lot of self-advocacy. You know, I was at a dinner just this weekend, a huge room, and on the middle of the table they had lots of these little flags on the table to indicate who was on the–you know, the table in this big gala dinner. Well, the first thing I do is I walk up to the table, and I put the flags down ’cause there’s no way I can see my interpreter’s hands through flags, and the rest of the table–I didn’t quite explain myself, so the rest of the table were looking at me going, “What is she doing?” As–and, “I apologize. “I’m deaf, and I need to see,” and they didn’t believe me ’cause of course, you know, you don’t–it’s the old adage. You don’t always look deaf, right? So it wasn’t until they saw hands waving and realized that while I speak for myself, I am looking at somebody else trying to understand the world around me. They–a couple of them turned around and said, “Oh, you’re really deaf,” and I went, “Yes. I wasn’t making it up.” So, you know, I think it really just depends on the day and the scenario and, you know, walk in and roll with it a little bit and figure it out.
>> CHEN: Got it. Okay, fantastic. Jenny, you’re the chief accessibility officer at Microsoft, and most people who are listening to this probably know what Microsoft is, but what do you do as CAO, and what motivates you to do what you do?
>> FLURRIE: I do have the incredible honor of being the chief accessibility officer for Microsoft. I’ve been in that role for 18 months now. I’ve been at the company 13 years. Really, my path to being a CAO came through being a person with deafness, a person who’s a member of the employee community working as part of a large group to make that community a lot stronger, and really getting into accessibility, which is a red thread that most of the 15, 16 communities that we have talk about, and so that really has led into what I do every day. I mean, my job is to advocate for inclusion of people with disabilities, whether that’s in our products, our services, our buildings, our cafeterias, our websites, and really driving the sustainable long-term durable inclusion of accessibility into how we live, breathe, and think, you know, and that means that I also get involved in things like hiring programs, and we’re a nerdy company. We–you know, we have a–over 110,000 employees all talking about technology, so we also know that what motivates here is things like innovation and hacking and great projects that will lead the future, so, you know, I have a team here, but I–it really is about the partnership that I and my team and many others have across the company to drive that vision, so my day, it looks different depending on–depending on what’s going on. I mean, today I’m–you know, I’ve been chatting with a few charities, NGOs this morning, you know, about things that they’re up to and how we can help and partner. I also just came off a call with a member within the blind community who had some feedback on a product and some questions about support. I’m going into product reviews this afternoon to see where we’re at with some things, and I’m meeting with the fellow leaders across the company on how we continue to strive and take this forward, so, you know, that’s just one day, right? I just came back from a conference, a great conference for the blind community, and I’ll be heading out to others next month, so it really, really does depend. I have to say it’s the funnest job, and it really is an honor to have it.
>> CHEN: Fantastic, and it sounds like you really are the queen of all of the things that are happening. You have your fingers in all aspects from, you know, real estate to the products, as you mentioned, so what an incredible opportunity to have an impact, so that’s wonderful. Turning a little bit now towards your younger years, can you talk a little bit about how you first came to realize that you had hearing loss and how that impacted you socially, emotionally, psychologically, or otherwise?
>> FLURRIE: I can’t honestly say that I very much knew that I had deafness or was different in any way as an early–you know, as an early kid. My parents are both teachers. They actually went on to be principals of elementary schools, or head teachers in the U.K, and I lived in a small village from the age of eight. By then both my sister and myself and my dad to a degree has–he continues to have hearing loss, the kind of loss where he hears dinner but not dishes. So hearing loss in our house was kind of par for the course. I always had relatives with hearing loss, and so it was normal to walk into my house and know that every radio was on and every TV was on and a lot of stomping when you needed someone, but it was–it was normal. The only one who got irritated by it was my mum, who has normal hearing loss–or who has normal hearing, and she’d walk in to quite a racket most of the time. You know, my sister and I both learned–even though we had–I had mild hearing loss at that time. My sister’s was quite a lot worse than mine. You know, I now beat her I the hearing loss department, but we also learnt very, very different ways. She was a very–she loved the hearing aids. She didn’t–I wouldn’t say loved, but she used hearing aids. I found the sound quite confusing, and I also, you know, socially didn’t like these big things on my ears, so I would ditch them and put them in my bag at every opportunity, which meant they went through the washing machine several times. We were taught to just do what you love and get on with it, so I was a little precocious. I sat in the front of the room. I would ask a lot of questions, and I was very much a bookworm, and so I really did learn the visual world, whereas my sister really did depend on the audio world, and I loved that difference, that we can both grow up in the same household but learn how to deal with our disability very different that works for each of us. You know, socially I think there were definitely things that I did differently. I wanted to keep up with the social gang. I guess the best example was pop songs. You know, everyone knew the words to pop songs, and I would always, always get them wrong, and–’cause I’d be looking at them on the TV and lip-reading them, so I’d spent hours with magazines with the words of songs in, learning the words of the songs and learning the beats and learning the music, and I guess it’s no surprise then that I went on to do music at college. You know, I think it was interesting as a kid. We were just taught to get on with it. We didn’t see ourselves as different, I would say.
>> CHEN: I see. And so that big attitude for you was just do what you want to do and don’t even let it get in the way. It sounds like that was the big thing. Were there any other habits, techniques, or practices that you employed that you felt–you know, aside from memorizing the lyrics to songs in magazines, anything else that helped you to, I guess, keep up is the only other word I can use to describe it. Any other lessons out there for others who might be experiencing what you’re experiencing?
>> FLURRIE: I guess there’s lessons in what I did and lessons in what I didn’t do. I was very much someone–I was a very, very keen student, and I loved reading from a very, very early age, and I loved music from a very early age, and my parents did encourage that, and actually, it was only at college where it was pointed out to me the irony of having deafness doing music. It was only then. You know, it never really came up, you know, and when I did my Royal Academy of Music exams, which is the path you take in the U.K, the only thing that would be changed there is they have oral exams, and they would–you know, I would have a special hearing loss, you know, hard of hearing exam for the oral test ’cause I would clearly fail on those. I guess what I did do is get my head down and get on with it, and I did ask for what I needed. You know, when I couldn’t hear a conversation, I was the kid who wasn’t shy, so I would say, “Hey, I didn’t catch that. What was that?” Now, the stuff that I didn’t do and I would take advice from me on is I actually became very deceptive about my deafness. I went through an empowerment phase, and I have friends who were like, “We get it. We know you’re deaf. Stop talking about it,” and so I–I actually ended up going the opposite way and really not disclosing it, and I didn’t really share it going into college very much until I really had to, until I–you know, I reached really big problems in understanding lectures ’cause those rooms are significantly bigger and more challenging than in school, and in employment. I would never recommend that. You know, I do think it’s the right thing to go in, to self-ID, to own it, to ask for what you need, but it took me a few years to learn that, and, you know, I think there were some reasons why I learned to get on with things without disclosing my deafness, but actually, I shot myself in the foot several times by doing and taking that route, so I do advocate these days to kids, to anyone, really, to advocate for what you need, and if you’re not getting what you need, then get people around you that can help and advise you, and there’s so many programs and charities that are there to assist, because the only person that you’re really impacting is yourself in that, so that was definitely–in hindsight, that’s one thing that I wouldn’t have done, taken the path that I did.
– >> CHEN: So it’s so wonderful that you mention that not disclosing your disability negatively impacted you. Can you describe one or two examples of negative impacts that you’ve seen relative to not disclosing your disability?
>> FLURRIE: Yeah, well, I definitely faced that when I came to Microsoft. I did share that I had deafness when I came to Microsoft, and I had a great person who was, you know, my hiring manager that brought me in, but I didn’t share that I was, at that point, severely, profoundly deaf, and my speech is so deceptive that it’s one of those things where I could get away with it. I’m literally, within the first few days, sitting in a room in London. I’m–got 60 people in the room, and they’re all talking about the strategy and how we’re gonna go forward, and it’s one of those rooms that’s a–you know, a square table with lots of people sitting at the square table and then all the way round the outside and light streaming in. I sat there and went home that night and went, “Oh, my God. It might not be an environment that I can survive in,” and then I went on–you know, my role back then was driving technical support across several parts of Europe and–for some of our products here, and again, people wanted to talk and–which is a wonderful thing, but I was really struggling, and I think by not identifying and saying what I needed, caused me a huge problem because in my brain that then went to the place of, “Well, maybe I can’t do the job. Maybe I’m not right for the job. Maybe I joined the wrong company.” Really, at the root cause of it, it was nothing to do with–well, we believe it was nothing to do with my capability. It was more to do–that remains to be seen, of course, but it was more to do with the fact that I wasn’t setting myself up for success. So when I ended up speaking to a couple of folks in HR and just say, “Hey, I’m not sure that this is right for me,” they turned around, and once we dug in and I told them the scenarios, they said, “Well, do you want captioning?” I went, “Uh, sure. Do I have to pay for that?” and they went, “No.” “Really?” And, you know, they got me captioning. They got me [inaudible] interpreters. They explained the process, which is everything is centrally funded. You never see the cost. My manager never sees the cost, and whatever I needed was available for me, and, you know, I had wasted days, weeks, and months by that point torturing myself, digging myself into a hole. You know, it was just as if the lights came on, and I was probably working double hours because I was catching up from notes and, you know, having to go back in, so there was a huge, huge amount of energy lost, and if I hadn’t have spoken to the right people, I probably wouldn’t–well, I absolutely wouldn’t be here today, so no, I do think that I definitely learnt a huge lesson, and I very much remember just feeling that level of misery, feeling that I wasn’t capable, and, you know, there were very smart people around me who nudged me and pushed when I reached out to mentors and, you know, the guides and the board of directors that we should all have, but yeah, it was a very, very real scenario, and I see that in employees here. I–you know, disability is a broad [inaudible]. 70-plus percent of it’s invisible. A lot of the more mental health, cognitive, some parts of deafness, some parts of blindness are not visual to the eye. They’re not immediately obvious, and in order to really get what you need, there needs to be a lot of awareness and access to, well, how do I know what I can get? But also you’ve got to advocate for what you do need, so I think there’s a balance of what a company can do for you and what you can do for the company and getting what you need to do that. Does that make sense?
>> CHEN: Absolutely, absolutely makes sense. I love the fact that you talk about this impact of the psychological. It’s not just–it’s not just an impact on what your performance is like, but it’s also on your happiness and how you see yourself. It can become very noxious to be in an environment like that where you’re not seeing and getting what you need. I do want to return a little bit back to your decision to pursue music because it’s so intriguing to me. I want to understand a little bit better about what your thought process was like in pursuing something which traditionally requires hearing in order to be able to both appreciate and to potentially make music. Can you talk a little bit about any thought process that you had where you said, “Wait a minute. What I’m doing doesn’t quite make sense?” Did it ever cross your mind? And if so, how did you work through that question in your own mind?
>> FLURRIE: That’s a great question, but I’ll be honest. That never–you know, that thought never honestly went through my head. I pursued music ’cause very smart school counselors, you know, when I was 16, 17, 18, basically said to me, you know, “At college you’re gonna spend three, four years doing something. It should be something that you love and enjoy,” and I was looking at any number of different things at that time, but the one thing that I spent literally most of my waking hours doing was playing music, and so it was a no-brainer from my perspective. It was–it was more a case of picking the right place to go, and at no point in time did I ever think of the irony with being deaf and going into music because there are some incredibly strong role models that have charted the way here and that had removed that from even being an option. The one that is a true hero to me, it was someone that I used to just–I would go to every single concert I could, was Evelyn Glennie, who is a Scottish musician. She’s a solo percussionist. I’m still in awe of everything she does today. I still follow her and stalk her very nicely from afar, clearly. She has hearing loss. You know, my parents took me to see a concert of hers. I must have been sort of eight, nine, to ten years old, and she played flower pots. She didn’t even blink when I reached out and put my hand on the stage and followed by listening to the vibration. So, you know, she didn’t even blink, and it–you know, the deafness wasn’t part of her conversation. It was about being a musician, and I really, really respect that. You know, it’s kind of a–I want to be known as Jenny, not the deaf person with a name of Jenny, and I think Evelyn really shone that light for me, so no, I–it never really even entered my head. I went to do something that I love.
>> CHEN: Awesome, and so I imagine the answer to the same question or a similar question, which is whether your hearing loss impacted your decision to pursue any particular career. It didn’t have any impact on that as well, right?
>> FLURRIE: No.
>> CHEN: Mkay.
>> FLURRIE: No, I wouldn’t say so. I think there’s definitely been times where I’ve questioned my career decisions based on my deaf–I mean, I went and, you know, followed the path of music, and I would never say that I’m the best musician, so it’s probably a good thing that I now live in IT. You know, there were times when I was managing call center environments, and I actually at one point learned how to be a switch engineer. Yeah, there’s definitely been some odd decisions that I’ve made when you think back on it, but at the time it was areas that fascinated me, that I thought that I could help in or that I could be good at, and so yes, off I went.
>> CHEN: Fantastic. Well, after graduating from college you went to work an internet company. Can you describe–and I believe that that company, as you said, was in the area of call centers, or you were working in the call center industry. Can you describe how your hearing loss might have impacted your career there by either being a barrier or serving as a driver or some other influence of your success in your early career?
>> FLURRIE: Absolutely. I mean, in my 20s I definitely worked in a variety of companies, some big, some small, and it was the boom and bust years with IT, so that dates me a little bit, and I think the–all of them had a little bit of a theme. I mean, I do think that what I love about computers–I mean, it wasn’t an area I spent a lot of time in when I was at college, let’s put it that way. Yeah, there wasn’t a lot of computer science in a music degree, but I did find when I got into computers that the problem-solving aspect really just sang to me, and I loved help desks and taking folks’ challenges and finding solutions for them, and that’s really where my career evolved, was doing more and more in that space, and it–so I went from, you know, being a part of a help desk to managing a help desk to, you know, looking at customer service as well as technical support, and just expanding skills as I went, and the only thing I will really call out–I mean, there were definitely some times where the deafness got in the way. I mean, a lot of those are call-based, and so I had some assistance from a U.K. government scheme to get my first digital hearing aid, and they act–you know, they came and assessed the work environment, really got me up and running in a great way, but I also think problem-solving for someone with a disability is–goes together. It goes hand in hand. We are constantly, consistently problem-solving every day, and I see that on my team here. We’re a very disability-rich team, you know, incredible talent, and everyone loves to roll up sleeves and solve problems of–you know, in a variety of different areas, so I do see the problem-solving and innovating and, you know, that loyalty driving things forward to be a consistent theme, and that was definitely something that kept me grounded in my 20s.
>> CHEN: For sure, problem-solving is one of the biggest advantages, I believe. In speaking to a lot of people who have disabilities and especially super successful people who have disabilities, that’s one of the biggest advantages that they bring to the table regardless of whether they have a disability or not, just solving day-to-day problems in every area. So you mentioned that you obtained assistance from the U.K. government in terms of obtaining these hearing aids. Can you describe how you got to the point where you finally realized and said, “Hey, I need some help here?” What was that experience like for you?
>> FLURRIE: That was a–you know, I think there was–there was an article posted a couple of years ago that I think the phrase they grabbed was “brick wall moments.” Didn’t realize that that’s really what it was, but I think that’s the best description of it, is, you know, I’d been asked to expand my role and start working with teams outside of the U.K, and that meant, you know, a lot of time on the phone, and at the time my hearing had declined to the point where I couldn’t use mobile phones without the use of technology. I couldn’t use the phones without really, you know, really serious amplification, and the audio hearing aids that I had–the analog hearing aids that I had, rather, didn’t work with mobile phones, and so it was a complete brick wall to the point of me saying, “No, I can’t take that job,” and so it’s a–it was a great boss, a great company that said, “Wait a minute. Let’s see what we can do to assist her,” and we literally found that program, and that program still exists today. You know, again, I think it comes back to the same point of when those obstacles come up, is leaning on the folks around you, the managers, the board of directors that you have, which is just people that you can trust and that you can get advice from to help find solutions for. Yeah, no, I do think there’s–there was definitely some learning there.
>> CHEN: I love the phrase that you’ve mentioned a couple of times during our talk. You mentioned your board of directors. Can you describe the kinds of people that you’ve brought around yourself and how you got to the point where you have this coterie of people who you can turn to?
>> FLURRIE: I think it’s an important thing for anyone, to be honest. I don’t think it’s just about disability, but I have found it absolutely invaluable. So I call it a board of directors. Basically, it’s just folks that I lean on for advice, guidance, whether that’s in life, work, and play, and so I have, you know, a couple of folks that I can call pretty much at any time, and they call me, and often by the time I’ve made the call and sort of dialed in the number to video them or Skype them, I’ve solved the problem, and so I find that having external and internal advice, internal within your company, external to the company, and not just your mum is crucial, and it’s people that can really much–you know, I’ve got one person I call knowing full well that if I’m being too humble or if I’m not seeing the opportunity or I’m not seeing the solution to a problem or if I’m cutting off my nose to spite my face, if I’m causing my own problem, which, of course, we all do from time to time, he’s the first one to turn around to me and say, “Jenny, you do realize what you’re doing, right?” and so he’s also able to call it, and I respect that so much ’cause it doesn’t matter how experienced you are. Every day you walk in, and there’s a new scenario, and you’re learning. You’re presented with something different that you have to look at, or there’s somebody different with a different mouth shape or a different accent or a different conference or whatever it may be that sort of causes your brain to have to develop some new wiring, and sometimes that’s an easy thing to do, and sometimes that’s a very hard thing to do, and so I do lean on folks to give advice, particularly when you hit those brick wall scenarios. They can often see the path through, over, around, under far quicker than you can on your own.
>> CHEN: For sure, and how would you suggest that somebody who may not already have their board of directors in place go about finding the folks who would be able to serve in that capacity for them?
>> FLURRIE: I think that’s about–I mean, really, it’s about mentorship, and in order to build the right board of mentors, whether it’s one, two, three, four, however many is–works for you, I think it’s about really isolating the right fit and being very, very up-front about what you are looking for from them and what they–you know, what benefit you can give them, so I’m rather bullish about it, I’ll be honest. I reach out to people that have skills that I don’t have or have capabilities that I’m looking to develop or have simply been able to see the goodness and badness in me and help me. One of them is a previous manager, for example, or one of mine, so I think you’ve just got to be really up-front, and I get–I love it when people reach out to me. I do get those kind of emails every day of, “Hey, I see you’re really good at one, two, three. I need to develop those skills. Can you meet with me?” and sometimes I can, and sometimes I can’t, but I admire folks who take that step because it’s been probably the most crucial thing that I’ve done in my career, is learn from others, and so I do think it’s a crucial, crucial thing, but you do have to put yourself out there, and if you’re not slightly nervous when you’re sending the email or making the call, then it’s not–it’s not right. You should have slight nerves and sit there and procrastinate a little bit before you hit send, right? Then you know that it’s something that you can get value from.
>> CHEN: I love that acid test. That’s a fantastic one. I’ll have to use that one. Jenny, were there any other big wall moments in your career that come to mind for you? And if so, were there any other different lessons that you learned from those experiences that you could share with us?
>> FLURRIE: Most recently I feel–you know, I’ve now been in this company coming up 13 years. I do think that every time that you change team, change manager, there’s a process that I go through that I think anyone goes through of, you know, understanding the way that that new environment works, how a–you know, your relationship with a new leader and a new manager, and then, you know, the curiosity that comes from them and the need to share ’cause I think people are innately curious about how things do work and what they need to do as part of the team, so I think that’s a par for the course. I mean, I think in any role that you have, you are gonna have changes in leadership, and those can challenge, and those can definitely cause some just–you know, you have to take that step back into explaining the disability, how you work with it, “No, you don’t need to organize an interpreter. I got that, and don’t worry about the cost. That’s not–you never see that.” There’s definitely an education process that goes on, but I wouldn’t say that’s a brick wall. I–that’s just change, and change hap–it can always cause a little bit of a, “Ugh, grr, got to do it again.” Actually, I learn something every time, so it moves forward very positively in pretty much every regard, so no, not really, I wouldn’t say.
>> CHEN: Okay.
>> FLURRIE: I will say I do–I do hear others, you know, being connected into the community. You know, everyone seems to have those moments at some point in their tenure, in their career. I do–one of the big things that we’re really pushing and encouraging here is folks with less visible disabilities, whether that’s autism or bipolar, to follow the same path, and I think that is a much tougher scenario in some ways because there’s a lot of uncharted territory there. It’s not been quite as visible as deafness and some other parts of disability, and not mu–not very spoken, not spoken as much about, so we’re trying to take a lot of the learnings that we’ve got and I’ve got and move that into other areas as well.
>> CHEN: Fantastic. Thanks for sharing that. I want to touch upon a topic that’s been big in a lot of what you’ve said, and that’s the topic of advocacy and self-advocacy. So I wanted to talk a little bit about what encouragements or ideas do you have for people who may be in the position where their advocacy doesn’t seem to be working? Now, I don’t know if this is a situation that you’ve experienced, but their advocacy doesn’t seem to be working. Any advice that you would have for people who might be in that situation?
>> FLURRIE: Yeah, the advice that I would give to anyone coming into the company, and maybe go from there, you know, coming into any company, I think, it’s crucial to know what you need, as much as possible, to be successful. I don’t think, walking into a new company environment, you’ll ever entirely know what you need ’cause every company’s different. Every team’s different. Every manager’s different, and so–but having a good sense. You know, if I was to change and shift, I know that in order to be successful, I’m going to need some form of accommodation, whether that’s captioning, interpreting. I might not know how much. I might not know how many hours. I might not know until I really understand how the meeting structure–how the day–you know, a typical day goes, but I’ll know that I need something, and so you–the most important step you can take is saying, “Hey, I have deafness. I know I’m going to need–but I just don’t know how much,” or, “I have autism. I may need some help in identifying, you know, some training with the peers,” or, “I may need noise-canceling headphones.” So putting it out there, I think, is really important, and working with the team to understand and dial it up and dial it down as you need to once you are in there and you understand how the culture and the team dynamics work, so I do think it’s important just to sow that seed and work collaboratively with the owners and the department and the managers and HR and the recruiters to make sure that when you walk in, whether it’s an interview or you’re walking in day one or it’s year ten and you find yourself with a new disability, which happens, you’re really sharing that and working with folks to make sure that your job is about bringing your skills to the table, not wondering, in the room, if you’re gonna be able to understand the room, right? Get that out the way so that you can focus on your crazy skills and what you’re gonna bring to that work, and so that’s really the deciding factor, and I do think it’s tough. I know the pain that I went through just, “Well, is someone gonna think differently of me? Are they going to–are they going to think that I’m not capable? Are they going to believe that I’ve got the skills to do this?” and almost over-functioning because you want to compensate, and that was my own experience. That’s not to say that’s everyone else’s. That was just definitely the path I went through, and it does cause some, you know, torture, should I or shouldn’t I? And I think for anyone at this day and age with disability being such a key–key need for companies, we need people with disabilities. Disability is a strength to this company. If we don’t have people with disabilities, we are not gonna be able to create the crazy, amazing things that’s going to empower people. I mean, it’s just as simple as that. We see it as a–you know, “Oh, my goodness, they have this skill set. They have this empathy and understanding of disability,” but you’ve got to find the right place for you, where you–where that is the–that’s the ethos, that’s the philosophy and they have the mechanics to do that, so know that it’s–it’s really the opposite of the way that my brain was wired, you know, way back when, which is, you know, now people are competing for people with disabilities in companies, so be proud of it. Own it, and know that if the company doesn’t work for you, there are plenty others that do. I mean, it’s a strategic advantage that you have, so don’t be shared to share–don’t be scared to share it. I’ll put my teeth in now. So it’s a tough space, though, and it’s one that I hear about a lot depending on the disability and the individual.
>> CHEN: So many questions come out of what you just said because it was so wise, but one of the questions that comes out is for young people who are looking to get into a career, as someone with a disability looking at various companies, how can you begin to assess whether this company is going to be the right fit? As you said, ethos, it’s something that is sometimes hard to determine, but do you have any recommendations for folks who might be looking at whether the company is the right fit for them as a person with a disability?
>> FLURRIE: I do. I think there’s a lot of questions and some research that I think anyone should do regardless of what industry you’re going into because I think if you look across the board, just thinking about the companies that we partner with, I mean, it’s everything from the motor industry to technology. As a person with a disability, you want to find a company that has the right understanding, the right systems, and the right processes and the right empathy. I honestly recommend looking at a few things. One, check out the website. Do they have any accessibility? Can you get through that website? And if you don’t know the basics of website accessibility, it’s really simple. I mean, there’s some simple things that you can do to just check whether their main website and their careers website has accessibility as part of it. Can you navigate through that site? That’s often a really key leading factor as to whether or not the company has really thought about disability and accessibility and bringing in talent. Also look for whether or not they’ve got an ERG or a community. Most companies now are popping the details–some, not all of them, but they’re putting details of those on the main website because they know that people, whether it’s disability, gender, race, people are looking to not just join a company to do a role but to join a company and the communities that are part of that company, and disability is very much part of that. For us, that community is where you get to learn and share best practices. You get to pick up from the wisdom of people who’ve been here for a while. You connect with people like you, and I think that’s really important, and also look at the language of the job descriptions. You know, look at are they embracing the language and the equal opportunities that could exist for persons regardless of all of the different aspects of diversity? And then really do ask the recruiters, “What are your disability accommodations? How should I request? How do they work? Fill me in.” If you’re someone who’s deaf, who uses an interpreter, ask them if they have a bank of interpreters of they have processes to organize interpreters. Remember that your talent, right, and you are–with any role, they’re interviewing you, but you’re also interviewing them, and if disability is part of who you are, then you should make sure that where you’re gonna land works for all of you. So now I–you know, there’s clearly probably a lot more that I’ve missed, Jack, you probably know [inaudible], but, you know, those are the things that I definitely recommend. I mean, you should really do your research on a company you’re looking at.
>> CHEN: Yes, and I agree, and one of the other things that I’ve found useful is to ask to talk to someone who has a disability in the company and interview them.
>> FLURRIE: I love it when companies offer to do, like, a coffee or a lunch with folks from the ERG. That’s always telling.
>> CHEN: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Jenny, thank you so much. This has been such a rich conversation. I feel like we could have this conversation for much longer. I really appreciate that you’ve been willing to share your life and your experiences with other people who are looking to develop their lives and develop their success as someone with a disability, so thank you so much for taking out the time. I really appreciate it.
>> FLURRIE: Well, thank you, Jack, for the opportunity, and congrats on everything you’re doing with this. I can’t wait to see how it goes.
>> CHEN: Thank you. This concludes this episode of the Excelability Podcast with Jenny Lay Flurrie. Jenny has shown us that strong self-advocacy, never seeing yourself as different, looking at life as a laboratory for developing problem-solving and innovation skills, and finding your own board of directors is what has helped her to achieve incredible success. Please feel free to contact team Excelability to share your comments, questions, or feedback or to share your own story with us. We’d love to hear from you. You can find information about this podcast and other resources by visiting us at www dot team E-X-C-E-L ability dot com, on Facebook at Team Excelability, or on Twitter, @teamxlability. Thank you, and have a blessed day.