Let’s Include People with Mental Illness in the Diversity and Inclusion Discussion

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Carolyn Naseer (middle) from “My Change Agent” introduced me to the team at the Farm at Penny Lane

As a diversity consultant and trainer, I enjoy how much the diversity and inclusion field continues to evolve and expand into new areas (link to blog.) One of the key constituencies that many organization and companies now focus on is full inclusion of people with disabilities. But so often left out of the discussion are those with severe and persistent mental illness. Can they have a productive place in our society? And are they even employable?

A thoughtful and innovative program which can become a model for efforts worldwide is the Farm at Penny Lane in rural Chatham County, North Carolina, but still within 30 minutes of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. I recently visited the facility to explore and witness their outstanding work.

I was introduced to the Farm at Penny Lane by a consulting colleague, Carolyn Naseer from “My Change Agent,” (link), a boutique management consulting firm with a focus on making a positive impact through collaboration. She is currently assisting the Farm at Penny Lane through XDS, Inc., the non-profit with which the Farm at Penny Lane as one of their initiatives.

Thava Mahadevam and Matt Ballard proudly showing off their “small home” model.

During my visit to their beautiful peaceful 40 acres just north of Pittsboro, I met Director Thava Mahadevam, Social Worker Matt Ballard, and Farmer Jessamine Hyatt. They all passionately shared about their work with me. Some of the current efforts around “whole person health” that are helping people with mental illness gain self-worth include:
• Utilizing people with mental illness to assist with farming and packaging efforts, including growing healthy food and caring for egg-laying chickens.
• Training emotional support dogs, which can often even more therapeutic than meeting with a human counselor.
• Building of small homes in a cluster community environment to provide space for people to productively live on their own.

So often there is negative stigma around suffering with a mental illness, and we all need to be more understanding and caring, providing pathways for recovery and enhanced quality of life. And providing employment, which many of us admittedly dislike and would prefer vacations and holidays instead, is actually a great way of engaging people with mental illness to provide them purpose and meaning. And the staff even refer to those with mental illness serving in these jobs as “volunteers” instead of “patients.”

The colorful building where volunteers train emotional support dogs

The vision of the farm, established through a partnership with the non-profit XDS Inc and the University of North Carolina Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health, is for “our community members with severe mental illness to live longer, healthier, inclusive, and more self-sufficient lives. And their mission: “The Farm at Penny Lane partners with individuals with mental illness to grow nutritious food for themselves and others and offers integrated, community-based, therapeutic programs in an inclusive farm setting.”

I inspect the tomato plants with social worker Matt and farmer Jessamine

Perhaps in the future, industry may even be able to learn from this model to provide meaningful employment for people with mental illness, which will benefit the individuals, the companies, society and our economy!

To schedule a visit and learn more about this uplifting work, do peruse The Farm at Penny Lane’s website. And volunteers and financial support are truly welcomed, check out their “get involved” page.

You can return after 40 years – perspectives from my U of Chicago Booth School of Business Reunion – Part 2 of 2

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On Saturday I returned to the U of Chicago main campus in Hyde Park.

I kicked off part one (link) with sharing about my fortuitous luck of having work in Chicago the week of my 40th MBA class reunion, and how much I enjoyed the various activities and the whole culture of the school. Yes, University of Chicago Booth School of Business was indeed the right place for me – unabashedly analytic and data driven with a heart for making a positive impact on the world.

In part 1, I recounted most of the weekend activities, and in Part 2 I will summarize the three “classes” I took on Friday May 3 and Saturday May 4 with current faculty members. I loved the intellectual stimulation I received participating in these three classes … never too old to learn! And I did select classes that coincided well with my consulting areas of diversity, leadership and corporate culture:
• “Does Culture Eat Strategy for Lunch” with Professor Jim Schrager
• “Bringing Down Barriers: How to Build Relationships Despite Differences” with Professor Jane L. Risen
• “Choosing Leadership” with Professor Linda Ginzel

Two of the books I received during my class reunion.

“Does Culture Eat Strategy for Lunch” with Professor Jim Schrager. In my consulting, I often do discuss corporate culture and how important that is for organizational success. But what is really more important, having a good strategy or a strong corporate culture? Professor Schrager likened this to the nature vs. nurture debate and the oft-talked about study of identical twins separated at birth.

Professor Schrager took the natural experiment approach by sharing a number of case studies that held all variables constant, but then looked at various cultures and strategies. In these case studies across multiple industries, companies that did not have strong strategies focusing on growing in a quickly changing world and market failed irregardless of their corporate culture. Yes, culture is important, and a strong culture where people will exert discretionary effort to help the organization succeed is an important factor in successful execution, but a lackluster or poor strategy will lead to failure no matter how hard everyone works.

“Bringing Down Barriers: How to Build Relationships Despite Differences” with Professor Jane L. Risen. Professor Risen started by introducing us to the term “homophily” which is “love of the same,” the natural human tendency to associate with, build relationships with, and like people similar to ourselves. But how can we deliberately build strong relationships with those different from us, which is increasingly important in our ever accelerating multicultural workplace?

She then introduced a study done over several years with a program called “Seeds of Peace” where teenagers from Israel and Palestine are brought together for a 3-week camping experience in Maine. These are two groups have that tremendous tension on the world scene, where understanding relationships are quite rare.

Extensive data analysis proved the concept of propinquity, that physical or psychological proximity facilitates relationships despite tremendous differences. There was a phenomenal statistically significant increase in close personal relationships between Israeli and Palestinian teens who either bunked together in the same cabin or participated together in long deep discussion groups. The application is that very diverse people who work together in an organization around common goals can even be more effective by building close relationships and having meaningful discussion.

Attending “Choosing Leadership” with Professor Linda Ginzel

“Choosing Leadership” with Professor Linda Ginzel. At this session, we all got a special gift from award-winning leadership professor Linda Ginzel; her workbook “Choosing Leadership” and a green pen. (This session was on May 4th …. so link to this short cute “May the Fourth Be With You” video from Professor Ginzel that includes an explanation of the green pen.)

Professor Ginzel first shared that Leadership is indeed hard, and she has been on a long quest to teach leadership with integrity, resulting in her developing the workbook she gave us. Then some of her additional points during this session:

• Leadership needs a structure and a framework, and we should each develop our own that suits us.
• Quote from John Gardner, “The building of community is one of the highest most essential skills a leader can command.”
• Quote from John F. Kennedy, “Leadership and Learning are indispensable to each other.”
• Each of the chapters in Professor Ginzel’s book starts with a verb since leading is active.
• Managing and Leading are both important and go hand in hand.
• Finally, Professor Ginzel’s own wonderful definition of leadership, “Behavioral choices we make in order to create a better future.”

I loved the entire stimulating weekend being at Booth Reconnect getting re-energized, meeting cool people and learning much!

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Stan Kimer, Booth MBA ’79 retired after a 31-year career at IBM and then formed his own diversity and career development consultancy, Total Engagement Consulting by Kimer.