Earlier this year, I found a post (focused on student leaders) asking: ‘Why are university meetings still so inaccessible?‘. The author reasons that making meetings accessible by design will ensure they are more “effective, productive and mindful of the diversity of the student and staff community.”
What I especially like, though, is the statement: “And if that requires divergence from centuries of so-called “good” committee practice, so be it” (Dickinson, 2023).
We need to ask who so-called good practices are serving.
Inaccessibility
I’m someone who likes to contribute, so it’s always frustrating to come across meetings and workshops that aren’t accessible. Often, it’s in ways where the role of the Chair would be paramount to driving a cultural change.
It would only require a small change to the meeting culture and facilitation to promote effective and accessible communication. I can’t, however, self-advocate in every single meeting I attend. That wouldn’t be productive or worth my while. Not only would it be exhausting, but I have other work to focus on.
Self-advocacy is incredibly valuable, but it’s also tiring. You do it because no one else will – and often hope the impact extends further. Self-advocacy is a privilege, with power dynamics, opportunities, representation, risk, resources, and capacity all at play. This is one of the reasons both self-advocacy and systemic change are needed.
So, I do often resort to adapting. It’s taken a lot of time. I memorise people’s patterns, approaches, and needs. I watch for the visual cues that others miss. I determine when it’s better to listen and observe.
But then I do it all again when we have a new rotating chair. Change comes, but not the change that was needed.
I start over. I’m listening, observing, learning, and developing a new strategy for barriers, just as I had finally achieved the last one.
Belonging
The easy way out is telling people they do not belong. So often, however, it’s exclusionary norms inhibiting contributions.
So, I like flipping ideas of who belongs and who should be there.
In a recent podcast episode, I shared a thought that if you cannot learn to chair or facilitate a meeting that invites participation inclusively, you shouldn’t be chairing those meetings.
That requires environments with trust and a willingness for leaders to change. Sometimes, change management needs to flip as well.
This isn’t a call for perfection but for reflexivity and a willingness to learn and diverge.
Time
Many of the ideas, reflection, and theorising around crip time feel relevant here. The concept of crip time “centers around how disabled people often experience time differently.“
The constant adapting and strategising required to contribute takes time. It’s time spent differently but time that demands a change.
“Cripping time is a societal change and not an individual one, it is, by its very nature, a response to a widespread problem. … We crip time not to tolerate the presence of disability in our workplaces, but to open up further space for its existence, for the betterment of us all.”
Walsh (2023)
I’ve learnt a lot in a relatively short time. My time, however, was initially grounded in a sense of survival. I started a narrative where inclusion and belonging were an afterthought. Transformation – of myself or a system – was required.
Asking whom our practices are good for (and whom they exclude) might not bring comfortable answers.
Diverging from our preconceived idea of the norm, especially when it’s exclusionary, rarely will be comfortable.