Interview with Lisa Kelly

Lisa Kelly of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce talks about why it was important to disclose her own disability in her role heading up OCC’s Discover Ability Network.

Watch: https://youtu.be/XHIgv2vueoI

Unedited transcript.

Jim Allan: Lisa Kelly works for the Ontario Chamber of Commerce. Welcome, Lisa.

Lisa Kelly: Thank you very much, Jim.

Jim Allan: So I haven't seen you in a long time.

Lisa Kelly: No that's very true.

Jim Allan: So we're recording this on November 3rd. Okay follow along carefully.

Lisa Kelly: All right.

Jim Allan: Does the date November 4th, 2006 mean anything to you?

Lisa Kelly: I don't even remember back that long. No.

Jim Allan: So that's the last time I saw you. That's the last time we were in the same room together it was a communique reunion and I have pictures.

Lisa Kelly: Oh.

Jim Allan: So do you remember that night?

Lisa Kelly: Yes I do remember that night.

Jim Allan: I don't. So that's the difference between you and me right away. It's just gonna be a lot of tension.

So what do you do at the Ontario Chamber of Commerce?

Lisa Kelly: Well I'm a programs manager so I manage programs pretty basic but I work in particular on a program called the Discoverability Network and it connects businesses in our chamber. We represent 60,000 businesses, 155 local chambers of commerce and boards of trade and we connect them to people with disabilities to fulfill labor market needs.

Jim Allan: Okay so I'm gonna ask you a little bit more about that later. So I'm kind of interested just how you got there. So I'm gonna go.

Lisa Kelly: Yep.

Jim Allan: Hit the rewind button. So communique is where we met and how would you I mean how would you even describe what that company was?

Lisa Kelly: It's a live event company and marketing company. Yeah corporate communications I thought. Yeah that would be the general. Yeah and we kind of did a bit of everything didn't we?

Jim Allan: And you were account manager.

Lisa Kelly: I was an account manager.

Jim Allan: And that was a long time ago and that was actually my last full-time job believe it or not.

Lisa Kelly: I think it was mine too.  No I went after that to PJ Spratt.

Jim Allan: Okay.

Lisa Kelly: Which was a consulting firm an educational consulting firm.

Jim Allan: Okay and then I remember the last time I was really paid attention to you which is a long time ago. But you were at co-ed communications and you were a partner there.

Lisa Kelly: Yes.

Jim Allan: But a long time.

Lisa Kelly: For like 25 years. 25 years longer than I thought.

Jim Allan: So and I know you're your former partner I guess. Tell me what you what just tell me what co-ed did.

Lisa Kelly: Sure so it was with David Benn another communique semi-alumni.

Jim Allan: Yes.

Lisa Kelly: And we started a company that basically created curriculum for grades K to 12 that was funded independently coming up with new you know ways to present materials. So if you think about it it might take somebody four years to write a textbook in the school system. We could turn something around in six months to a year.

Jim Allan: So if I recall the idea there but you got corporate sponsors. Corporate and non-profit.

Lisa Kelly: So one of our biggest clients was the Canada's History Society.

Jim Allan: Right.

Lisa Kelly: And we did a Governor General's Award for teaching history. Okay. We did a lot of work with the Olympics the Olympic Committee on Olympic educational values. Unilever was a big one on ecological footprinting. We had some financial literacy pieces so all over.

Jim Allan: So you had a good thing going.

Lisa Kelly: I did.

Jim Allan: So why did you leave or why did that end? Did you guys have a big fight or something?

Lisa Kelly: No.

Jim Allan: I can't believe that.

Lisa Kelly: No David nobody could argue with David on this planet like David's the most wonderful guy. I don't think he's ever been in a bad mood.

Jim Allan: No he is not.

Lisa Kelly: Well he has after hitting the links. After 25 years. After hitting the links and maybe having a bad game. But I moved to England. I worked remotely but it kind of changed the way we did business and it was just at the beginning of the internet which is so long ago when you think about it. I know it really is. I was dialing up you know to to contact him back in Canada. But I'd fly back and forth but our business model started to change and more and more we had people saying the sponsors saying we want to do digital products. And I'm a kind of still a firm believer that that's not actually how people learn. It's very hard to actually have a truly interactive experience just interacting with a computer. I think COVID's shown that to us all and certainly we didn't have the technology or the depth of tools that we have now. And I hated it. I hated you know taking these amazing programs and just trying to create a website that a kid's gonna go look at. You don't learn that way.

Jim Allan: So that was early as you say So you're limited in some ways?

Lisa Kelly: Yeah we struggled through that a bit and I also think now you'd be competing against like huge purveyors of content that we could never as a small company have competed against. So slowly you know weaned myself off that and then decided to go back, followed my husband to America. We continued but when I came back to Canada I decided to recreate myself and went back to college.

Jim Allan: So I've noticed that you've gone back a lot several times. So you came back to Canada and you've been back to school you went to George Brown College and got a diploma in career and work counseling.

Lisa Kelly: Yep.

Jim Allan: And then what's the Vocational Rehabilitation Association you went there?

Lisa Kelly: So yeah that's a organization that's helping people return to the place. So people I worked with people on Ontario Works and so people on you know what would have been formerly called Welfare for some of our audience if you're older and I worked with people who had been injured on the job and had to transition to a brand new career so WSIB clients.

Jim Allan: So Lisa has held positions in Canadian with Canadian Business Sensibility.

Lisa Kelly: Yeah that was a great job.

Jim Allan: Ontario Disability Network Canada

Lisa Kelly: yep

Jim Allan: and Rehabilitation Network Canada. I'm detecting a theme here there's a lot of word ability or disability pops up a lot.

Lisa Kelly: That's right.

Jim Allan: I guess that sort of leads up to where you are now. So you've gone back to school quite a bit.

Lisa Kelly: Yeah.

Jim Allan: Just to sharpen your skill set I guess and the learned.

Lisa Kelly: Yeah so I think you know there's the whole imposter syndrome I think a lot of women have that. I think a lot of people that have barriers have that so I do have a disability. I've had it for over 40 years but never really spoke about it. So it's an invisible disability. It is an invisible disability. So when I went back to become a career counselor I just ended up by happenstance working with people with disabilities and you know as I was coaching them and helping them to find work transition to new things that they need to do I started thinking well why am I not being authentic about my own experiences. So I slowly I think it took about five years before I actually disclosed that I had a disability and it helped me connect to people and it also I think you know at my age I'm relatively successful. If I can't talk about this who's going to.

Jim Allan: Right so what is your disability then?

Lisa Kelly: Oh what a rude question!

Jim Allan: How should I have….

Lisa Kelly: Well you know I think it's like anything and you just say Lisa what's your experience with disability or of disability. So it's all about language. It is I actually train a lot about language.

Jim Allan: Yes I and before you answer that question I know you're trying to avoid it.

Lisa Kelly: No I'm not actually I have a mental health disability.

Jim Allan: Okay.

Lisa Kelly: And post-traumatic stress disorder and I also have now age-related back issues but that's not a primary disability and I don't really think of it as one.

Jim Allan: Because it's when you get into all the corporate lingo I do need an interpreter sometimes so yeah like so I'm looking at your all your qualifications online it's like there's lived experience and then and our Lisa has experiential knowledge. That's the other one Lisa has experiential knowledge of disability which is corporate speak for you you have.

Lisa Kelly: Well no it's a little bit more. So a lived and actually a friend of mine Elizabeth Moller she's the one we're going to actually be teaching a course together George Brown we've been asked to create a course a certificate program for disability in the workplace. So Elizabeth and I were talking and so you can have lived experience of a disability but it doesn't mean anything other than you have I've lived with this. It doesn't mean that you know how to coach or you have professional skills or you have an educational background in it. So experiential knowledge would be not only have I lived it I have training in it and I've worked in that field. So it's a lot more in-depth so I often get people with disabilities coming up and saying can I work with you and it's like yes but you're not a trainer in this or you don't have a background in employment so it's kind of trying to split the knowledge base of the two. So one is completely valid lived experience the other is indicating that there's some educational and work experience that backs that up as well.

Jim Allan: So you're at the Chamber, Ontario Chamber of Commerce but what what so why would any person or business join a Chamber of Commerce? In my mind it's it's for networking and things like that right?

Lisa Kelly: Yeah.

Jim Allan: So you're an extra layer you're a resource within the Chamber of Commerce?

Lisa Kelly: So the Chamber basically creates tools or you know policy papers that reflect what the businesses out there in Ontario are telling us but sometimes we create tools or programs to help address them so we have a big trade program. But we also create tools so we just launched for instance a mental health toolkit we're doing a whole series on climate right now and how that affects.

Jim Allan: These are services?

Lisa Kelly: For small business to help them flourish.

Jim Allan: To help the membership.

Lisa Kelly: Yep and so what came up is about five years ago when I was with Sensibility Louis de Palma he often says we thought the first time we met we did not if anybody's wondering though we did have some charged discussions. Louis hired me to write the content for a website that they were creating and for people with disabilities and and talking to business. So the whole idea was businesses in Ontario have a labor market shortage. Can't find people to work especially in smaller communities. So people with disabilities are underrepresented or you know underemployed or unemployed. So what about if we took people with disabilities who want to work and can't find it and connect it to businesses looking and that just seemed like such a simple match. So the Chamber created a tool it's a job matching platform kind of like a non searchable LinkedIn where people with disabilities can safely disclose and be connected to businesses that are going yeah I think you having a disability is okay in fact I see benefit to it. And there's a whole bunch of things I could bore you with and if you went on and looked but people with disabilities are actively as or more productive have as good of or better attendance, work more safely, improve the overall culture and they to me the really interesting piece is they drive innovation. They think of things differently.

Jim Allan: Is it even legal to ask that the question I asked you in a job interview?

Lisa Kelly: No. You can't even ask someone if they're married in the tell me how you're able to do the job. So you still need to be able to you know do a job so you might ask someone do you require an accommodation to do this job? Which is basically signaling that somebody has a disability and they might need changes. So when I used to work at Communique with you years ago I actually found it quite overwhelming at times and I don't know if you remember I can remember quite a few times when I was doing a show and we didn't do shows on site we used to these live events but being quite overwhelmed and crawling into a washroom at two in the morning and crying under the sinks while I tried to get you know I was so overwhelmed.

Jim Allan: Just the pressure of the event.

Lisa Kelly: Yeah the pressure. Because it's tomorrow. Exactly the noise everybody talking to you and now at the office I'm also in an open concept it's also a lot of pressure but noise cancelling headsets changed my life.

Jim Allan: Right.

Lisa Kelly: My God just be able to filter out some of the world around me and it's so simple it's like you know I don't know a hundred bucks to buy a good pair but it changes your world or even being able to take regular breaks for me is really important because I do get overwhelmed by stimuli. So just knowing some of those things and I think if you'd ask me Jim when we worked together I wouldn't have even said I had a disability I knew that I had severe depression I knew that I was treated for that but I wouldn't recognize that as a disability. I guess it was almost like before times I mean I'm you know that in a shell stuff the sexual abuse and then I'm hearing some of the people making excuses in these interviews like wow it was 2010 that was a different time. No it was only 10 years ago and there was scandals in the US college football that were and I had to look it up and go well that was nine years ago and it was still it was unacceptable and it's just that it's the culture of that and there's but it's that workplace culture that exactly gradually changes and we were in a culture that's you know it was definitely youth oriented and busy but I also think it wasn't a place that I don't yeah I wouldn't have felt comfortable at Communique Disclosing because I think it would have limited my career prospects.

Jim Allan: Well everyone was young it was probably your first big job right?

Lisa Kelly: Yeah it was huge. Like most people's big first big job. And you know we had tremendous you we were given like I remember launching a car out in BC and we were given like a million dollars to spend in like an afternoon so a lot of responsibility so you're not gonna go to someone and say hey by the way I struggle with or you know it just wouldn't have occurred to me and as well I think that it's changed particularly the piece around mental health is it's less stigmatized and it's talked about more and even one of the biggest things I find when I train people about disability is a lot of people still don't consider mental health conditions a disability or addictions or mental you know or PTSD it's just like no that's not a disability and it's like yes it is actually. And if you do the research which I have not done but it's an enormous a high percentage of people. 20% of Canadians will be diagnosed with a mental health condition in any given year so that's a diagnosis that's not like I'm sad that's actually a medical diagnosis with you know clinically depressed.

Jim Allan: Yeah and then you know I think during COVID that that's much higher.

Lisa Kelly: Oh absolutely. And then almost the other thing that's interesting is anyone who has a disability also has a mental health component to it because it's isolating and there's so many barriers so if you added that in I think actually the number of people that might self identify with a disability which is 22% of Canadians is actually probably much higher.

Jim Allan: So do you give lots of presentations with lots of numbers and charts?

Lisa Kelly: well I actually prefer to tell stories to tell you the truth because I think people don't remember what grade you got in grade 12 but they remember stories and that's what you're doing here. Yeah people remember stories so I actually have tried to bring people with disabilities on to tell their stories and how that can work because those things tend to stick more.

Jim Allan: So I did see a video that you were in and so my next three questions are gonna be questions that you asked in that video.

Lisa Kelly: Oh boy. So it's only fair I figure.

Jim Allan: what are some of the challenges you faced with your disability and how has that changed your outlook in life?

Lisa Kelly: That's a mean one. That's because you said it and you're a mean person.

Jim Allan: That's true. So what are some of the challenges?

Lisa Kelly: So I think first of all stigma that would be the big one either fear of telling people so not asking for what you need or an inability to share the reality the authenticity of what you're experiencing to be able to get to what you need. That's probably the biggest one and then just coming to terms with it myself because it is stigmatized so embracing that owning it talking about it being comfortable with it.

Jim Allan: So is a lot of it in your own are you just fighting your own demons?

Lisa Kelly: Yeah constantly. You're worried about I mean I would never have thought anything of you at the back in the day so but obviously you're very aware and you're trying to navigate your work life I guess without. Yeah work life personal life I mean you know it's hard to strip that out right?

Jim Allan: Right

Lisa Kelly: especially back then because you're a lot of your friends are people you might meet at work. Yeah and you know just like comments you hear sometimes like it's like you're not gonna say anything if you know people are making comments about you know mental health yeah so you're not you know going to do that and I think for me being account manager was a really great job I learned a ton but what a bad fit.

Jim Allan: It's a high pressure.

Lisa Kelly: Yeah just a lot of deadlines and it's not even the deadline so for me deadlines aren't pressure isn't really it's more the the absolute cacophony of voices coming around you so you know you've got your boss saying one thing client saying another your team saying another and just having it all hit you at the same time so that was the difficult part for me not the the on-site stuff I love the preparation I love the sales I loved you know the organization loved the deadlines it was the actual on-site that probably wasn't a good fit for me.

Jim Allan: So question number two from you what do you think is the biggest barrier you faced in terms of finding a job and has your disability affected that?

Lisa Kelly: So to be honest I've never had a great with gender than disability so you know in terms of gender identity and just diversity which is why I've been taking diversity courses lately because I think there's that intersectionality that nobody talks about so being a female with a disability is probably be more difficult than being a person with a disability or being a female. Does that make sense?

Jim Allan: Sure I'll get a parse that for now yes I get it. Question number three what is your overall message to encourage job seekers with disabilities?

Lisa Kelly: So I think it's about telling stories I think it's for any job seeker you tell a story right we always start with resumes I don't know why it bothers me in our profession you know what's your resume what do you do but I actually think we're telling stories the story of us and what we want in our professional life so it's not a personal story it's a work story if you focus on the story what you put in the resume naturally flows out of that what you're going to say in an interview is a natural extension you're telling your story so my story is someone who cares deeply with experiential knowledge of disability and helping people find work connecting to employers to job seekers so it's about helping businesses tell better stories about themselves we're open to everyone and helping job seekers tell better stories about themselves I don't believe disability itself makes a good story I think ability makes a good story and I just happen to have a disability

Jim Allan: this is a weird question did you need to just to get your current position they already knew who you were probably at this point so it's not like did you need to be so disabled to get your current job which was a weird question

Lisa Kelly: no it isn't um because I do tend to hire people with disabilities to work on my team now right so no I did not and actually when they first hired me to work at when I worked at sensibility nobody knew I had a disability I still hadn't disclosed so they hired me to write because they knew that I worked in this field it trained people and had an educational background in it the I really just started disclosing once I came to the Ontario Chamber of Commerce there's Canadian legislation that oversees this thing the employment equity act which requires big companies or any company to report on their diversity is that yeah it's a federal legislation though so only federally regulated companies need to report and so that would be banks telecoms transportation yeah okay so what's left after that then for you to small business all the small so mainly small business 90 percent of you know so everybody yeah 90 percent of people are employed by businesses across Canada so a typical small business would be just focused on their own yeah business selling producing whatever they're doing going out and sell again right yeah so they're not even paying attention to any of this no they aren't well you know I think small businessmen are some of the smartest and most I ran my own small business for 25 years as we talked about right so you're a master of everything right you know everything yeah exactly so you are focused on that so we've stepped in we give tools free training free tools free connecting to the individuals because we get that a lot of small businesses for instance might not have a human resources department to even deal with some of this

Jim Allan: you were about to say master so jack of all trades master of none you can't you I don't think you can use the word master anymore can you I don't know can I know like master bedroom in real estate you can't oh yeah there's a come on Lisa

Lisa Kelly: I'm not up on all my diversity language just disability I ran into a whole hornets mess with that about a few months ago you know what just happened right but language is so interesting and it's tricky right we all want to avoid it because it is changing it's constantly evolving but it does express our beliefs right and so fascinating it is yes like I think even I give a full training on language I did a session with KPMG for International Day of Persons with Disabilities and they had 2,500 people on the call and it was all about language and do you say disability it's got a DIS a lot of people uncomfortable with that right do we say diverse abilities handy capable you know there's all these euphemisms instead of we torture ourselves with instead of just saying disability I also think that we need to so I like the intentional use of language and examining so I'm gonna be thinking about that master now because you told me that it's everywhere

Jim Allan: I know

Lisa Kelly: No, it's true everywhere so you start rethinking what you're saying and what you're communicating when you actually say those things so I don't like euphemisms so like handy capable what does that mean I have diverse abilities what does that mean I mean seriously yeah it is it is it becomes those corporate slogans corporate diff abilities I mean geez torturous so is your how do you see your role do you are you trying to change the narrative or or what's your overall purpose when you come to work every day or just like doing things so I can't say I have some grand plan my boss Louie de Palma does yeah we want to do systems change because I think the system's broken so if we look at the way that people with disabilities the unemployment rate hasn't changed remains stubbornly low so what we've been doing in the past this one-by-one charity model hire me I've got a disability I need it feel bad for me it doesn't work because businesses are there to make money and they're struggling to make money so we really need to teach people to see the values that they bring to a job and we need to teach businesses that people can bring different values to a job in a different way but still get the job done

Jim Allan: So,N well do you have advice for people who might be having trouble finding work

Lisa Kelly: yeah so most jobs are networking we always talk about this 80% hidden job market it's really true for people with this so that's for everyone for people with disabilities get to know your story it needs to be authentic and then learn to frame it in a way that is positive so I'll give you an example I worked with really great young man he's neuro diverse so meaning he has usually that means he either has ADHD or autism

Jim Allan: Neuro diverse…

Lisa Kelly:  it's a new term to kind of cover learning disabilities ADHD attention deficit disorder and also autism

Jim Allan: I'm just here to be educated

Lisa Kelly: sorry I know this is so down in the weeds anyway so he is neuro diverse and he couldn't he was having trouble keeping a job he was in college and we got the opportunity to work together and he I don't even know how much he knew some of the changes that he needed to the workplace but he explained to me that he sees the world differently than other people because he's not he uses words and pictures what a great story for a graphic designer now it's not about the differently it's this my disability that's central part of me allows me to understand the power of words and graphic images and we took that to an employer and they ended up hiring him he just let his work speak for itself he actually showed his thought process we didn't have this long interview about what are your strengths what are your weaknesses tell me about yourself because that's not his strength words oral words verbal words are not his strength he got the job he was just employee of the year this year I mean it changed his life I think changed the company's perspective on what you know not everybody has to look the same be the same talk the same go to the same schools people can bring different strengths the people need help or advice

Jim Allan: where do you recommend they look or what do you

Lisa Kelly: well if you have a disability every Thursday at one o'clock on event bright you can look up discover ability or OCC and we give we have honest conversations about these topics so resumes informational interviews how to construct a story how to disclose that's a big piece right how do you tell someone you have a disability and should you and if you do what do you say and how do you say it and when do you say it I mean just think about all that how do you figure out what you actually do differently so we talked about you know for me how this kind of evolved I didn't know when I was in my 20s when I needed I really didn't I had no idea that hey in my corner of the office you guys are in the quiet part you know the other office noise-canceling headsets would have made me so much happier maybe more breaks when I went on site to just say everybody take off for ten minutes let's come back those are such simple things and they would have made such a difference to you know the happiness and the fulfillment I felt in my job so I think people figuring out what do we what do I do differently and how do I ask for it can be life-changing so you can ask a career counselor an accessibility specialist there's a great online resource called and it's called the searchable online accommodations resource and you can search by disability and it will tell you what are common accommodations which is kind of it's very cool so figuring out what you need and then constructing a story that shows it as an asset versus a deficit so if people want to get in touch with you assuming you want people to get in how do they get how do they reach so we have a website right so you can go on there and you can sign up and mostly everything that I've said today would be available free of charge on the website so it's www dot discover ability dot network

Jim Allan: so Lisa thanks for coming

Lisa Kelly: thank you I don't know how helpful but it's always great to catch up with a friend

Jim Allan: Thank you