There is no “Them”, only “Us”

In August 2015, Drs. Jeffrey R. Moore, William R. Hanson, and Everon C. Maxey of Anderson University with the assistance of Larry Kraemer of Walgreens Corporation presented their report “Fully Integrated Inclusive Organization: Beyond Accommodations” to the Academy of Management Annual conference in Vancouver B.C. The paper received the Benedictine University Award for Outstanding Scholar-Practitioner Collaboration – Management Consulting Division.

The paper was an extensive study of the effects on people and operations following the employment of significant numbers of people with disabilities to fill positions in two Walgreens Distribution Centers.  Researchers interviewed 31 team managers responsible for over 650 employees including 247 – 38% of the workforce – with limited skills.  The same performance and compensation standards applied were applied to every employee, typically able or with a disability.

The report details the evolution of managers from the traditional autocratic, process-focused leadership style commonly used to achieve production goals to a relationship based leadership, people centric leadership style.