E48: Leading Change: Michael Bach on IDEA Strategies

In this episode of the IAAP United in Accessibility podcast, Michael Bach, founder of the Canadian Center for Diversity and Inclusion, shares his insights on fostering inclusive environments through a strong focus on accessibility within diversity, equity, and inclusion (IDEA) initiatives. Drawing from nearly two decades of experience, he emphasizes the importance of integrating accessibility into organizational practices to empower individuals with disabilities and enhance overall societal equity.

Transcript

00:04 Speaker  

Welcome to the IAAP United in Accessibility podcast, where we highlight the transformative journeys of leaders driving change in accessibility and inclusion. In this episode, we are honored to feature Michael Bach, a distinguished author, speaker and thought leader in inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility. With nearly two decades of experience, Michael has been at the forefront of advancing IDEA initiatives across various sectors. As the Founder of the Canadian Center for Diversity and Inclusion and a recognized advocate for social justice, he has dedicated his career to fostering inclusive environments that empower all individuals. His bestselling books, including "Birds of all feathers" and "Alphabet soup", serve as vital resources for organizations striving to enhance their diversity practices. Michael's innovative strategies and leadership have empowered countless organizations to create more equitable environments. In this episode, we explore Michael's accessibility journey, his impactful contributions to IDEA and actionable insights that can help organizations embrace accessibility at their core. Join us for an engaging conversation on the United in Accessibility podcast.

01:24 Christopher Michael Lee  

Michael, welcome to IAAP United in Accessibility podcast. It is great to have you here today, and we look forward to talking to you and learning a little bit more about what you do specifically in the area of accessibility. So, let's start off, just introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your work. 

01:39 Michael Bach  

Sure. My name is Michael Bach. My pronouns are he/him. I have been working in the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility space for about 20 years now, previously, the Head of Diversity for KPMG operations in Canada, as well as the Deputy Chief Diversity Officer for KPMG globally. And then I went on to start and run an organization called the Canadian Center for Diversity and Inclusion. And I was the CEO of that organization for a decade before going out of my own for a slower life. And I moved to Palm Springs, California, where I can stare out at the mountains and have a little a little slower life, that's the idea. 

02:25 Christopher Michael Lee  

So my question, you have a lot of leadership experience, and I know you're a keynote speaker, can you drill down a little bit on, you know, the work that you do, particularly the two organizations that you just mentioned around accessibility, was it more from a leadership standpoint, or more grassroots kind of doing stuff, getting people to do accessibility related inclusion within the organization?

02:47 Michael Bach  

Sure. So, CCDI, or the Canadian Center for Diversity and Inclusion, is a charitable organization that helps employers with their journey around inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility, or IDEA, and that is done through providing educational opportunities as well as resources. And it was really important to me to make sure that we had a focus on accessibility. As a person who lives with a couple different disabilities. Myself, I have always felt that the A was often left off. I mean, even now, you hear people talk about DEI and EDI or DEIB bringing in belonging, that's great. I always thought that accessibility, including people with different conditions, was innately there, but then I saw lots of examples of it not being there. So, it was really important to me to make sure that we had a strong focus on accessibility, partnering with different organizations that had specific subject matter expertise to move that conversation along. Now in my world, I am an infamous public speaker. I always feel weird when I say that. And I run an organization called IDEA content, which is around content in the IDEA space, and I continue to be an advocate for this is going to be a mouthful, the Inclusion of the A or Inclusion of Accessibility. So that we are putting that front and center, we're thinking about, how are people with different conditions accessing the world, whether that's a workplace, a community center, a place of faith, school, whatever. How do we access it physically? How are we accessing it digitally, making sure that we're not being left behind by people who don't necessarily see the world through that same lens.

04:55 Christopher Michael Lee  

I'm curious. I mean, the approach that you're taking kind of a holistic aspect. You know, you've got, you know, the employment side of it. You got the social side of it. You get the educational side of it. Do you approach it, any of those pieces of the pie, differently, and how do you address that now on your keynote speeches? 

05:15 Michael Bach  

Yeah, it's a good question. I don't necessarily approach it differently. I have spent 35 years working in this space. I started as a volunteer, working primarily in the LGBTQ+ space as a member of that community, but then expanded that as my life changed. And I focused on the work world, because somewhere around 80% of people work. I focused on the workplace because it was the best opportunity to kind of hit the majority of people, and they would then, of course, take that out into the world. It's the Ripple effect. You know, if you're talking to someone about inclusion at work, they take that information back into their community. And I don't think that there is a need to have different approaches. I know every organization thinks that they're unique, and that's lovely, like a snowflake. They're not. Organizations all operate the same, money in, money out. And whether that organization is a big corporation or it's a church or it's a food bank, they all operate the same. And I sometimes shift my language, but that's really about it. So, if I'm talking to a big corporation, I'm talking about impact on top and bottom line. I'm talking about improving profit around, you know, accessing new markets. And when I'm talking to a hospital, I'm talking about understanding your patients and reducing waiting times and improving efficiency. It's all the same thing, though, and from an accessibility perspective, I look at this as an opportunity where employers are missing out on talent, where organizations, you know, big corporations, are missing out missing out on customers, where universities are missing out on students. It is all just an opportunity to approach a market that is notoriously underserved and not in a way that is sort of that, you know, social justice, moral and imperative. Oh, we have to help those poor people. No, you don't. Think about, you know, the community of people with disabilities, which we could start to throw around numbers, but let's say it's 20%. 20% of the population. That's a big market share. It's a big potential from any perspective, and we have to get away from that poor us mentality and say this is just a different way of approaching people.

08:08 Christopher Michael Lee  

So, I have a question in regards to kind of the sectors and industry, is there one that you lean towards more, that you seem to really radiate and pushes you? And I kind of come around that with this, with another question, like, what motivates you in the work that you do?

08:24 Michael Bach  

I would say that over the course of my career, post KPMG, so left KPMG, professional services, accounting and right after I left, I was very popular in the professional services world, because accountants, lawyers, consultants, they all operate the same, and that experience was very valuable. But certainly, after that, I've worked in every industry you can imagine: Universities. I've done a ton of work in the academic world, health care, banking regulators. There isn't any Yeah, I'm thinking through the question as I'm answering it. There isn't any one industry that I'm either drawn to or that is particularly forward thinking. I think they all have their challenges to answer the question about what motivates me. I was raised in a very left leaning, social purpose kind of household. My parents, from a very early age, taught me that because of the privilege I experience based on the package that I'm in, based on the body that I occupy, and of course, your listeners can't see me, so just understand very handsome, also a white man. But because of that identity, even though I'm gay, I'm gender non-conforming, and I live with a few disabilities, I'm still a white man. And so, my parents wanted to make sure that I understood that I had a responsibility. To use my privilege to the advantage of others, and I also was developed with a really strong sense of fairness. That is what motivates me. I'm the person who's always rooting for the underdog. I want to see people able to achieve their fullest potential. And as I've shifted over the years, I would say that full potential has become a bit I'm laughing. I'm laughing at myself. How do you say this politely? It's a bit capitalistic. Let's just face the fact that money makes the world go round. They write songs about it, and I want to see people achieve their full potential, not because it's the right thing to do, and I'm the nicest guy in the world, but because they will make more money. And if they make more money, they pay more taxes, and then we as a society, do better, and we could have a very long conversation about the downfall of society because of capitalism. That's a different podcast. But we have to work within the world we're in. The reality is that if a person is able to contribute fully, then they are contributing to society, and society is better for it. I'll give you an example. So, let's say, and I'm going to use an example of an immigrant, because it's a much starker example. So, let's say we've got an immigrant from pick a country, Pakistan, who is a neurosurgeon in Pakistan, and that person moves to the United States or Canada, and because of regulations, they're not able to work as a doctor. They end up in a survival job driving a cab. The average income for a cab driver in the US and Canada is around$25,000 a year, and they would pay in my numbers are Canadian. In Canada, they pay about $4,000 in taxes. If they were working as a neurosurgeon, their average salary is around $350,000 and they'd be paying somewhere around $45,000 in taxes. It's just simple math to be able to work in their chosen profession. They would be able to spend more, they would have more disposable income so they would be able to stimulate the economy. They would be putting more tax dollars into government coffers, which would then go to better roads, better schools, better health care, better, better, better. The same argument holds true for people with disabilities and accessibility is if a person can't get into a building, and that holds them back from participating, if a person uses a mobility device or a wheelchair, and that holds them back from participating, well then, they're just not going to make as much money as they could. Were we to ensure that building was fully accessible.

13:03 Christopher Michael Lee  

You know, it's interesting, because your work in the field of disabilities, as well as your work with the LGBTQ arena, is there some crossover there in the sense? I mean, have you learned about things that are similar to the to the two communities and just I'm curious about your thoughts in particular there.

13:25 Michael Bach  

I would say so. The reality is that people from marginalized communities, from underrepresented communities, whatever we want to call them, equality deserving groups. All experience something similar. On the outside, there are definitely differences between the experiences of LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities. Marriage as an example, but at the same time, there are so many similarities, where you know people with different disabilities don't have access to things and are left out, and the same is the case with people who are LGBTQ+. We experience oppression, we experience discrimination. There are more similarities than there are differences.

14:12 Christopher Michael Lee  

I ask, you know, in one way, because you know, dealing with people with disabilities, especially ones with cognitive disabilities that are hidden, there seems to be a correlation, a thread, between the two communities, in some cases, at least from a standpoint of personality,

14:32 Michael Bach  

We are the invisible minority. That's that similarity, particularly around invisible disabilities, is we can be in the room, and no one knows we're there. I would say one of the main differences between the communities is there are people that look at members of the LGBTQ+ community and think it's a choice, whereas if they see someone who is in a using a wheelchair. They don't think of that as a choice. They will pity the person who uses the wheelchair, whereas the trans person, the queer person, they look at that as a choice. However, I would say that people who have cognitive disabilities, neurodiverse individuals, we are looked at as making it up. And so that definitely is a similarity with the conversation around sexuality and gender. It's sort of like, well, come on, you know, you're not really. I live with depression. I also have ADHD. And there's a lot of people in my life who just think, oh, you know, he's making that up. That's not really just, come on, buck up. All you need is some Vitamin C.

15:47 Christopher Michael Lee  

You know, the other one that comes to play, I, you know, you hear a lot, is lazy, right? 

15:54 Michael Bach  

Sure thing.

15:54 Christopher Michael Lee  

We'll talk about doing whatever to overcome whatever you have, or whatever it may be. You can do this. You're just being lazy, specifically in the learning disability cognitive area. I'm curious, how does your kind of philosophy on life and the work that you do? I mean, how's that come out in your writing, you have two books that you've published, can you talk about, you know, how do those books come to be about? Or are they the same? Are they different in the sense of, are you trying to hit the same goal with each one of them? I'm curious.

16:24 Michael Bach  

They are similar, but not the same. So, my first book, "Birds of all feathers, doing diversity and inclusion right", is very much a how to guide on Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility. It came out in 2020. I wrote it because, at the time, I was working a lot with employers, and frankly, getting tired of answering the same question over and over. Every organization has the same problems. And I got to a point where I said, you know what, I'm just going to write all the answers down. I'm going to give all of the secrets away. And I particularly wanted to focus on small to medium sized organizations, those organizations that you know, they don't have budget to hire a consultant, they don't have a big diversity team, they may have an HR person, probably not. And I said, I'm just going to give all the secrets away. I don't do this work to make money. Because if you ever worked in this field, you're not making a lot of money. I do this work because I want to see the world be a better place than when I came into it. That's what motivated me to write the first book, The second book, "Alphabet Soup, The Essential Guide to LGBTQ2+ inclusion at work", which I wrote in 2022 which was much more of a passion project than the first book. The first book was around, you know, general diversity and inclusion, and the second alphabet soup was around, making the world a better place for my community. I saw that we were starting to see the beginnings of a significant pushback, particularly against trans, non-binary, gender diverse individuals. I was trying to get ahead of that, and I think in sub circles, I was successful in that, and in others, not so much. This work is passion for me. I worked in IT prior to getting into the diversity inclusion space. I know that makes absolutely no sense why those two things came together, but when I started in the work world back in the 1800s this wasn't a job that you did. No one was paying you to work in diversity and inclusion. So, I did, you know, I got an education, and I got a job, and I worked for 15 years in that space. When the opportunity came to merge my passion and my profession, I jumped on it. So, my work is my passion. I get out of bed every day with this fire to make the world a better place, even in a little way, and that's what I did with the books, was really to take that and put it in the hands of people around the world.

19:10 Speaker  

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19:58 Christopher Michael Lee  

But your third book right is slightly different. So, talk about the progress that you've gone through on these three journeys. Yeah.

20:07 Michael Bach  

So, my third book is called “All About Yvie into the Oddity”, and it is the biography of Yvie Oddly, the winner of Season 11 of Ru Paul's Drag Race. I am a Ru Paul's Drag Race fanatic like having an unhealthy relationship with that show, and at the beginning of the pandemic, long story short, I went to Yvie, his agent, and said, hey, Yvie is not working right now. Why don't we write a book? And they agreed, and so I set off on this journey to write the book, and it came out in June of 2024. Very different, but similar, obviously, Yvie, also a person with a disability, lives with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. Queer person of color, very much in in the quote, unquote diversity world. But it was such a different journey writing a book, writing a biography. I'm not a biographer. I certainly have a background in writing, but it was very much a new world, and I wanted to do it as a bit of a fun project, like it was. It was just such a lark to do it and have the opportunity to tour the country with Yvie doing we did a 32-city book tour and seeing how Yvie interacted with their fans. It was absolutely an amazing opportunity. I don't know that I would do it again, not that I didn't, you know, I've fallen out of love with drag or anything. It's not where my heart lives. My heart is very much in the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and accessibility space. But I really do look at that and think, yeah, I did that. It was fun. Now I can go back to my life. 

20:15 Christopher Michael Lee  

What an experience. I bet I would like to be honest a couple of times. I bet it was very different speech in many ways, and probably very cool. So just getting kind of back into kind of your work with, with organizations you know somebody that you know advises organizations worldwide. You know, how do you tailor your idea strategies to address different cultures and industry specific needs.

22:26 Michael Bach  

It's all in the language of the organization. Like I said earlier, every organization operates on the same fundamental principles, money in, money out. How do we get something done? So, I just shift my approach slightly to say, "Okay, are we talking about a bank?" And what motivates a bank? What is the, you know, the purpose of a bank is to serve its customers and to make money for its shareholders. So, the concerns there are around making sure that they understand the customer, making sure that they have the best talent, that they are considered Employer of Choice, etc. It's just shifting slightly to make sure that the language that I'm using is resonating with them, and that they see it as me understanding what they do as an organization, if I don't understand what they do as an organization, then they are not going to trust what I'm saying is applicable to their environment. But truth be told, I can go into any organization and very quickly figure out what their motivations are and adapt to them.

23:45 Christopher Michael Lee  

So, this kind of bleeds right into the next question, topic area around leadership, you know, specifically around like inclusive cultures. Talk to us just a little bit about your work.

23:56 Michael Bach  

Well Leaders set the tone for everything. If you do not have the tone from the top, then you have failed before you have begun. And I would go further to say if the leaders are not acting inclusively, then you will fail. It's one thing for leaders to get the importance of an idea mandate. It's another thing entirely for them to act inclusively. It’s not enough to have them reading the speaking notes and saying, "Oh yes, you know, diversity and inclusion is a priority for us." That's not enough, because ultimately, they're going to act in an exclusionary manner, and that will undo all the value of those nice words you have to have them acting inclusively. That's more than just the words they use. It's their behavior. It's their actions. I'll give you an example. I worked with a client who was building a new office, and they were saying all the right things around the importance of inclusion and accessibility. And then they went through construction, and to save money, they decided not to put the assistive devices on all of the doors into the office. So, are they committed, or was it just lip service? And ultimately, I went in and I made that exact same argument to the CEO and said, "you know, you've kind of blown this one. And here's why, assistive devices are not just for people who use wheelchairs. Assistive devices are for people who use any sort of mobility issue, people who have things in their hands, people who, you know, have strollers. They're good for everybody, not to have to push on a heavy door." But of course, they think, oh, well, you know, I can save X 1000 of dollars, whatever it is, by not putting it in and "Well, we don't have a person who uses a wheelchair, so we don't need it." "Well, right, but you're never going to have a person who uses a wheelchair if you don't put in the assistive device." To come back to your question and the point, leaders are completely responsible for that, and if your leaders have not bought in and are not acting inclusively, then you fail before you begin.

26:29 Christopher Michael Lee  

So, I mean, when you walk into an organization that you're starting to work with and you meet with the CEO or the leadership team, obviously we size people up pretty quickly, you know. And what is, you know, what's one thing that kind of sticks out, like this is going to be a little bit more challenging to get, get this, this leader on board. 

26:49 Michael Bach  

Often subtle things. You Can See, maybe their body language, maybe some of the words they use, you know, are they fumbling over words? Are they asking the right questions? Are they challenging you in the right way? It's the subtlety of behavior that really shows because it's not like I walk into a meeting with leadership and, you know, say: "Okay, are you all bought into this?" Of course, they're going to say yes. No one's going to say "Nope". It's sort of like all of these universities here in the United States who require their applicants, particularly their professors, to write a commitment statement on diversity and inclusion. And honestly, who is going to write something that isn't glowing when they're applying for a job. But does that actually say this is what I believe? Because people lie, that's a thing. So, it isn't the overt, you know, getting them to commit to something and say something. It's more the subtle behavior that'll give me an indication. Oh, I think this person is going to be a problem. Like I will tell you, I just worked with a client not too long ago, and they had a head of HR who had not hired me, but the head of HR was saying all the right things, but at the same time being really dismissive, and I thought, Yeah, something's going on here. And sure enough, they took all the work I did, and they were like, Oh no, we've got this. We've got this. We don't need your expertise. And that lasted six months, and then they came back, and they were like, Yeah, we need your expertise. And it was, you know, just the subtlety of language, I thought, oh, yeah, this is going to be a problem. And sure enough, it was.

28:48 Christopher Michael Lee  

Is there one kind of vision that you have in regard to some of the work that you've done with a particular organization that you're like, wow, I nailed this. You walk away feeling like you really made major impact quickly.

29:05 Michael Bach  

So, Christopher, I'm Canadian, and we are legally prohibited from bragging. I hesitate because, first of all, I think there's always something more to do. I'm thinking of which employer it was. I can't remember what organization was. I remember going into a meeting with a leadership team after having done a lot of different I was doing an assessment of the organization, and I presented the findings, and you could see the look on the faces of the leadership team that they completely got what I was saying. And I remember walking away from that thinking, Yep, that was a slam dunk. I did good there. What they do with it. Now is up to them, but at the time, I thought, I have helped this group. People see past their own ignorance, past their own bias, it is to understand that what I'm telling them is good for their business, is good for how they operate. It's going to make them more efficient. It's going to make their people more engaged. It's going to reduce discrimination complaints, etc., etc. And they got it, and subsequently, they've continued to do some really good work and push the envelope. Maybe not as fast as I would like them to, but they're doing it at their pace, and that's what matters.

30:32 Christopher Michael Lee  

Right. Thank you for sharing that. What about projects coming up? I know we're coming to the very end of our podcast. Is anything that's really happening right now that you're super excited about another book, training, keynote?

30:44 Michael Bach  

Yepp. So, two things. I am working on a new book on inclusive leadership, and that will come out in early 2026 I'm excited about it. I’m really sort of leaning into the need for leaders to take action. That's the headline of the book. It's time to stop saying the right things, and it's time to start doing the right things. So, I'm focused on that. I also just launched this new platform called Idea content, which is a digital library of all things Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility, or IDEA and I'm really excited about the potential of this offering. You know, a lot of the responses so far have been really exceptional. And the idea is that it just takes some of the repetitive tasks out of the work for IDEA practitioners by, you know, giving them prewritten blog content or newsletter content or policies. And as an idea practitioner, you end up doing a lot of things that aren't necessarily game changers but are indeed necessary things like you've got to have a, you know, a post in your newsletter around Disability Employment Awareness Month, or International Women's Day. And all of this, those things take time. So, we created a library of content and said, Okay, here's your International Women's Day post. You don't have to think about it, copy and paste. Put it on your website. And I'm really excited about the potential of that, because I want people, particularly those who work in this field, to focus on the more substantive change, the bigger picture. And a blog post isn't changing lives, but if you don't have that blog post, it is really bad. It's kind of a glowing failure. And so, I, I'm really excited about the potential of those things and what they'll bring.

32:50 Christopher Michael Lee  

It's not easy to keep a repository of content growing and vetting and so on. So that's off on that where can, where can people go to get access to the library?

33:02 Michael Bach  

Yeah, go to getideacontent.com. And you can also follow us on social media. We are Get IDEA Content. 

33:12 Christopher Michael Lee  

Great. Okay. Final question, what key advice would you give to professionals seeking to make IDEA more actionable in their organizations?

33:21 Michael Bach  

Biggest piece of advice I can give you is do something. And what I mean by that is oftentimes we think that the efforts to make organizations more inclusive and accessible is about big, grandiose things, but the reality is that exclusion happens in the very small and if you can do something, you will affect change. If you hear someone make a comment that is sexist, homophobic, racist, whatever a joke, it doesn't matter if it's funny, if someone's the butt of the joke, it's not that funny. If you hear that comment, you have to say something. You have to challenge it. You have to make it clear that it isn't appropriate in your environment. It's little things that will actually have a long-lasting effect. Yes, of course, you need to do things like look at your talent traction process and make sure that it's inclusive, and you need to make sure that your facilities are accessible, and all of that big stuff needs to happen. But as an individual, it's about small actions, and it's about doing something we are notoriously apathetic as a species, we think, "Oh, someone else will do that." You know, it's, it's like walking down the hall and seeing that someone has dropped a piece of garbage. You can pick it up and throw it out. Or you can walk by and think, oh, someone else will do that. If we all picked up the garbage, the garbage stops being on the floor. It's the same. With, you know, accessibility, making sure that you don't take the accessible parking spot because it's closer and you're only going to be a minute. You don't use the accessible bathroom stall. You wait for another one. If we all did that, if every single person just did something small, then we would see massive change.

35:27 Christopher Michael Lee  

Michael, thank you for that. I agree. It's the small things that add up, and I appreciate your time and the work that you're doing. Thank you. Michael.

35:37 Michael Bach  

It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

35:40 Speaker  

The International Association of Accessibility Professionals offers a variety of membership options for individuals and organizations. Whether you are an expert in accessibility or just starting your journey, join the only global accessibility professional association promoting and improving digital accessibility and physical environments. IAAP advocates for the inclusive design and creation of accessible products, content, services and spaces to ensure no one is left behind due to a physical, sensory, cognitive, health or psychological related impairment. United in Accessibility, join IAAP and become a part of the global accessibility movement.