Ep. 91 - Why the Best IDD Organizations Ask Questions Nobody Else Thinks To (w/ CQL)

There was a woman in her 80s. Her one goal was to get her driver's license. When someone finally asked where she'd go first, she said the grocery store. Then: "I'd go see my sister." They didn't know she had a sister. They'd been supporting her for years.

That's what happens when someone asks the right question.

Most leaders in IDD services are asking plenty of questions. Satisfaction surveys. Engagement pulse checks. Annual reviews. But there's a category of question that almost never makes it onto the form — and it turns out to be the one that changes everything: what do you actually want?

Not what the checklist covers. Not what the role requires. What do the people you support envision when they dream of a good life? What do your frontline staff want out of their career, their growth, maybe even their life?  That gap — between what organizations assume and what staff would say if someone genuinely asked — is one of the most underestimated drivers of turnover in the field. And this episode is about how to close it.

Mary Kay Rizzolo, Katherine Dunbar, and Courtney Kelly Chapman from the Council on Quality and Leadership share what the research shows about the link between how you treat your staff and what happens to the people they support, what genuinely high-retention organizations do on the ground that others don't, and how a tool called Personal Outcome Measures has been uncovering things organizations never knew — about people they'd been supporting for years.

If you're a leader who's been asking questions but not quite hearing the answers, this one is worth your full attention.

🔗 Learn more about CQL: c-q-l.org
📥 Free resource — 7 Warning Signs Your Supervisors Are Burning Out Their Staff: iddleader.com/burnout

⏱️ Timestamps
00:00 – "No dream snuffing" — and the woman in her 80s who wanted a driver's license
00:55 – Do you know what your DSPs actually want?
02:27 – The connection between quality and workforce stability
02:57 – When you treat staff with dignity, here's what the data shows
04:34 – Why CQL's focus groups with DSPs are the favorite part of accreditation
05:54 – What DSPs say they want most — and the research outcomes behind it
08:59 – Who absorbs the most when an organization struggles with quality
11:22 – What high-retention organizations actually do differently
11:59 – Why closing the feedback loop matters more than running the survey
15:28 – "No dream snuffing" — the philosophy behind personal outcome measures
17:48 – The performance punishment trap nobody talks about
20:08 – What surprises organizations when CQL holds up the mirror
21:07 – The woman with two daughters nobody knew about
21:38 – The woman in her 80s who wanted a driver's license (full story)
24:32 – Person-centered planning applied to staff — the most innovative thing in the episode
29:03 – "People don't want a good plan. They want a good life."

Quick Question:

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