Tales of the unexpected
Sue nearly died when she was three - now she feels free to make her own choices and make her own opportunities because no one expected anything of her....
Sue Williams is a Sync member and part of our Sync Intensives programme.
Here she talks about the unexpected and how this is important to how disabled people lead.
Sync Intensives is a programme running in 2010 over 8 months from April to November, 2010.
As part of this, some of the 15 people on the programme will look at leading themselves, and write articles and case studies fro Sync.
Over to Sue.....
Risky business
I like to take risks, I like to scare myself – no not hanging out of windows of 20 storey buildings or leaping off cliffs; but I do like to be taken out of my comfort zone.
I like to do things I didn’t think I would or could do and I like the unexpected and the unexpected ways things connect in my life and work.
In thinking about leading and disability, the things I think about are risk taking and the unexpected. These things fit with my work as a Senior Officer, Diversity at Arts Council England and my work as an artist.
I didn’t expect to be here
Disability is unexpected…..
I nearly died when I was three. After that I wasn't really expected to do or be much in life.
Thinking about this I think this has helped me be free.
I am now in a place I did not expect to be in - I have a job where I lead. I find it hard to think of myself as a leader.
I think this is because disabled people are still not expected to be leaders.
I like the fact that disabled people are not seen as leaders - for me this means I can think differently, make change and be creative.
There is a bad side to the fact that disabled people aren't seen as leaders. We might hear it so often that we believe it ourselves. That's called 'internalised oppression - it's when we start to believe we can't do things, because that's what other people around us think. It makes us start to think the same thing.
I think meeting and mixing with other disabled people is a great way to stop thinking like this.
I can explore the things we have in common as disabled people, and the things we do well (and badly!). This helps me challenge the internal oppression.
I think it's important that disabled people meet together and have a chance to talk together and be together.
Creatively changing
As disabled people, we are very creative. In our daily lives we have to solve problems and think quickly around new situations.
I have also noticed that disability can make other people more creative too, especially linked to leading.
Last year I started keeping an art journal – I’ve always kept a sketchbook but I hadn't been doing it regularly.
I came across a book called The Creative License (www.dannygregory.com) which is a guide to how you can be an artist at the same time as leading your everyday life. It really made me think.
Keeping a journal has really made my life better! I have also found about that loads of other people are busy doing the same.
The same person wrote a different book Everyday Matters which looks at why they started to keep a journal. I was amazed to see that it was linked to disability (the man who wrote it, started to draw when his wife became disabled).
I find it amazing that disability can have this power and can make people change what they do. His wife's disability meant he thought differently and did things differently.
Because he did that, he started a whole movement of people, like me, who have also changed what they do - that's powerful.
The risk of leading
Leading is risky and being a disabled person can be risky.
I looked up the word 'risk' in a dictionary. It means to expose yourself to the chance of injury or loss. So to take a risk means you could get hurt or lose something.
When we take a risk, we are saying we know we might get it wrong, we know we might fail.
When we take a risk we are saying that we know things might not work out, but that we think it's worth trying to make change happen.
Taking a risk can mean that things change, it can make new things happen. Sometimes we have to take big risks to really do what we want to do.
The unexpected
My own artwork is about taking everyday places (mainly London streets) and placing unusual animals in them. For me, this links to the experience of being disabled.
The animals are like disabled people in the world.
I want to show that different things are possible. Why shouldn't there be a frog in a bus lane?
For me it is about wanting things to shift and change.
I think this is where we have great power as disabled people who lead. We don't have to be the same as everyone else, we are already seen as different. This means we can lead differently too.
We are unexpected beings in an unexpected place – let’s use it.
