A cross-functional leadership responsibility

Why one office cannot own it

Take an ordinary barrier: a benefits notice that blind applicants cannot read. The template belongs to communications or a program office. The system that generates it belongs to information technology. The vendor contract that constrains the format belongs to procurement. The staff who answer the resulting calls report to operations. The complaint lands with the civil rights office. The budget to fix any of it sits with finance. Told that “accessibility” owns the notice, each of these functions will reasonably wait for the accessibility office to act, and the accessibility office, with no authority over any of them, will write memos.

This is the structural reason disability inclusion is a leadership responsibility rather than a program. Only an executive can convene the owners, set the standard the result must meet, assign each function its part, and keep the item on the agenda until it is done. The accessibility office supplies expertise and testing; human resources supplies the accommodation process; legal counsel supplies interpretation. None of them can make the finance director fund a remediation line or the chief information officer change a platform default. You can.

The written leadership case is the instrument for this. One paragraph that names who is affected, what the agency owes them, what it costs to act and not to act, and which leader owns which decision gives every function something to respond to. General commitments produce agreement and no movement; a paragraph with names produces a meeting.

Who typically owns what in a single barrier

Program operations: the process design, the staff instructions, the participant experience.
Information technology: platforms, defaults, testing tools and technical standards.
Procurement: contract requirements, vendor evaluation and remediation clauses.
Human resources: the accommodation process, manager training and hiring practice.
Communications: templates, plain language, documents, meetings and public notices.
Facilities: routes, entrances, rooms, signage and evacuation.
Finance: base-budget lines for access, not exception-based spending.
Legal counsel, the ADA coordinator and civil rights: obligations, complaints and corrective action.

Convene, set the standard, hold the decision

What you can change

You control who is in the room, what standard the result must meet and whether the item stays on the agenda until it is done.

What to watch for

Do not assign a cross-functional barrier to a single office and call it delegated. Do not accept a status of “in progress” without a date and an owner for each function’s part.

Your next step

For the barrier you identified earlier in this course, schedule the cross-functional meeting and open it with the standard the result has to meet.

A one-paragraph leadership case

The paragraph a board, commissioner or budget office can act on. Fill it with your own area’s facts; keep it to one paragraph.

Who is affected Name the group and the scale: for example, applicants for waiver services, most of whom have disabilities, and the roughly one in four adults in any workforce or public who has a disability.

What we owe them Name the obligations in outline: ADA Title II and Section 504 for services, ADA Title I for employment, Olmstead for integrated settings. Note that legal counsel and the ADA coordinator advise on specifics.

What it costs to act and not to act State the base-budget line required and the cost of retrofits, parallel processes, complaints and unserved eligible people if the agency waits.

Who owns which decision Name the leader for program, technology, procurement, human resources, communications, facilities and finance, and the date each will report.

Read the paragraph aloud at your next leadership meeting and ask each named leader to confirm or correct their part.

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The executive’s three verbs

Convene

Bring every function the barrier touches into one conversation. Barriers survive when each owner is waiting for another.

Set the standard

Say what the fixed result must do: usable by keyboard and screen reader, captions on by default, a step-free route during all meeting hours. The standard is what each function builds toward.

Hold the decision

Keep the item on the agenda with a name and a date beside each part until the barrier is gone and someone has tested that it is.

What not to do

Do not do the technical work, and do not hand the whole thing to the one office with the least authority over the others.

Which statement best describes the executive role in removing a barrier that spans several functions?

Assign the barrier to the accessibility office, which has the expertise, and ask for a report at the agreed review point.

Convene the leaders of every function the barrier touches, set the standard the result must meet, assign each their part with a date, and keep it on the agenda until it is tested and done.

Ask the communications team to draft a public commitment to accessibility.

Try a situation

A recurring hybrid public meeting run by an administration has been criticized for inaccessible slides, a platform where captions are disabled by policy, and a building entrance that is step-free only through a side door that is locked after five. The administration has told its communications team to fix it.

As the deputy commissioner, what is your read?

Communications owns public meetings, so the assignment is correct; check back in a month.

The barrier crosses communications, information technology, facilities and program operations. Convene those four leaders, set the standard the meeting has to meet, assign each their part with a date, and review it together.

Move the meeting fully online so the building is no longer a problem.

Carry this forward

Almost every barrier crosses at least three functions, which is why it stays unresolved when one office is told to own it.
The executive role is to convene the owners, set the standard and hold the decision, not to do the technical work.
A written leadership case that names owners, obligations and cost is a tool other leaders can act on; a general commitment is not.

One knowledge check; a drafted one-paragraph leadership case with the cross-functional owners named.

Bring your paragraph to the next meeting of the leaders it names and ask each to confirm or correct their part.

What you’ll be able to do

Why one office cannot own it

Who typically owns what in a single barrier

Convene, set the standard, hold the decision

What you can change

What to watch for

Your next step

A one-paragraph leadership case

The executive’s three verbs

Try a situation

Carry this forward

Your next step

A cross-functional leadership responsibility

What you’ll be able to do

Why one office cannot own it

Who typically owns what in a single barrier

Convene, set the standard, hold the decision

What you can change

What to watch for

Your next step

A one-paragraph leadership case

The executive’s three verbs

Try a situation

Carry this forward

Your next step