Overview
Funny thing about perspective, life experience often changes it. For most people, disability is an abstract concept. We don't think much about the challenges of ordering from a restaurant menu, finding the food on our plates, participating in a teleconference, or navigating the halls of office buildings without the benefit of sight, hearing, or full mobility. And generally speaking, no one born with full use limbs and senses expects to become disabled. Certainly Kathy Butler, vice president, Client Process Transformation, IBM Sales & Distribution, didn't.
But on September 11, 2003 while driving to work in Armonk, NY, Kathy's life changed in an instant when an 18-year old lost control of his car sending her catapulting through the air. When her car finally came to rest, Kathy was upside down and unable to move. It took emergency response teams 75 minutes to extract her from the vehicle. She was helevaced to Westchester Medical Center, where tests revealed significant fractures to her C3, C4 and C5 vertebrae. Kathy, a runner and athlete, was initially paralyzed from the neck down.
A self-proclaimed "intense" professional, Kathy joined IBM as a systems engineer in 1974. Over the course of 30 years with the company she progressed through a number of management and executive positions, including branch market support manager, director of software marketing and support, vice president of marketing for networking software, and vice president of sales operations and technical support. The focus and drive that played such a key role in her career success became instrumental in her rehabilitation.
"I didn't have the time or energy to be angry at the young man that hit me," she said. "I needed to move forward and regain my mobility. I was 150% focused on getting back to my former life. I set goals for myself that first year — get back to work, walk on a treadmill, complete a 5K race, and water and snow ski again."
For its part, IBM was committed to helping Kathy achieve her goals. Shortly after the accident during her outpatient care at her sister's house in New Jersey, IBM sent an accessibility expert to help Kathy learn about and use assistive technology. "I was able to sit up and I'd regained some mobility in the right side of my body," she noted. "The company representative really set me up with everything I needed to begin using the computer again — a chair, a place to rest my arm, and Dragon [Naturally Speaking] software and a headset that allowed me to speak directly into the PC. IBM was unbelievably supportive. Their attitude was, 'How can we help her be productive?'"
In September 2004, just a year after her accident, Kathy returned to part-time work. Her first day back on the job, she gave out some "Thanks IBM" t-shirts in appreciation for the company's support and her coworkers' countless cards and emails, two things she says were instrumental in helping her maintain her motivation during rehabilitation. By January 2005, she had achieved her goal of returning to work full time.
"I never worried about losing my job," Kathy said. "IBM goes out of its way to help, and I believe IBMers as a group, go out of their way to adapt and accept people. When I was originally hired 'respect for the individual' was a core company value. The words have changed a bit, but the emphasis remains the same. It was my body, not my brain, injured in that accident. At IBM, people are the most important thing and as long as you are capable, there is a place for you."
After one surgery to fuse her neck and 18 months of rehabilitation, Kathy began to walk again and regained 90 percent of her mobility in her right arm and hand. However, she has only been able to recover about 25 percent of the function in her left arm and hand. She doesn't rely much on assistive technology anymore, indicating that for her, the solutions aren't quite refined enough to be practical for daily use. She is hopeful that advances in technology will improve accessibility software and tools for people with mobility challenges, making it possible to use speech-recognition software and one wireless headset for the phone and computer. Until then, Kathy prefers to self accommodate saying that she's "gotten fairly adept at typing with one hand."
And although Kathy was able to achieve all the initial goals she set right after the accident — including finishing a 1 mile race and learning to ski again — the experience has had a profound impact on her perspective about work and life. "In a lot of ways, I'm much happier at work. I'm still intense, but my team would probably tell you less negatively so. In some ways, I'm even more productive than I was before the accident because I am focused only on what's important. It has become much easier to prioritize the critical tasks that add value to the company and leave out things that are unnecessary," says Kathy.
She also notes that her mobility challenges have changed the way she looks at her job in client process transformation. Her team's objective is to focus on customer, Business Partner and TeleWeb-facing business transformation initiatives to deliver an integrated "One IBM" customer, Business Partner, and sales experience.
"Today, I'm much more cognizant of accessibility issues. My experience made me realize how important it is to look at everything with different eyes. I look at our solutions and think, 'How can we design this in a way that's more flexible for people with disabilities?' It's important that IBM products, services, and solutions are accessible to the widest range of people," contends Kathy.
Ultimately, that's a perspective that stands to generate value for IBM, its partners, and its clients.