Leveraging the Strengths of the Disabled

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Kaufman believes companies can reap other benefits from signing up, retaining, and advancing the careers of the disabled. For one thing, such an approach can help provide "the human diversity" that Drucker believed was vital to the wellbeing of every organization.

What's more, hiring the disabled can engender customer loyalty among the employee's friends and relatives—a potentially huge market when you consider that of the 70 million families in the U.S., more than 20 million have at least one member with a disability. The ranks of the disabled constitute an enormous market in their own right, boasting more than $1 trillion in aggregate annual income.

The end result, says Kaufman, is that if a company learns to value the disabled, it can "affect the bottom line" in a positive way while, at the same time, "it can have a real social impact"—Drucker's favorite one-two punch.

Viewed this way, the disabled aren't a liability; they're an opportunity.

Stubbornly Unconvinced

Some businesses get it. Virginia Commonwealth University has developed 20 case studies, including sketches of Alaska Airlines, Bank of America (BOFA), and Hyatt, that highlight "corporate models of success" for dealing with the disabled. Of the 485 workers at a Walgreen's (WAG) distribution center in South Carolina, more than 35% are disabled. And the drugstore chain is now recruiting disabled workers for a new distribution facility in Connecticut.

"In fact," the company says in its outreach material, "we are actively seeking qualified people including those with cognitive and intellectual disabilities. Why make an extra effort to hire workers with cognitive and intellectual disabilities? Because this is a group that is seldom offered real jobs. We want to change that. We think we can."

Still, many businesses remain obstinate. They say they worry about the possibility of increased costs, safety issues, the specter of legal liability, and how colleagues and customers will react.

But all of these things are simply excuses for shoddy management. Drawing on the parable of the Talents from the Bible, Drucker points out that the manager's task couldn't be clearer: It's to "multiply performance capacity of the whole by putting to use whatever strength, whatever health, whatever aspiration there is in individuals."

Rick Wartzman is the director of the Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University.