Chapter 5: Hearing the Hard-of-Hearing People Available to Purchase

In 2015, the Michigan team of SDD practitioners, led by Jeff Diedrich, applied the three phases of the SDD methodology, namely (a) Discovery, (b) Design, and (*c) Action, to engage a variety of stakeholders from the State of Michigan, including hard-of-hearing people, to redesign the Michigan School for the Deaf (MSD). It was the first time that the voices of this category of stakeholders were invited to participate in the design of their school (MSD). The application of The Thread for the MSD provided tangible evidence of its potential to build trust and consensus for the MSD Situational Complexity, especially for the deaf community. The engagement of this community, reduced significantly the dissonance, by means of structured deliberations. Furthermore, it accomplished the building of consensus, for a community for which there has been historically major skepticism and mistrust among its members. This particular application also provided evidence and insights on how inappropriate and unethical it is for “hearing people” to design action plans for the future of MSD, without listening to the voices of the “hard-of-hearing people. Unfortunately, the phenomenon of not listening to the voices of the people whose lives are affected by social system designs, such as school buildings, airports. health systems, etc., is generalizable.