Ochanya McRoberts-Wells

I attribute my success to discipline and the way my family modeled excellence without restricting me. My father, before he ever met my mother, was actually in the seminary to be a Catholic priest, and had he finished his studies, he would have been the first Black Catholic priest in the state of Missouri. There's a discipline and a rigor that has always been a part of my normal. My brother is 10 years older than me, and he taught me everything. My first steps were literally in his direction. But what made the biggest difference was that my family demonstrated success without trying to define it for me. They encouraged me to go, leave the state, go to college, get out, explore the world and see what's there, and then decide what I want to do. When you find that thing that you enjoy doing, and it also makes you money, that's your ikigai, your perfect zone of affirmations, because you're enjoying it, you have impact, you're fulfilled, and you can also make money doing it too. My success was directly fostered by a family that modeled what success could be in a variety of different ways and helped me realize my greatness and potential without restricting me or pointing me in one direction versus another.

The best career advice I ever received was when someone told me, 'You would be good as an account manager.' I never would have gone for a sales role, because sales is very different, but because I'm a very strong relationship manager, I was encouraged by someone who saw those strengths in me, who said, why don't you give this a try? Why don't you take a look at that? That pivot for me was perfect. It was the best thing I could have ever done, taking that risk on something I never saw myself doing.

Take your time. I think there's this expectation that if you start as a behavior technician, your only trajectory to leadership is that you have to become an RBT, and then you have to become a BCBA or a BCABA. There are opportunities that are very much so adjacent to that that don't require that exact path, so do it because you want to, not because you think you have to. And find a good mentor. Find someone who supports you, challenges you, and helps you grow.

One of the biggest challenges in this industry is that for some people who do have their BCBA credential, they sometimes have a hard time wrapping their mind around how I've made it this far in my field without the certification. I think that's one of the things in ABA that needs to really change. Behavior analysis existed long before there was a board certification, and we're still behavior analysts, we're just not certified. If I'm qualified to supervise you and make sure that you're doing everything you need to do with clinical fidelity, why do I need to have the credential that validates my ability or my command of the science? But I also think we have a real opportunity to foster meaningful collaboration, not just among behavior analysts, but also across related services personnel like speech therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists. Sometimes when you're in an IEP meeting, everybody thinks that they're the head of the table. Everybody thinks they're the person that's going to get the child to talk first, or do this or do that, and it's like, if the shared buy-in is success of the child, and filling in those learning gaps, and removing barriers so they can have access, unrestricted access to their community and a plausible chance for their future, who cares who does it first? A huge opportunity would just be more collaboration and meeting the learner where they're at, and not focusing on who's the person that's gonna get them to do this first or that first. Recognizing that there's room for all of the professions at the table, otherwise they wouldn't exist.

The values that matter most to me are authenticity, integrity, communication, service, and accountability. I'm literally the exact same person everywhere. Some people, especially Black women, code switch a lot when you go from work to different settings, but for the most part, I am literally the same person everywhere. People always say it's something that should be studied. Authenticity is something I value 100%. I want to make sure that people feel good about an interaction with me, regardless of if it's positive or negative. I never want somebody leaving an interaction with me where they're questioning what I meant about something, or they're unsure about my intentions. Integrity is big time. I'm a person who is of service, and if I'm not adding value to something in a way that's meaningful, that actually fosters positive change or growth, then it's either not a good fit for me, or I'm not doing the right thing. I'm definitely big on accountability. Learning to apologize is a lost art form. Most people have no idea how to apologize. I think our go-to is always to prompt people to say they're sorry, and people become desensitized to the sincerity of what an apology should be. Instead of forcing the apology, why don't we work on keeping our hands to ourselves, and then you apologize when you actually feel bad about it. I'm really big on accountability, holding myself accountable to and for the things that I am passionate about, like friends, family, work, all of those things.