EFR 787: Neurodivergent Disorders and Why Neurodiversity in the Workplace is a Good Thing with Maureen Dunne

0:00:00 - Speaker 1 Really, we're here to kind of understand how we all have minds that work differently.

0:00:08 - Speaker 2 A typology like autism, adhd, dyslexia. There's those are just a few, but there's there's many others as dyspraxia. I think we're at a point in history where we're ready for our paradigm shift and how we look at neurodiversity. Right In the past, there's been so much focus on a deficit perspective that I think that sometimes it's been hard to really see the strengths as well that come along with different types of of neurodiversity. If we think about it in its, in the, in the broadest context, it's really all of humanity right, like, like, so neurodiversity which is different than neurodivergent. I'll explain that. I know there's always different terms.

That can get complicated, but it's it's if you think about it similarly to like biodiversity right. It's just that even within the normal distribution of the ways in which different brains can work that there's a lot of variation. Hi, I'm Maureen Dunn. I am a neurodiversity expert. I've been working in the fields for over two decades. I'm also the author of the neurodiversity edge, and welcome to EverFord radio.

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Hey everyone, welcome back to EverFord Radio. My guest today is Dr Maureen Dunn. She is a globally recognized neurodiversity expert, thought leader and public policy professional. Currently, she serves as a neurodiversity expert for the Lego Foundation's $20 million Play for All Global Accelerator Social Impact Fund targeting neurodiversity inclusion. She is also the co-founder of the first neurodiversity social impact investment association and the CEO of Autism Community Ventures, which is a neurodiversity inclusion consultancy and social impact firm, also author of the new book the Neurodiversity Edge, the essential guide to embracing autism, adhd, dyslexia and other neurological differences. I'll have all of her information linked for you down in the show notes if you want to check out the book, more of her work, or anytime I recommend a book, I always recommend the Audible and in fact you can get a free 30-day trial of my favorite audio book platform. When you head to audibletrialcom slash ever forward, it's free to sign up, you get a 30-day trial, you can cancel at any time and that 30-day trial equates to a credit. So you get a book for free, really, which is worth it to me. I wish I could get a free book a month all the time.

But our conversation today is more than just highlighting the neurodivergent community. It is recognizing how we all think differently. We all view the world differently. We problem solve differently. That's because we all are individuals with individual personalities, individual histories but, more specifically, truly unique and different ways of functioning. We have different brains and Marine is here to help us redefine the landscape of cognitive differences. She's going to be shedding a light on the strengths and advantages of neurological conditions across the board. Our conversation today truly is about stepping into the power, the wonder and the complexity of the human mind. We're going to be challenging deficit perspectives and advocating for an inclusive society that in fact celebrates the diversity of thought.

Marine was in studio with me, so if you want to check out the video, which I always do, you can find us at ever forward radiocom. Or if you're on YouTube and you want to smash that thumbs up button, make sure to subscribe to the channel and support us in some big, big ways. You can just go to YouTube, search ever forward radio. As always, information is linked for you in the show notes under episode resources. You can tap that link and watch the video anytime you want. But overall, my goal for this episode is to help us discover how and why our brains work differently and how to leverage them and that knowledge to help us become better workers, better people in the workplace and relationships in society and to really use that to our advantage. And with that, dr Dunn, welcome to the show.

0:05:53 - Speaker 2 Thank you, it's great to be here.

0:05:55 - Speaker 1 But as I was looking at the book and the work, this concept set out to me. Really, we're here to kind of understand how we all have minds that work differently, would you agree, at the core of neurodiversity. Is that what it's all about, and is that what someone should really be thinking about for the rest of this conversation?

0:06:11 - Speaker 2 Yeah, I think you know part of my motivation writing the book was, I think we're at a point in history. We're ready for a paradigm shift in how we look at neurodiversity, right. So in the past there's been so much focus on a deficit perspective that I think that sometimes it's been hard to really see the strengths as well that come along with different types of neurodiversity. And there's a long history of neurodiversity as a concept started in the late 1990s. There was a sociologist named Judy Singer that coined the term and it was meant to see that all neuro types and that there's all different ways of thinking and cognition and the way in which the brains, our brains work, that's within the normal distribution of neuro types that we could be thinking more along the lines of like biodiversity.

0:07:14 - Speaker 1 Yeah, so that's a phrase that I think by now we're probably familiar with, we have at least heard of, maybe not super knowledgeable on what it is, but is that? What we need to be most cognizant of is that there is a name, there is a definition, a description of different types of thinking, and so if we can better understand those categories, we can then hopefully better understand ourselves.

0:07:41 - Speaker 2 I would put it in different ways. So my background is I'm a cognitive scientist, right. So I've thought a lot about the unconscious cognitive biases that also come into play, and I think we drill it down further than this broader sort of more abstract concept of neurodiversity where you think of, like, okay, there's autism, there's dyslexia, there's ADHD, there's hyperlexia, there's synthesegia. What ends up happening that's, I think, a barrier to what I would call true inclusion and really leveraging the strengths that neurodivergent people have is just is that our brains are wired in a way where we take these cognitive shortcuts.

There's one form of unconscious bias is called the availability bias, and so it's a common thing where the information that we have most available to us, or that are most at the top of our minds, end up sort of coloring our perception of reality. And so sometimes what you see, which I think is a barrier that we should all become more aware of right, because we'd be just functioning better in our businesses and as teams, as individuals is just to be aware of some of the cognitive biases that are there at work that might be preventing an accurate, like, interpretation of reality. And so, for instance, if you find, if you meet someone, you find out they're autistic, right, the mental shortcut parts of our brains that we were wired like automatically will you know. You'll maybe automatically think of, like all the examples of people you've met, you know in your life, or you know examples from movies which tend to be really un-reviewed.

0:09:25 - Speaker 1 Yeah, this is what I'm trying to attach reason to what we just heard. I need to know what this looks like so that I can better respond to it, right?

0:09:32 - Speaker 2 And a lot of the examples like in, you know, especially in the movies and in television and social media have been really on. You know, they haven't been representative. So I think like part of what I'm also trying to do in my book is to combat some of those stereotypes and you probably saw like there's drawings, there's interviews, there's case studies with business leaders, but also neurodiversion people, and trying to show that rich diversity of the ways in which you know that cognitive diversity manifests itself. That it's it's. There's a lot of nuance. That there's all. There's a little overlap.

0:10:08 - Speaker 1 I have to imagine, yeah.

0:10:09 - Speaker 2 And there's overlap with different neurodiversion conditions and like strengths that come along it. So I think part of my goal too is like to try to get people to understand this and really truly appreciate and value neurodiversity.

0:10:23 - Speaker 1 And we define our terms a little bit more clearly and just realize that maybe the person listening isn't quite clear when we say neurodivergent, neurodiversity, sure, what is this? What does it look like?

0:10:35 - Speaker 2 So neurodiversity, if we think about it, and it's in the, in the broadest context, it's really all of humanity, right, like, like. So neurodiversity which is different than neurodivergent. I'll explain that.

0:10:49 - Speaker 1 It's always different terms.

0:10:50 - Speaker 2 that can get complicated, but, but it's. It's, if you think about it similarly to like biodiversity, right, it's just that even within that, the normal distribution of the ways in which different brains can work, that there's a lot of variation, right? So, like you know, if you had a purely deficit based perspective, you would just see two categories. You would see neurotypical, normal, and you know, neurodivergent, dysfunctional. And so when you think about neurodiversity, you're thinking of it as like there's actually this broad spectrum of you know ways in which the brain works and and that's you know, to be expected, right? And so you know, if you think about it as like a human, human population, then there's a term, neurodivergent, which sort of distinguishes people that either have been diagnosed with or identify with you know a typology like autism, adhd, dyslexia there's those are just a few, but there's, there's many others as dyspraxia there's.

What's that dyspraxia is when someone has some challenges in more, like motor, motor coordination, coordination. Okay, there's hyperlexia, what's? That hyperlexia is is where there's usually it's diagnosed in childhood, where there's precocious reading, where there's there's one is reading much, much earlier than would be developmentally typical.

0:12:28 - Speaker 1 It seems like a good thing right.

0:12:32 - Speaker 2 I mean it could be surprising.

I mean actually, and I had, you know, as a child, hyperlexia myself. We could talk about that. But if it's, yeah, I mean it, you know I was reading fluently at age three. You know, for some people it, it, it. Also, again, like you know, the one difference between neurodivergent people and neurotypical people is a lot of neurodivergent people tend to have what we call spiky profiles. So, like there may be, they're less, even you know. So there may be like a lot of gifts, but then there's also, like you know, there may be more challenges to.

So it's just so that's what you know and I don't like to generalize, but that's one of the things. And so people hyperlexia, you know.

0:13:13 - Speaker 1 I mean, yeah, it's good to be reading early and I hate to use the word good and I try not to say good or bad too often, especially when we're talking about things like this. But service level. If somebody or a parent will say, oh, my kid is reading already at three and their peers, it takes them till four or five, you know, maybe Most people wouldn't go oh, I need to get this checked out, like that's, that's, that's something that's not, you know, right, categorically quote normal.

0:13:43 - Speaker 2 I yeah, you know, and there's different. There's three levels of hyperlexia and there's, you know, so there's. There's different versions too, but there's, I think, I guess. I guess with anything that's any atypical, you know, and I challenge, I would challenge that term too, because I just think we're all just people and we all have strengths and challenges, and that's a big part of my books as you read.

But, like you know, there's just we all have unique profiles, like, even like for me, my, my hyperlexia, reading so early, like I still have some challenges with because I mean I like I can, I can read like 10 books a day because I'm doing, I'm doing it differently when, how?

0:14:25 - Speaker 1 10 books a day. I can retain the information.

0:14:29 - Speaker 2 Yeah, but I don't do it with fiction because I'm not sounding out each word, so it's like I'm like bypassing the phonological loop where it's just my eyes, pattern wrecking, abstracting information, and I've done been doing that since I was like three, but the sort of the flip side of that, those I'm getting at. So he says a good thing, like yeah, it helped me, like do my P, she had Oxford and and and it's like there's been a lot of you know do a lot of very, extremely interdisciplinary right.

But at the same time, like if you, you know, occasionally I might mispronounce a word and you and you think I'm dyslexic, but I'm not.

0:15:03 - Speaker 1 I'm hyperlexic, but it's like your brain is going so fast, it kind of skips over.

0:15:07 - Speaker 2 Well, I have such a strong orthographic like because I was reading so much earlier than I was speaking that it's like my brain. You know if I, if I, if I've read something before.

0:15:20 - Speaker 1 I still right there.

0:15:22 - Speaker 2 Yeah, if I read something before I've heard it a word, it's like, it's like that's what sticks in my brain and then, and then I have to kind of like become conscious of oh wait, no, no, that's not how you pronounce that.

0:15:32 - Speaker 1 Wow, interesting, that's so, this is, you know, so for everything, there's, there's you know plus and minuses.

0:15:37 - Speaker 2 I guess yeah.

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I was looking up some information on Google, as one does, and they say that neuro diversity is a popular term that's used to describe the differences in the way people's brains work. The idea is that there's no quote correct way for the brain to work. Instead, there is a wide range of ways that people perceive and respond to the world, and these differences are to be embraced and encouraged. When I read that, it kind of made me just go kind of no duh. Am I alone in thinking that? Oh, of course, everyone's brains work differently. Therefore we're going to learn things differently. We're going to have different strengths and weaknesses. Is this just an old mentality that finally now has a label to it and therefore we are kind of dissecting it more is? Is this not obvious, or?

0:18:58 - Speaker 2 plain information. That, oh yeah, everybody's different. To me it is, but you know, I guess I guess what, where there's real deep work that needs to be done is more in the corporate world, so like and in, you know, so it's more from like an inclusion, diversity, inclusion, kind of aspect.

You know, just, and I just I take a deeper approach of like, just so so you know it shouldn't be obvious, right let's? You know, like here, there's really a lot of value in appreciating, you know, including cognitive diversity, and I could give you some all sorts of really interesting examples. But it's unfortunately like there was a study in 2020, the Institute of Leadership Management, UK, and over 50% of employers openly admitted they would not hire neurodivergent people. So there's still across the board.

0:19:50 - Speaker 1 It wasn't just if they were dyslexic, but anybody the board I mean.

0:19:53 - Speaker 2 This was openly in minutes. You can imagine like the you know the, the truth.

So there's still like and I found this, you know, you know it's, it's it's amazing to me what, just what I've experienced, or I've seen in general, just how deep some of these unconscious biases are, because I just think people need to be, you know, they need to meet more people, right, that sort of shatter some of the stereotypes, or to get over some of these, these biases. But there is a real problem, I think, especially in the employment landscape. So like neurodiversion, people across the board, whether you know, if you, if you include into the mix dyslexia, autism, dyspraxia, adhd, it's, you know, 30 to 40% unemployment rate, right, and then really, the current workforce is 30 to 40.

Yeah, we're talking you know up to 20% of the global population like this is a huge, huge, huge part of our, of our world right and now is that?

0:20:57 - Speaker 1 just kind of a higher statistic, because now we have a name for it and or is this always been the case?

0:21:03 - Speaker 2 It just hasn't been as self identified or identify, yeah, I mean, I think things have actually improved in terms of, like you know, awareness, and it's just that is somehow, even with the progress we've made because I've been doing this a long time and even with the progress that we've made, we there's a lot more like awareness, but somehow that hasn't translated into what I would call what I would call like more authentic inclusion.

And and because that gets into doing deeper work on an organization of like having a culture that actually genuinely appreciates differences and understands, you know, the different kinds of skills that might come along with neurodiversity. And I think there's a lot of work we still, you know, need to do, to do there, because there is still, unfortunately, a lot, of, a lot of these biases and then it also is a lot of well intentioned, intentioned people to, but just the way you know, it's so ingrained, like how we do interview processes, the way in which so many systems work then end up working against a lot of neurodiversity Because they're kind of just made as one cookie cutter model for a day.

0:22:10 - Speaker 1 Whenever we the company are hiring for this position, these are the protocols in which we go about. And it's not really tailored to any kind of diversity, really.

0:22:20 - Speaker 2 Yeah, and what I hope, organizations in you know in my books, broader than just corporations. It's like, really, you know, could these community organizations? It's like, how do we just, you know, become better at authentically including cognitive diversity? And it could be Rotary clubs, it could be schools, it could be corporations. But, yeah, I think there's a, you know, a standard way that things have been done and it hasn't, you know, there hasn't been a lot of rethinking of the consequences of that.

And I think that we're entering this new you know, a new economic climate. Right with the, there's a structural labor shortage. We know, with the integration of AI, with so many changes that are about to happen. At least, the position I'm taking is well, you know, employers in particular should be really really seriously thinking not just about, like, what technology systems they're integrating, but how, you know, how they're thinking about their human resources portfolio, how to attract unique talent. You know we really need some unique problem solvers, but then that also means that you know we need to be more flexible right With how we're thinking about recruiting how, how we're going to attract talent.

That's in. And I think if those, if employers, do make those changes, everybody will perform better, everybody will thrive.

0:23:39 - Speaker 1 Let's role play a little bit here so let's say I am a person and I'm in the neurodivergent category. Maybe it'll be more beneficial. Let's say we get more specific. I have ADHD and I'm in the job market. What are some jobs, types of jobs, categories, career spaces that I might be just out of the gate, better suited for and therefore have a better professional relationship in that experience, and what might be some that in your, your opinion, an ADHD person might really struggle with and might not be the most conducive career field for them?

0:24:19 - Speaker 2 Right, yeah, so it's. It's, that's a really important question. So you know, in my book, so I did interviewed a lot of people throughout the years and it's interesting because I and I document this in the book, like, for instance, there's an ADHD or who's been, you know, in the same position in finance for I don't know, over over a decade, and what made this huge difference for him, for instance, was that he was given the freedom to work from home and design his own work environment.

0:24:54 - Speaker 1 So, like he does the same job. It just went remote.

0:24:57 - Speaker 2 It went well when remote and he and he, like you know, design this, this, this whole workstation in his garage that like really worked for him, where, where he could, you know it's okay if he was hyperactive, you know he could like you know, be be jumping around or singing and you know, and and and.

So his performance skyrocketed after he was given that kind of freedom. And so, like, what was interesting in his example was, like, you know, there was a shift from okay, you need to be in the office every day at your little workstation, from we expect a lot from you, we expect to see results, but we'll, we'll be flexible on how you achieve those results. And so he like designed this workstation that just really worked for him and he's, you know, extremely happy. He's, you know, just just happy. He's been way more productive feels. You know, I know there's like a lot of controversy right about the work from home and yeah, could be the argument made, like anybody could benefit from that as well.

0:25:58 - Speaker 1 You don't need to be neurodivergent to go. Oh well, if I had the opportunity to create an environment, a work environment that I actually enjoy, I would be more productive or enjoy my work more.

0:26:09 - Speaker 2 Sure, yeah, and it's. It's, you know, definitely an ongoing debate, I think. I think one of the differences, though, is that for someone like him it you know, his like he was spending so much time and energy at the office, just what we would, you know, in the neurodiversity community, what we call masking right, like where there's so much sometimes what is this?

0:26:32 - Speaker 1 what is masking?

0:26:32 - Speaker 2 Yes, I'm asking is when an neurodivergent person is spending like extraordinary amounts of time and energy trying to hide their neurodivergent traits, to appear more normal and it's generally speaking it's not in the best. You know, it's not a good thing. It's better if we can all just become more tolerant of people.

0:26:51 - Speaker 1 Anybody suppressing their true nature is not a good thing, especially the more you stuff down who you are and how you operate or how you want to truly and fully live your life. Yeah, you're gonna be hit with so much friction with that.

0:27:03 - Speaker 2 However, I'd also say, like I've met a lot of neurodivergent people where they're really best suited, entrepreneurship too. So I had a feeling.

0:27:12 - Speaker 1 I had a feeling that for me just it's stuck out so much that, oh, if I could be in a position where I have the most flexibility, the most potential. There are literally no parameters on what I need to do, how I need to do it. You need structure, of course. You need to kind of get your ducks in a row.

But, there's no one else. They're really telling me what to do or how to do it. Would you say that neurodivergent people are better suited for entrepreneurship and, overall, in the professional environment, entrepreneurship would suit them majority?

0:27:43 - Speaker 2 talks about how there's there's actually a lot of our most prominent companies run by neurodivergent people, right? So so I think that yeah, there's, there's, there's definitely, and there's research about it, to a connection with entrepreneurship and neurodivergency. I'd also say, though I, on the flip side, I have met people that are neurodivergent, which they would prefer to work for a company and to have a, you know, a more, I guess, stable, you know, work situation, but have not been successful, you know would you say that more category, specific, like under the umbrella of neurodivergent person, but just you know certain diagnosis or just certain.

Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm new to the words you know association and I hate it's hard to generalize just because I've seen like there's some, amazingly, you know, successful, you know you see so many people Silicon Valley have some have autistic traits, right, or Asperger syndrome, like that's. That's obviously an advantage to entrepreneurship, but I've also met autistic people that you know were essentially sidelined, you know, into becoming entrepreneurs and that wasn't their first choice, right?

They just applied for so many jobs in the interview process, or or there's so many things that were working against them where they they just weren't successful, right, and then, you know, ended up being successful as entrepreneurs, but that wouldn't have been their first choice.

0:29:16 - Speaker 1 It was like Richard Branson right, yeah, huge advocate right.

0:29:19 - Speaker 2 And diversity and and this is a lot of successful entrepreneurs the JetBlue flounder ADHD.

0:29:27 - Speaker 1 And a lot of stories behind great entrepreneurs. I hear a lot of dyslexia and a lot of ADD, adhd. Why do you think that is?

0:29:38 - Speaker 2 To become an entrepreneur is. You know there's a lot of risk taking involved. There's you have to be a certain kind of person that has a tolerance. I think right.

0:29:53 - Speaker 1 To settle these. Yeah, that level of risk.

0:29:55 - Speaker 2 And I think I think neurodiversion, you know, for some neurodiversion people it's a natural fit because there may be so much creativity, there might be so much out of the box thinking and it's where they feel that they most naturally fit right.

But what I would also argue and what I say in my book is, like you know, a lot of the large corporations where there, you know, there maybe hasn't been as much effort in becoming more neurodiversion friendly, where there's maybe, like you know, strategies that I did in my opinion haven't been very effective. You know, like they sort of tick the box, let's check the box. You know we have X number of neurodiversion people that are in our company but it's really not. They're not really doing the deeper work of changing their culture. I do think that some of the larger corporations, to be successful in the future that we have ahead of us, that they would maybe even benefit the most to have to go out of their way even to include people that are really thinking differently and I you know, something I worked a lot on is this concept called neurodiversification.

You know, when you look at the larger companies, especially like the, there's such a risk of blind spots in group think. You don't want everyone in that room, whether it's on the board of directors or whether it's the executive team or a product team. You don't want everyone to be cognitively or perceptually or analytically correlated, right?

And so one huge advantage of going out and you know, making sure that you're creating a culture that is neurodiversity friendly is that you there's huge, in my opinion, you know a competitive benefits to corporations that and it's not expensive to do, you know. But to just go to, to make it a priority right and to not just farm out, you know, to some outside firm to say, okay, we, you know we were supporting the neurodivergent people we have. But to go to really look at your own culture right, and to create a culture at the level of DNA, where it's we're embracing, you know there's a true appreciation of embracing differences of all kinds, including neurodiversity, and there's even research about, like how that massively increases innovation, like when there's huge amounts of psychological safety. It's gonna be somehow penalized for, you know, having a different perspective or speaking up, you know, if they see a different path that they think could be better.

And Google even did some studies it's called Project Aristotle where they studied all their teams, and the most successful innovative teams were not the ones that had the most resources. They you know, or even you know what they thought were the most talented employees. They were the ones that had the highest level of psychological safety.

0:32:55 - Speaker 1 Really Wow.

0:32:57 - Speaker 2 And so for and so for this. I think, like even the bigger companies, like putting a priority on this, he's going to be hugely valuable, I think, especially in the future we have in front of us, where you know there's. If you have all these people that are like cognitively correlated, that think similarly, you know there's a huge risk of blind spots, there's a huge risk of missing some important piece of information or, you know, not seeing things from a different angle. And I think, even like all boards of directors, in my opinion, should have someone who's you know, who's just coming at some of these problems from a different angle.

0:33:36 - Speaker 1 It makes me kind of think about change in the world, in our communities, in our world and the world, and you can kind of go either way, you can go. Individuals need to change. They need to stand firm in who they are. They need to know their boundaries, know their truth. They need to know how they should and want to show up in the world to get the change that they want. But also takes that kind of larger scale, macro level of like systems need to change.

Diversity, inclusion needs to be more common, you know. At least larger scale organizations need to be aware of the things so that they can be more inviting for the individual to go. Oh yeah, this is where I belong and, like I can stand firm in who I am and this is a safe space for that. With neurodivergent people, which way do you think really does the scale need to shift in order to maximize the potential here? Is it the person who is, or thinks they are, on the neurodivergent spectrum needs to really educate themselves more on how does my brain work? Why does it work differently? And I need to learn these things about it and develop a level of comfort with that and become more empowered so that I can know where I need to go. Show up in the world, or is it gonna be better suited for these organizations and employers really to go? We need to make ourselves as attractable and safe as possible to bring these people in, to kind of allow that to blossom.

0:35:10 - Speaker 2 Yeah, and I think that both are important, but I think where they're really, in my opinion, needs to be a paradigm shift is where we're thinking about neurodiversity from what I would call like a community perspective, rather than evaluating just individuals and comparing them to like this normal standard of what we've, in our minds, invented as a normal standard of how things are supposed to be done. And one of the examples I've came across and I bring it up briefly in my book which I think is really fascinating is there's some researchers that now believe that there's a minority cohort of bees. So in general, bees are programmed to do what we call the waggle dance right and so they, I know.

So there's this waggle dance, where the significance of it is that it's how the bees communicate throughout their community and their hive, where to find the already known sources of pollen, right. So?

0:36:21 - Speaker 1 it's and they communicate this via a dance. Do it, yeah, that's right. Via the waggle dance.

0:36:25 - Speaker 2 But there's about 20% that just ignore the waggle dance and that go off and seemingly just like randomly fly off and don't look like they're doing anything productive. And so the researchers that were studying this like I guess it was discovered then that 20% actually is responsible for discovering a disproportionate number of new pollen discovery. So, like the 80% that sort of just are programmed and do the waggle dance, they're communicating effectively of where the known sources of pollen are. But there's this other 20% that sort of ignore those instructions and go, fly off, but then they're discovering new sources of pollen and helping the whole community thrive right.

0:37:19 - Speaker 1 Interesting.

0:37:20 - Speaker 2 And so I think it's yeah, I think it's super fascinating because I think it.

You know, I don't directly compare non-waggle dancing bees to neurodivergent people, but I think there's something to be said of like trying to appreciate and value all minds from a community perspective, right Versus, just like let's compare each individual and how they compare to each other and realizing that, you know, there's a lot of value to people who are doing things differently, right, and that, if we look at it from a community perspective, that there's so many contributions that are being made to our society, to our worlds, to our innovations, you know, in appreciating these differences, and yet somehow that isn't quite translating over into the corporate world yet.

And you know, and something I've thought a lot about, like there's just these, you know, weird, you know contradictions that are hard to reconcile, where you know you have, like, a disproportionate number of people on the Nobel Prize winners list, right, that are neurodivergent. Yet you know massive under-employment or unemployment, right, if you know me, I'm talking about 30 to 40% of the neurodivergent population. If you look at autistic people alone, like some of the figures that have been out there could be as high as 85%, which is, you know, yeah, crazy 85% homeless.

Not, no, just unemployed, unemployed, oh, excuse me, okay, unemployed, but people with you know many people with skills that you know, so there's this huge disproportionality between the potential to contribute people that are amazing problem solvers, but you know, because of a lot of these, lots of reasons, you know the biases, the way hiring works are unable to be participants in our economy.

Yeah still a huge percentage like are you know? Contributing to a lot of our innovation. So it's you know. And then the suicide risk list too. So it's like it's hard reconcile. It's a disproportionate number of like especially autistic females are, like nine, at least nine times more likely to commit suicide. So there's like it's hard to you know reconcile all of these, you know outlier lists.

0:39:48 - Speaker 1 Why do you think that is? Why do you think that the overall mental health of neurodivergent people is lower than, less than, or they have more struggles with mental health? Is it a matter of internally, biochemically, physiologically? There are just more challenges that are not enabling them to maybe kind of be more baseline than non neurodivergent people? Or is it just they struggle so much more because they struggle to find their place in society, struggle to find their place in employment and of course that's gonna add poor mental health to anybody.

0:40:29 - Speaker 2 Yeah, I think you know that. I mean a sense of belonging is so important, right, and it's really hard, I think, for some people to find their tribe and the from. There's a lot of research about like some of the highest risk categories are autistic females that have above average intelligence and, from what I understand, in the neurotypical population, like higher IQ actually is like protective of suicide risk, but in the autistic population I think there's like, if you become increasingly aware that you're different and you don't fit in and you don't really know where you fit in, right it's, that's a huge risk.

And so one of the things that's been really good, I think, about the neurodiversity movement is there's just it's a global community and you know, we've all kind of found each other online, so, like there is, there is that sense, that sense of a community, and identity. I actually think has been really powerful.

0:41:35 - Speaker 1 Now, if I'm someone who struggles day to day, you know I'm like just how I operate or how I want to operate. It's just different. I feel like I'm just working uphill all the time. My brain doesn't work this way. You know, I don't do well with standardized testing, I don't do well with standardized this that if I feel this sense of struggle to the typical work environment, the typical way of you know living, does that mean I'm neurodivergent or am I just different?

0:42:03 - Speaker 2 Well, I, and I think I go back to this that, like, I think it's important to recognize, like six, I think sometimes neurodivergent people get branded as like a level of otherness than you know beyond. I mean, we're all still human beings, right, and everybody's got challenges and weaknesses, some more than others. And I think but I think it's you know some people want to seek out a diagnosis, to learn more about you know themselves, and other people feel like they, you know, have collected enough evidence, whether it was historical or whatever that they're clear they know that, you know they can go seek out a diagnosis, but it's in their minds anyway clear that they fit that you know that community and become part of the community, which I think is also protective right from a social standpoint.

But I think, I think finding your sort of tribe right is ends up being like super important yeah.

0:43:06 - Speaker 1 Is there benefit, is there an upside to seeking medical attention and getting a clear diagnosis, or not getting cleared of it or getting diagnosed?

0:43:16 - Speaker 2 Yeah, I think so. I mean you know everybody's, you know, has their own, whatever goals and it depends where they're at in life. But I think that for many people getting an official diagnosis is sort of like official confirmation and really kind of helps.

And ideally like steps forward, to live with it and to navigate it and to understand and to explain, you know, and there's this part of my book too where I talk about what it feels like when you realize you're neurodivergent. And it's for some people anyway, it's like the equivalent of like, where everything that they understood about themselves up to that point gets sort of like reframed in a way that makes sense, right.

And it's like this is huge epiphany, and so for a lot of people, it's hugely important. Just, you know, validation of like okay, they weren't just I don't know lazy or but like they're suddenly like the data points were always the same, but they now suddenly see themselves through this lens. That makes sense. You know that where there's a more elegant order to their lives, and then there's this, you know they become part of this huge community that they could, you know, develop friendships with and identify with, and so I do think it's helpful. But I also think that you know there are certain percentage of people that have always known that they're different and are at a point where they don't necessarily seek out an official diagnosis.

But I think you know so. I think it depends on the situation, but for some people it's really helpful because then they could seek out support. You know that maybe they haven't been getting right and that could make a difference.

0:45:15 - Speaker 1 No, let's kind of go on the other side, on the employer side of the coin or even just coworker. You know, we are someone who is working with or is hiring, is supervising, managing, leading someone with neurodivergence. What are some general things that we can do to make that working dynamic better, to maximize the potential and our role in theirs? And you know, hopefully you know, a rising tide raises all ships right.

0:45:44 - Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely so, something I've been working on and I called the pyramid of neuro inclusion and the reason I built, you know, it's based on years of research, but it's, I think, you know, regardless of your position, right, you could be the CEO, you could be a manager, but you could also just be an ally right in the company, and I think it's important to be aware that one of the you know, I would say like one of, if not the most important thing is to make sure there's a culture of psychological safety and that you know there's like zero tolerance for bullying and for allowing.

You know, behind the scenes, right, you know people making fun of someone, sometimes someone doesn't even have a diagnosis, but like there's, you know, neurodivergent traits, right, you know someone that might be what we call stimming or just doing thing, just doing thing, just doing thing, just doing thing, just doing thing, just doing thing, just doing thing, just doing thing, just doing thing, just doing thing, just doing thing, just doing thing, just doing thing, just doing thing, just doing thing, just doing thing, just doing thing, just doing thing, just doing thing, just doing thing, just doing thing, just doing thing, just doing thing. There are sensory sensitivities or auditory sensitivities, or you know, on the surface they're making progress in some of these policies, but then under, under the surfacer's, like you know, people are turning a blind eye, right, if there's like bullying and just gaslighting, and you know, the, the, the, the neurodiversion, person's always the scapegoat for whatever's going wrong.

0:47:45 - Speaker 1 And and so.

0:47:46 - Speaker 2 I think I think it's important to speak up and not allow that kind of a tux toxic culture you know to to manifest right.

And so that's why I I, I, you know in in thinking through a framework, I created it, it made it as a pyramid, right, where, where it's like you know, there's all these elements that are super important to create and culture that's not just going to benefit neurodiversion people, but where everybody's going to be most productive and thrive. But, like, at the bedrock I put psychological safety and, like you know, honest, transparent communication, because I think that level of trust in psychological safety, that's that's where you know you're going to get the most innovation, that's where you're going to get the most out of these people that have unique talents. Right, because it's it's if people are spending, you know, half their energy just trying to fit in or hide who they are right.

0:48:40 - Speaker 1 Yeah, you know you're not going to get the benefit of all the amazing skills and just performing at, you know, 50% Correct. Maybe more, maybe less, really.

0:48:49 - Speaker 2 Right, right, where we could all just be. You know, we actually, we actually genuinely appreciated and understood the value of cognitive diversity, we could all just solve some real problems, right.

0:48:59 - Speaker 1 Really, yeah, let's get to that. I I found in your work you're talking about how really the future of the workplace, the future, is neurodivergent. Is this true? Is this really true? Or are there just more people now aware of this that are labeled with it out there in the public eye and in public workforce? What unique value do these types of thinkers bring to the workplace, if we really believe and choose to go? Yes, this is the future.

0:49:28 - Speaker 2 How can?

0:49:29 - Speaker 1 we all get on board, and you know what is that? That inherent value?

0:49:31 - Speaker 2 Right, yeah, yeah, and and I've, I think, you know, it's such an interesting time that we're at right in history because, like this is sort of unprecedented, where Sort of like, maybe the first time in history where cognitive work, right, it's going to be taken over by machines, by AI. So it's like it's it's a it's a super uncertain and and and interesting time and I think, um, I think it's it's, you know, particularly it's an it's in time in history where cognitive diversity and thinking along what I you know of Complementarity of skill sets, how neurotropical people and neurodivergent people can work Alongside machines and that's, I think, where companies are going to be the most competitive, and and understanding you know some of the strengths that could go along with different types of neurodivergent cognition, I think is a huge asset for companies.

I think that there's been so much focus on like, okay, how do we prepare for this next paradigm?

How do we make sure we're integrating, you know, ai and technology appropriately, and and I think there's been a tendency to not Put enough focus on the human resources side of this, and that that, you know, inevitably Overlaps with unique talent and cognitive diversity.

And you know, and how do people with unique skills in different ways of thinking can work alongside to? You know, neurotypical people and and and and machines, and and you know, without General over generalizing, you know, I do think there's uh evidence for a lot of of unique, um skill sets that are overlapping with, like, creativity, out of the box thinking, nonlinear thinking, lateral thinking, and you know, um, the more you know, as a cognitive scientist, I've studied a lot of, like the current AI systems as well, and and there's as as uh Amazing, as you know, the direction things are going in. It's actually, you know, there's a lot of impressive things happening, but I think there's some limitations. So I've kind of started to focus on, like, where are the constraints of the current AI paradigm? You know, right, and? And one of the areas I identified is in the domain of um, nonlinear thinking and these sort of like intuitive leaps of logic.

0:51:59 - Speaker 1 Right, because most of the you know you're saying AI doesn't include this.

0:52:02 - Speaker 2 Right, like chat gtp, like it's. It's. You know, there's some extraordinary things that I, you know it's able to do, but it's still based on sort of mashups of existing Material.

0:52:15 - Speaker 1 It's just a bunch of if then, if then, if then. Basically right, right.

0:52:19 - Speaker 2 Yeah, you know, sort of like you know. So it's gonna, it's gonna be able to um, uh, you know, build uh linear, um Uh progressions of, of, of thinking and problem solving faster than most human beings.

But it's not going to make connections necessarily between like you know different, different domains of material that are less or, or you know the types of of uh human experiences we might have. Or you know you connect to uh an experience of of a scent of flowers at a friends funeral to you know Uh some other experience you had a botanical garden and then it you know just just just all these. All these sort of more nonlinear, intuitive leaps of logic I think is outside of that map.

And I think, and I think that that's where I think humans have, um a really unique place to Uh be innovating, right, and I think, um, I think there's a special place too for neurodivergence, especially neurodivergence, especially people that are naturally inclined, uh, towards the sort of lateral thinking, nonlinear thinking, and at the same time, I think that we could learn a lot from each other. So I think, you know, neurodivergent people could um learn a lot from from uh, uh, you know, I think neurodiversion, neuro neurotypical people could learn a lot from each other, right, so like, absolutely, if you think back to, like you mentioned a mind maps, right, there's a lot of people that are, uh, don't, their brains don't naturally think that way.

But still like, just you know, being exposed to mind maps Maybe help them get outside of their comfort zone. You know, think a little bit differently just to see other possibilities.

Yeah, looking and that's you know, we let you know. Maybe you know, turn, turn take a problem and you know, uh, Look at it from a different angle, you know, and so, and then the people that you know mer, that are neurodiversion, that maybe naturally have uh, uh, you know, that's their natural way of thinking I, I guess I would fit that category. I still benefit from, like you know, learning from more neuro typical people that are more, you know, linear and structured, and so I think there's a lot we could learn from each other and I think the paradigm we're entering in the future is like it's you know I still go back to, like the ideal situation is, if we can, um, make sure we're including in the equation Cognitive diversity right, so we're all complimenting each other.

We've so many problems to solve and, you know, an AI is part of that equation, but it's also like the different kinds of human talent and Um, you know, that's gonna really, I think, help us solve the our biggest problems.

0:55:00 - Speaker 1 I'm. Hopefully, thanks to people like yourself and your work, this will begin to change, and all this information Every episode, all the information in every conversation is is meant to help people understand where they're at and their surroundings and how to maximize potential and how to just move forward in a unique area of their life. So my last question for you, marine, is ever forward. When you hear those two words, what does that mean to you?

0:55:25 - Speaker 2 Yeah, if we, if, if I, I guess for me ever forward would be, um, that people, that especially employers, um and allies, really, uh, take the time to you know, understand the rich diversity of that comes along with cognitive diversity, and and truly appreciated and find new systems of Helping everyone feel like they can belong.

0:55:56 - Speaker 1 No right or wrong answer. I'll take everyone. Thank you so much. Where can my audience go to connect with you and learn more about your work, your book?

0:56:03 - Speaker 2 Sure, yeah, um, so I'm. I can find me on linkedin, um, and also my the my book. Uh, there's, uh, I have a website, um, if you want to learn more about my book, which is www.

0:56:17 - Speaker 1 Uh, the neurodiversity edge, that org all linked down on the show notes video notes for you guys. I got that linked for you, no problem. Um, this was very interesting and, uh, eye-opening for me in a lot of different ways, so thank you for sitting with me and helping me understand neurodiversity even more. Like I said, this is a totally new topic for me in the show, uh, and I'm here to keep learning more, that's what I know.

0:56:39 - Speaker 2 Thank you, my aspect is all about it. I really, really enjoyed this and this is a great conversation, my pleasure, my pleasure, thank you.

0:56:43 - Speaker 1 Thank you For more information on everything you just heard. Make sure to check this episode, show notes or head to everforward radio dot com.