Truth, Lies & Work

Episode 41 · 31 May 2023 · 1:21:56

Neurodiversity 101: How to Create Thriving Workplaces For All Minds

Neurodiversity 101: How to Create Thriving Workplaces For All Minds

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  1. What is neurodiversity, actually?

    panel interview#neurodiversity#definition

  2. Is neurodiversity a disability?

    panel interview#neurodiversity#disability#inclusion

  3. Why ADHD is 'trending' — and why that's not a bad thing

    panel interview#adhd#trending#awareness

  4. How do you get diagnosed? The gender health gap and late diagnosis

    panel interview#diagnosis#gender#health gap#late diagnosis

  5. The grief of late diagnosis and the stigma families face

    panel interview#late diagnosis#grief#stigma#family

  6. What language should I use? Why 'superpower' language can be harmful

    panel interview#language#superpower#harmful#terminology

  7. The business case for neurodiversity

    panel interview#business case#neurodiversity#workplace

  8. How do you support neurodivergent employees?

    panel interview#support#employees#neurodivergent#accommodations

  9. Should you disclose to your employer? The data on disclosure

    panel interview#disclosure#employer#data#neurodiversity

  10. Top takeaways and wrap-up

    panel interview#takeaways#summary#wrap-up

Show notes

Neurodiversity 101: How to Create Thriving Workplaces For All Minds

Truth, Lies & Work — Al Elliott and Leanne Elliott (Chartered Occupational Psychologist) answer the questions you're afraid to ask about neurodiversity at work. With expert insight from Professor Nancy Doyle, Jan Stewart, and Kristen Carder, they unpack what neurodiversity actually means, why disclosure is complicated, and how to build workplaces where every mind can thrive.

🧠 What We Learned

1. Neurodiversity is broader than you think. 1 in 5 people are neurodivergent. That includes ADHD, autism, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, and Tourette syndrome. These are neurological differences, not mental illnesses — and they cross every boundary of race, religion, culture, and sexual orientation.

2. "Superpower" language can do more harm than good. Kristen is careful not to call ADHD a superpower. It can feel invalidating to people who are genuinely struggling. The truth is more nuanced: some traits are strengths in the right environment, and some are genuinely, painfully difficult. Both things can be true.

3. Disclosure is deeply personal — and the data is sobering. A 2019 Ipsos survey found that 75% of employees with mental health conditions don't disclose at work. The decision to disclose is complicated, and a huge amount of responsibility falls on the neurodivergent person. The goal should be making workplaces safe enough that disclosure doesn't feel like a risk.

💡 For Leaders

  • Get curious, not defensive. The best approach to supporting neurodivergent employees is simple: ask how you can help, and mean it.
  • Accommodations don't have to be grand. Jan's son Andrew got fixed hours, a job coach, and a team that understood his needs. Small, consistent adjustments create huge wins.
  • Career enhancement ≠ career advancement. Not every neurodivergent employee wants the same trajectory. Andrew's employer focuses on enhancing his current role rather than pushing him toward promotion — and he's thriving.

📚 Resources Mentioned

Professor Nancy Doyle

Jan Stewart

Kristen Carder

More from Truth, Lies & Work:

Connect With Us

Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect

Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14

Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.

Full transcript

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Al ElliottThe dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform. Every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.
JanNice.
Al ElliottCheck out hopspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.
NancyThere is no point hiring people until you've got your shipshape. Otherwise, you're going to hire them and they're going to fail and it's going to be awful and you're going to feel bad and so are they.
Leanne ElliottHello, and welcome to the Truth, Lies and Workplace Culture podcast, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne, I'm a business psychologist.
Al ElliottMy name is Al, I'm a business owner.
Leanne ElliottAnd we are here to help you simplify the science of people and create amazing workplace cultures.
Al ElliottWe have got a jam-packed episode for you today because we're talking all about neurodiversity. It's not something that is It's not a simple subject, is it, Leah?
Leanne ElliottIt's not, and if I'm being honest, not an area of my expertise when it comes to psychology, which is why we have engaged some awesome guests. So we are talking about neurodiversity and asking and answering the questions you might have as a leader, and perhaps some that you're afraid to ask.
Al ElliottYeah, I think the biggest issue for most business owners and possibly leaders is they feel they should know what to say and what not to say. But they don't. And I had this problem when I was doing, when I was doing some of the interviews here, then I was, I was asking the people, asking my guests, like, how do I, how do I describe this thing? Is it offensive by me using this particular word, which we'll come on to in a minute? And then how do I describe, you know, am I doing it right? Because it's, it's a minefield, isn't it?
Leanne ElliottIt is. It really is. So yes, to do this, we definitely need, we need some experts and we have them.
Al ElliottNow, before we meet our guests, just take a moment. We take 90 seconds to tell you about another podcast on the network that we're really enjoying right now.
Leanne ElliottThe first I am very excited to welcome to the podcast, her name is Professor Nancy Doyle. She is a professor of organizational psychology specializing in neurodiversity at work. She was also named one of the world's most inspirational D&I leaders in 2022. Nancy is also the founder of Genius Within, a neurodivergent-owned and led business with a mission to help neurodistinct individuals access their inner genius and be at their best at work. She's also co-director for the Center of Neurodiversity at Work, non-executive director of Project 507, and above all, a proud ADHDer. Let's meet Nancy.
NancyUm, so I'm Nancy Doyle. I am a fully paid-up member of the ADHD massive, um, and somehow managed to get a bit of hyperfocus on the old psychology and disability inclusion in the workplace that has, believe it or not, lasted 25 years. I I run Genius Within, which is a social enterprise, a nonprofit organization which is employee-owned. We are staffed by 68% neurodivergent and/or disabled people, and we provide neurodiversity support for individuals no matter where they are in their careers. So we work in prisons, we work with people who are long-term unemployed, and we work with, you know, FTSE 100 companies and, and executives. We also work with those companies to create inclusion policies and inclusion strategy and provide training things like that. I also co-founded a research centre with my longtime academic collaborator, Professor Almut McDowell, and we together run the Centre for Neurodiversity Research at Work, which is based at Birkbeck College in the University of London.
Al ElliottOur second guest is Jan Stewart. Now, Jan's a highly regarded mental health governance expert and advocate. She's the author of an amazing book called Hold On Tight: A Parent's Journey Raising Children with Mental Illness. She's chair of the board at Kerry's Place Autism Services, which is Canada's largest autism services provider. And she previously served as vice chair at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, among many other roles. Let's go meet Jan.
JanI have 2 kids, as Al mentioned, and it's been quite a journey. My children have— my son has autism, Tourette syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, ADHD, and learning disabilities. And his younger sister Ainsley has Also Tourette syndrome, ADHD, and learning disabilities, along with severe mood and anxiety disorders.
KristenThey're grown now.
JanThey're in their 30s and they're both working, but it's been, as I said, quite a journey.
Leanne ElliottAnd finally, I'd love to welcome to the podcast Kristin Carter. Kristin is a mindset coach for people with ADHD and host of the I Have ADHD podcast. Kristin's extensive experience supporting people with ADHD began in 2012, and since then she's provided coaching and consulting to thousands of ADHD adults. Kristen's life's purpose is to help adults with ADHD accept themselves and move from point A to B. Here's Kristen.
KristenMy name is Kristen. I have ADHD and I support adults with ADHD. And I do that through my podcast. It's the I Have ADHD podcast. And I also have a large group coaching program where I support adults with ADHD all over the world. It is really the joy of my life to be able to get to know people with ADHD and help them to reach their potential and succeed.
Al ElliottOkay, at this stage, regular listeners will know that it's usually our news roundup, but we just don't have time.
Leanne ElliottWe don't. We simply do not have time.
Al ElliottThere is so much here. Imagine trying to get 3 amazing experts and trying to just condense everything down into the time slot we have allocated. So, word of the week and the news roundup will have to wait until next week. Sorry about that, guys. I feel like we need like a sad sound. So let's get straight into the meat and potatoes. Leanne has done all the work for you. She's researched the top asked questions around all of this, and our experts have answered them for you. So hold on tight, we're about to answer all your questions about neurodiversity. Let's just start with the basics, and by that I mean probably the question that most of us are too afraid to ask: what is neurodiversity? Here's Nancy.
NancySo neurodiversity is the broad concept that, um, humans are as diverse in the way we think as we are in the way our faces look or our fingerprints. We are kind of all unique and distinct, um, and that kind of diversity in our, in our neurotype, in the way that we think, is, is natural. It's an evolutionary advantage. It means that we have specialists as well as generalists in a community. You know, some people that are really good at some things, some people that are quite good at most things, some people that, you know, that diversity of what people are capable of is an evolutionary advantage in a community. So this is the kind of baseline understanding as argued by Judy Singer, the Australian sociologist who published her thesis about neurodiversity in 1998.
Leanne ElliottLike many topics when it comes to diversity and inclusion, Gen Z and millennials have started this conversation publicly on TikTok, on Facebook, on Instagram, and all the socials. They are embracing it, much like— I think there's— is it a TikToker, Al, called Paige Lael?
Al ElliottYes, she's got about 2 million followers, um, and her entire account is all about neurodiversity.
Leanne ElliottIt is, it's cool. We'll leave a link in the show notes. But if you're wondering kind of how common it is, the, the typical stat is that 1 in 5 people are neurodivergent, and there are plenty of famous people who are proud to be neurodivergent. Here's Jan to explain more.
JanAbsolutely. Lots of examples of people that are highly successful with mental health disorders. I mean, very famous celebrities, Howie Mandel, Billie Eilish, David Beckham, the soccer player. There are, you know, Catherine Zeta-Jones. There are a number of them that have different mental health disorders, and the list goes on.
Leanne ElliottSo we know that 1 in 5 people are neurodivergent. But what are examples of neurodiversity? Is neurodiversity just autism? What are the most common types of neurodiversity? The most common type of neurodiversity is dyslexia, and that occurs worldwide regardless of culture or language and affects about 9 to 12% of the population. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, is also common, affecting between 4 and 5% of the population. You may also have heard of ADD, attention deficit disorder. So I asked Kristin, is there a difference?
KristenPsychologists have come to a consensus where now we just call it ADHD. It's kind of an umbrella term, and then there's 3 different presentations. So there's hyperactive presentation, there's inattentive presentation, and there's combined presentation. It's all called ADHD now, and so people will kind of distinguish between hyperactive, inattentive, and combined type.
Al ElliottNow autism is also common amongst the neurodivergents. A further, like, 1 or 2% of people have what's called an autism spectrum disorder. Together, these 3 syndromes constitute around 70% of all neurodevelopmental disorder diagnoses. Goodness, that's difficult to say. Luckily, here's Jan to explain a little bit more about autism.
JanYou have to first understand what autism is. You know, it's a complex developmental disability. It's not considered a mental illness. It's a neurological disorder that affects the functioning of the brain. The brain happens to function differently. And what you must understand as an employer is that hiring or meeting one person with autism is meeting one person with autism. It's a lifelong disorder, but symptoms range from mild to severe, and they change across individuals and even within the same individual. And they cross all boundaries: race, religion, ethnicities, cultures, sexual orientation. You know, it goes on. So what you generally see with people who have, again, what used to be called high-functioning autism, are social communication and some difficulties and some repetitive restrictive behaviors.
Leanne ElliottOther types of neurodiversity can include dyspraxia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, and Tourette syndrome. So now we have an idea of what neurodiversity is. How is neurodiversity classed?
Al ElliottOkay, so this is the first of many questions that I'm going to categorize as, can I ask this question? So is neurodiversity the same as a mental health disorder? Jan's children are complex cases, so she's highly qualified to answer this.
JanSo when I say that my children have severe complex mental health disorders, you know, not everyone has the complexity that's involved here. But my son with his Tourette syndrome, when he was 9, he suddenly burst forth out of nowhere with 2-hour terrifying, frightening screaming rages almost every day for 9 months until we found a wonderful new developmental pediatrician who prescribed the right medication and those stopped those rages in their track. But that's commonly associated with Tourette. He then started nonstop compulsive rituals associated with his obsessive compulsive disorder, his OCD. He couldn't walk through a door, for example, without slowly counting to 14 because his brain told him that unless he did, his sister would be kidnapped. And they escalated. He started rubbing his head against poles. He got down on the filthy subway floor and licked it, and it went from there. He knew the rituals made no sense. These are hallmarks of OCD. And unfortunately, the rituals only temporarily relieve those terribly disturbing thoughts that drive them. You know, that his sister would be kidnapped, that we would be hurt, that he would fall through a drainpipe was one of his big ones. But the brain overrides reason in this disorder and forces the individual into this endless loop of repetitive rituals. With those came a lot of impulsivity, distractibility. Both children had that. Tics, learning disabilities. My daughter Totally on the other end. Much easier as a baby and toddler. And we thought, great, we only have one. But no, we were lucky. We have 2. She got to school and started shouting out, jumping on desks, running around, totally disturbing the class, was constantly sent to the principal's office. And I was so drained by those everyday calls. And then came paralyzing anxiety. Both generalized anxiety and social anxiety, and she still battles that today. Also tics and learning disabilities and the inability to read social cues. So she gradually lost every friend she had in the neighborhood. This is a lot to do with ADHD and what's called executive function, which is the— if you think of it as the conductor of the symphony in the brain that lets you complete tasks, time management. Organized. I'm simplifying, but she struggles with those today too.
Leanne ElliottNow there is some variance here when it comes to classifying neurodiversity and mental health conditions, and this is one of those cases of, of psychologists not being quite able to agree, or it depends. So some argue that neurodivergence in and of itself is not considered a medical or mental health diagnosis. Rather, it describes someone whose brain works or develops in a different way. than the brain of a neurotypical person. But for some, having neurodivergent traits may create challenges, especially when navigating settings where there are social expectations, and these differences can lead to or be associated with difficulties including mental illness. So for example, nearly 3 in 10 children diagnosed with ADHD have an anxiety disorder. Autism has also been associated with high rates of anxiety, as well as eating disorders, Mood disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, personality disorders, schizophrenia, and substance misuse. Genius Within, which was founded by Professor Nancy, however, also recognized that any neurocognitive profile that is not neurotypical could be included as a minority group, which might include intellectual disabilities, mental health conditions, acquired brain injury, or more. Other common questions about the nature of neurodiversity include intelligence Is neurodiversity a learning difficulty, or are neurodivergents smarter? This is where it can get a bit confusing. So neurodiversity is a term that applies to all those with neurological difference. Specific learning difficulties is an umbrella term for dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, and ADHD. But specific learning disabilities appear across all ranges of ability and with varying severity, so it may be more useful to use to think in terms of learning differences or the different way information is processed and learned, as having a specific learning disability does not mean that children, young people, or adults cannot achieve and succeed in learning. Kristen also highlighted that the link between ADHD and intelligence is a common misconception.
KristenI think another misconception is that ADHD is connected to intelligence, and it is absolutely not. It has nothing to do with intelligence. Intelligence is completely separate from ADHD. And, you know, across the spectrum of people who have ADHD, you're gonna find people with extremely high intelligence and then also people who are lower on the intelligence level and have learning disabilities. It has nothing to do with intelligence. There's a lot of diversity in intelligence in the ADHD community.
Al ElliottQuestion number 2 of Can I ask this question? Am I going to look weird? Is neurodiversity actually a disability then?
Leanne ElliottYou can ask that question. And again, the answer isn't straightforward. Yes and no. So I guess the thing is, it's important for employers to understand that an employee's neurodiversity could qualify as a disability under the Equality Act of 2010. That's in the UK. However, not all neurodivergent employees will consider themselves to have a disability. So under law, employees have the right to identify as having a disability or the right not to identify as having a disability. But the legal definition of disability under the Equality Act means that neurodivergent workers are likely to meet the conditions.
Al ElliottSo I think we've covered there a little bit about how it's classed. How do neurodivergent people think? Like, we know that being neurodiverse isn't linked necessarily to intelligence, like, you know, as the famous one, like the rainbow Man and all that kind of films. But it is diff— it is linked very much to thinking differently and learning differently. So 2 of the most common questions that are asked seem to be: one, what skills do neurodivergent people have that, that neurotypical people might not? And what are neurodivergent people good at? We asked Nancy.
NancyWe have this concept in neurodiversity of the spiky profile. So if you think about people's abilities, most people have an IQ of 100. And most people— an IQ isn't one thing, it's made up of verbal skills, visual skills, how quickly you process information, how well your memory works and your attention. And so you've got these kind of different areas, and most people, when you plot their abilities on a, on a graph, um, all of the areas will be more or less 100. They'll be somewhere between 85 and 115, and 67% of the human population will score between 85 and 115 for all areas of IQ. And then you've got your neurodivergence. And what we will do is have some of our scores at 140, but then another thing will be sort of down at 75. So we've got these big spikes between our strengths and weaknesses. And what we've got into is the autistic spike, which is the people that are really, really good at fine detail processing. And we've kind of maxed out on that. But my neurodiversity strength, uh, the one that I have the highest IQ point, is visual spatial reasoning. It's abstract reasoning, which makes me a good problem solver. I see gaps, I see risks, I see problems, and I see gaps way before anybody else does. And this is even true in my company, you know, I'm going, oh, it's a bit problematic, I'm a bit worried about that number there, I think that's going to be an issue. And then 3 months later it turns into an issue and everyone goes, oh, why didn't we listen to Nancy 3 months ago?
Leanne ElliottThe SPIKEY profile is the perfect way to think about neurodiversity. Nancy has ADHD, but as we know, this is just one type of neurodiversity. She went on to highlight the different and often complementary strengths offered by other neurominorities.
NancyJacqui is our CEO now. I gave her the CEO role and, and took myself out of it because I'm too inconsistent for a medium-sized company, um, but she is very consistent. She's dyslexic and dyspraxic, so she has a completely different skill set to me. She has has a much more even span of attention, a much more even kind of energy level. She doesn't have the peaks and troughs in energy, um, and she's a great storyteller, and she's really visually competent, but she doesn't have my abstract reasoning and my kind of, um, massive hole spotting, big risk spotting thing. And then we have Fiona. She's our token neurotypical, and, um, she, um, she has the very, very consistent calm thing well, and she's a slow thinker. So Jackie and I think quite quickly, and we sort of spar off each other and chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat. And then Fiona will come back to us 3 days later and go, you know that thing that you two were chatting about 3 days ago? What I was thinking is this. And we all go, oh, never thought of that. So it's about having different thinking skills and working together.
Leanne ElliottSo if we think back to the spiky profiles Nancy explained, With the peaks come the troughs. So what challenges do people with neurodiversity face? Some tasks come easily, others are more difficult. Kristin explains how this can manifest for people with ADHD.
KristenSomebody who is hyperactive is going to have a lot of trouble regulating their body. So it's not just their attention that they're struggling to regulate, they're also struggling to regulate their body. You might see them as a child, which is what most of us think of when we think of ADHD. We think of a little white boy in a classroom. That's mostly the picture that we have. And so that child might be bouncing off the walls, throwing, you know, things around the classroom and just kind of being a disruption. But as an adult, that can look like really impulsive decisions, really fast driving, kind of switching jobs a lot, lots of leg bouncing, lots of Kind of word vomiting, excuse the term, like lots and lots of talking, interrupting, that kind of a thing. A lot of inattentive types kind of fall through the cracks because they're not disruptive. They're going to be internally distracted and spacey, kind of daydreaming, maybe looking out the window and not quite present in the moment. And they still struggle to regulate their body, but it's more like, I struggle to regulate my emotions, I struggle to regulate, um, my exhaustion levels, and I, I really struggle to, um, get myself to do the things. This is classic for all types of ADHD. I, I struggle to get myself to do the right thing at the right time.
Al ElliottRight. Okay, so this is the point where potentially I get canceled because I'm gonna ask, is neurodiversity just a buzzword? Now obviously this isn't my personal question, but I have noticed that a lot of people ask these kind of questions, um, is that they, they feel that neurodiversity is almost like a badge of honor these days. Now I totally get that it shouldn't be a shameful thing anymore. We were having this conversation, which is fantastic, so everyone's starting to learn more about it. But do you remember those kids who used to wear fake weird glasses? You know, they've got no lenses in the glass, they're just glass. just to look cool. So some people feel that people are saying they're neurodivergent just to be cool. Is it some kind of trend? Obviously, this isn't necessarily our opinion, but this is what people are saying. We asked Nancy, when did neurodiversity become a thing?
NancyWe have all these kind of variant neurotypes that have been swimming around for about 150 years, where people who are essentially people people who are unusual in the way they think get categorized and labeled and find it hard to participate in mainstream education and mainstream society for one reason or another. So in mainstream education— let's take education because that's a universally known experience— so if you think about the modern classroom since then, since the Industrial Revolution, in order to succeed you have to survive the classroom, and that involves sitting still for 8 hours a day 6 to 8 hours a day. It involves being literate, being numerate, doing fine motor control handwriting, and socializing in a large group. So if you think about that context, anyone who can't do that got a label, basically, around the Industrial Revolution. But prior to the Industrial Revolution, there was no need to do those things. So if you think about reading and writing, it's a weird skill, 2D sequential code, and we're gonna do all our communication like that. After evolving for hundreds of thousands of years to communicate through song, through movement, through eye contact or not eye contact and just voice. And, you know, so all of these kind of flexibilities went out the window and all of a sudden we have to read and write.
Al ElliottNow, Kristin acknowledged that yes, ADHD and other neurodiverse concepts are trending right now, but actually this is long overdue.
KristenI understand that ADHD is trending right now, but it hasn't been. This is new, right? And so adults with ADHD have been underserved for decades. I mean, hundreds of years if we're being honest, but decades. And so I really had just this burning desire to help a community of people who I really felt were not being helped. When I were to Google an ADHD coach, At the time, nothing would come up, you know, and I would go on different websites and look, and I'd just be like, this is too hard. It shouldn't be this hard for someone with ADHD to find help. And so I just felt like I was called to fill that gap.
Leanne ElliottMy feel is that people are reclaiming these terms that once had negative connotations, and as awareness improves, we're actually just seeing more people be diagnosed. So Nancy agrees that efforts to raise awareness around neurodiversity has been happening for decades, and while there has been a few breakthroughs, there is still a long way to go in ensuring all variations of human cognition are accepted and enabled.
Nancy20 years ago, I was kicking people's doors down to get them to talk about neurodiversity. They were like, anyway, um, they just weren't interested. And now everybody is interested. It has become a much more celebrated thing, and in some ways there's also a danger in that, because what we've got at the moment is this kind of stereotype of the autistic tech genius— typically white, typically male, autistic, working in tech. That's our kind of— that's our motif of the brilliance of neurodiversity, which when it first kind of came out about 10 years ago was great. It was a game changer. It was like, oh, okay, so we can do disability inclusion because people are good at things and not disability inclusion because we're having a pity project and we feel sorry for people, which is, which is, you know, it's a 180 in terms of what businesses are doing. But I feel like we've got stuck there. So we went to quite a privileged industry, and we went to an industry which is predominantly white, predominantly male, and predominantly based in, um, Western economies, and we did a bit of inclusion there. And it proved a point, but we've got stuck. You know, what about, what about the autistics that don't like tech? What about the autistic musicians and the autistic graphic designers? What about the ADHDers? What about the dyslexics, the dyspraxics, the people that have 3 of those? You know, we haven't quite, we haven't made neurodiversity diverse enough.
Al ElliottSo here's another one of my questions. Should I, should I be asking this? It feels like we're at the beginning of this movement, and that is cool. And there's people like Nancy and Kristin and Jan who are helping everyone understand what's going on here. But this does seem to mean that it is easier to label yourself as ADHD. Is it really that prevalent? I mean, is it, is it just a way to get out of working hard?
KristenThere's often a stigma that people with ADHD are lazy. And that is because we really do struggle to get ourselves to do the right thing at the right time. There is often, you know, a misconception that ADHD is overdiagnosed. And that is, that one gets me really angry. Sorry, I'm like getting fired up. ADHD is not overdiagnosed, it's actually underdiagnosed. There are so many people with ADHD walking around not even knowing that they have ADHD. It is not a common diagnosis, but it is something that's trending on social media right now. And so it, it might feel like it's kind of in your face a lot, but it is not overly diagnosed. There are specific criteria that must be followed in order to obtain a diagnosis. And I speak with many people who have tried to go through the diagnostic process and just have been misunderstood and not diagnosed. It's actually quite difficult to get a diagnosis. And so that misconception gets me really fired up.
Al ElliottAll right, on to our next question. How are you going to get diagnosed as neurodivergent? So it's definitely a real thing, and we know this, we know it's underdiagnosed, but how do people actually know they're neurodivergent? While it's also common, many people don't actually realize they are neurodivergent until they reach adulthood. This can create challenges because people are going to find ways to adapt to the differences in how they think and process information. We asked Kristen, What advice do you have for someone who thinks they may have ADHD?
KristenSo I would say first, just begin to do a little bit of research and start to build your bank of evidence that you think you might have ADHD. I'm not necessarily saying self-diagnose, but often clinicians are not going to know very much about the disorder. And so if you can go in with a of symptoms. If you can go in with, um, some, um, evidence already of the reasons why you think you might have ADHD, that can be really helpful.
Leanne ElliottI think Kristen's advice can be expanded to most neurodiverse types there, and she did mention that clinicians may not be familiar with neurodiversity. Um, you know, the knowledge can be biased based on research or common presenting symptoms or observed behaviors. Yes, we're there again. Neurodiversity is another example of the gender health gap. Let's hear more from Kristin.
KristenStatistically, more males are diagnosed with ADHD than females, but I have a theory, and I mean a lot of people believe this as well, that there are just as many females with ADHD as males, but women and girls are socially conditioned to behave themselves, to be quiet, to people-please, to show up in a certain way. And so often women and girls are overlooked, and actually Actually, the median age for female diagnosis of ADHD is 38 years old, so it's much later than most males.
Leanne ElliottNancy shared her firsthand experience of the gender health gap and how that delayed her diagnosis with ADHD until later in life, until she was 38.
NancyAnd the reason I didn't have the ADHD diagnosis is because, yeah, because I was female, basically. Um, and then the year I was 38 whenever that was, I can't remember what that was, um, the, the rules changed there on how you diagnose ADHD. It used to have to be that you had to have symptoms before the age of 7, and then they changed it to before the age of 12. And they did that because they realized they were missing all the girls. And girls just generally are trained to be more compliant and more quiet, so we don't act out in the same way. We do daydreaming and hair twiddling rather than shouting and chair throwing. So we have a different presentation. And, you know, some scientists and psychiatrists got together and realized that all the girls were falling through the cracks. So they moved the, the first symptom— symptoms barrier to 12 from 7, and then bingo.
Al ElliottDo we think that the numbers of neurodivergents are actually increasing, or are we just hearing about it more? Or is it perhaps that a lot of people fell through the cracks and are only just being diagnosed? Kristin thinks it's the latter.
KristenI have supported people in my program who've been diagnosed in their 50s and 60s and 70s. And I will say that it is very difficult for someone who is, you know, past middle age even to wrap their brain around all that they missed out on because they never had the privilege of a diagnosis. And, you know, a lot of people struggle with being diagnosed. And I always try to frame it as a privilege. It is a privilege, first of all, to have access to healthcare. And second of all, to know what is happening in your brain. That is a privilege. It's a privilege to be able to understand what you're dealing with and potentially be able to treat it. And a lot of people feel massive amounts of grief because of what was potentially lost from not being diagnosed. And that can be really heartbreaking. And so, big part of my work is walking alongside of people and helping them on that journey of acceptance, of grieving, and of kind of figuring out, okay, now what? You know, I'm— now I know this, how do I want to proceed?
Al ElliottNow, these types of late diagnosis— diagnoses can be down to a lack of understanding or a lack of access to medical care. As a result, this has led to a trend of self-diagnosis. Is that a good thing? I don't know. I know someone who does. Here's Kristin again.
KristenThere is no perfect healthcare system. There are people waiting years to even speak to a professional about ADHD. There are people who are being overlooked. They're, you know, it is a very subjective process where someone has to be really vulnerable and meet with a clinician who may or may not be an expert on ADHD. And, It can be really tough. So because of that, a lot of people are self-diagnosing. And I will say that in my community, we 100% accept self-diagnoses. We don't, you know, you don't have to like show your ADHD badge to get, you know, into the community. But I always recommend that people do pursue a clinical diagnosis because without a clinical diagnosis, you don't have access And medication is the number one proven treatment for ADHD. And so self-diagnosis can be really helpful in understanding who you are, in understanding how you show up and relate to other people. It can help you to decide on the kind of coach that you wanna work with and what self-development books you wanna read, but it cannot give you access to medication.
Al ElliottLeah, I need to ask you as a scientist, is, is this a curable thing? Do you grow out of it? Is it even offensive to ask whether it can be cured?
Leanne ElliottI don't know if it's, it's offensive, but I would, I would maybe—
Al ElliottErr on the side of caution?
Leanne ElliottYeah, I would. You know, neurodiversity refers to the unique way that each person's brain develops, so that means it's not really preventable or, or curable, but it is treatable and manageable.
KristenAnd Kristin shared her own experience with treatment My dad was diagnosed when he was in his 40s and I was a teenager. And he read Ned Hallowell's book, Driven to Distraction, and essentially self-diagnosed and then went to the doctor and said, I really think that this is happening. He was diagnosed and medicated for ADHD, and this was in maybe the late '90s. And then he started talking to me and saying, I think you have ADHD. But I was like 17, 18. I was like, whatever, Dad. Like when you're 18 years old, you're just like, your dad doesn't know anything. And eventually I was double majoring in college and completely overwhelmed, depressed, anxiety, lots of anxiety, struggling with binge eating, not able to get myself to do anything that I needed to do. My grades were like ranging between A's and F's. Just a lot of, like, a lot of discrepancy in the grades. And I finally reached out to my parents and said, you know what, you mentioned ADHD, maybe I'm ready to get diagnosed. And so I went. I was 21 by the time I was diagnosed, medicated right away. And that was very helpful. Very, very helpful. But I will say, That my personal relationship with ADHD has been interesting because even though I was diagnosed and medicated, I didn't know anything about ADHD. I didn't know anything other than it just meant I struggled to focus. And so I was still dealing with a lot of shame and guilt and self-blame because even though I was medicated and doing a little bit better, I still couldn't reach my potential. I still couldn't I couldn't get myself to do all the things I wanted to do. And it wasn't until I discovered more about ADHD and that pretty much everything I hated about myself was a symptom of ADHD. And so I was able to forgive myself for so many things because the way that I was impulsive, the way that I showed up late to things, the way that I kind of handled myself in a quirky manner, that Those were outworkings of my ADHD. And once I was able to forgive myself and accept that, and then I discovered coaching, it was like I was really able to manage my symptoms in a much more productive way. If you find a doctor that you trust, follow their advice as far as medication. And then I would say really begin to learn and understand what it means to have ADHD because that is Very big component of all of this. It's, it's got to be more than just taking a pill because pills do not teach skills. And so you— there needs to be more learning, understanding, maybe self-development if you choose to go that route, maybe therapy, coaching, whatever it feels right to you. But I would just really encourage you to begin to understand and learn about the diagnosis.
Leanne ElliottKristen also explained the challenges people can experience being diagnosed later, and how often people need to grieve before they're ready to move forward.
KristenI had ADHD, and I wasn't supported. I didn't, I didn't have the tools I needed in order to be successful. They're seeing maybe the loss of relationship or divorce or fractures in relationship with family or friends through the lens of, this wasn't all my fault. I now understand that I had ADHD at the time that was not being treated. And I didn't have what it takes or what it took to navigate this relationship. Was I to blame? Was ADHD to blame? Is there a difference between me and ADHD? I mean, it's just a really complicated process. And I think where most people land, if they spend enough time in that grief, which is very important, I always recommend that my clients take lots and lots of time to go through those memories and to grieve and to process it in, in those new ways.
Leanne ElliottDid you know that the UK's number one management podcast— that's us, by the way— and the UK's number one marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioral science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)And 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking.
Al ElliottYou're not gonna say which. Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in threes—
Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottSeamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)We've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioural science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff, and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.
Leanne ElliottIt is. It's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)It can.
Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-seeking monkeys.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)I am.
Al ElliottGo and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this, so come back.
Al ElliottI'll cut that out.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Keep that in.
Al ElliottSo it seems that an early diagnosis is good. You could potentially sidestep all the shame Kristin refers to there. But are parents ready to label children early? What if they're mislabeled? And what if the parents just don't want to accept their kids are neurodivergent? Now, Jan's the perfect person to explain this because Jan was kind of the other end. It was pretty obvious to her from the start that she had a challenge on her hands. So we asked her how she felt when her reality was very different to her hopes and dreams.
JanBoth my husband and I started our lives as young parents with the same dreams and hopes that I'm sure you and everyone else had. We wanted happy, successful children. And yet our reality couldn't have been more different. You know, we were terrified of Andrew's— those screaming rages and his rituals. When I say 2 hours a day, it was 2 hours a day in these bizarre rituals. I was so drained, as I said earlier, by the principal calling me about Ainsley multiple times a week and her paralyzing anxiety. But the key to being able to move forward is to accept that your life is not going to be as planned for or hoped for. These disorders wreak havoc with marriages and partnerships, with every family member. There is going to be fear, anger, and resentment. You know, Al, I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear or looked at myself in a mirror and said, why me? Why us? But that perseverance, grit, determination, you've got to have it to move forward. And it's breathtaking when you do.
Leanne ElliottI asked Kristin about this too, about the perceived stigma around diagnosis, and what advice or encouragement she'd give to any parents listening.
KristenYeah, this really breaks my heart because in many families, the child is blamed for not being able to do simple things. Why can't you just finish your homework? Why can't you just remember to, you know, find your shoes? Why can't you just show up on time? Why can't you stop talking? And Many times that child is struggling with a neurodevelopmental disorder and nobody just even really knows. And so what I would say is, if you have a sense that maybe your child might have ADHD, I would encourage you to follow that sense. I would encourage you to follow your intuition and really pursue that because it can be so validating. for you as a parent and the child to hear, hey, you're not a terrible person, you're just struggling with ADHD. Hey, because that's what happens is that somebody with ADHD internalizes self-blame for not being able to do the simple things. Why can't I just show up to work on time? Why can't I just remember to hand in my homework? Why can't— what is wrong with me that I can't do this? And an ADHD diagnosis can be so validating. There's nothing wrong with you. You're struggling with ADHD, and now we're going to help you and support you so that you have what you need to thrive.
Leanne ElliottIf you are a parent listening, we highly, highly recommend that you get hold of a copy of Jan's book, Hold On Tight: A Parent's Journey Raising Children with Mental Illness. She tells a raw and emotional story of her 2 children and imparts valuable insights and advice from her lived experiences. And importantly, She shares hope.
JanJourney to find the right supports, the right psychiatrist, the right psychologist, the schools, and inclusive employers. And we can talk more about that as we want, but really, I'm so proud of them. They've had great heartbreaking adversity but such perseverance, grit, and determination, and they really have found their niches in life.
Al ElliottHere's a tricky question: what language should I use? I alluded to this a little bit before. When I was prepping my questions for Jan, I found myself pausing over my word choice. What do I call someone who is neurodivergent? Of course, now I know it's neurodivergent. But at the time, I was sidestepping around this. I was like, how do I refer to someone who isn't neurodivergent? Now, the first thing that sprung— the first word that sprung to mind was the word normal. Now, again, before you cancel me, I don't mean it in terms of normal. I mean it in terms of statistically. So statistically normal is someone who falls within the majority of the results. And that is exactly right because neurodivergent fall into the minority and either side of a kind of one of those, those weird bell diagrams which you had at school. But I felt this wasn't right, like I was saying that everyone should be normal and if you're not normal, you're abnormal, you're wrong. So I just didn't know, what do I call someone who's neurodivergent?
Leanne ElliottIndividuals will have their own preferences, right? So we're gonna always have to, have to speak to, to the people in terms of how they want it to be described. You know, we've heard Nancy refer to herself as a proud ADHDer, but in general, there are, there are a few widely accepted terms, and those are neurominority, neurodivergent, and neurodistinct. It's understandable to reach for the word normal to describe someone who isn't neurodivergent. I get it. And, and particularly in terms of statistics, I completely get that. Um, but yeah, the, the preferred term is neurotypical. As I mentioned, you know, with any minority group, language preferences can vary, and I've been guilty of toxic positivity when it comes to advocating for neurodiversity by referring to cognitive strengths as superpowers. But as Kristen explained to me, this can minimize the struggle.
KristenThat's an interesting question because I am someone who is very careful not to say that ADHD is a superpower because I think it often minimizes the struggle. what that can do is, if you think about it in terms of a child, if a child is struggling in school, they're struggling to make friends, they can't make themselves do their homework, they're getting a lot of negative feedback, and you say to the child, honey, your ADHD is not a problem, it's a superpower. The child is like, hello, my life is falling apart.
NancyLike, why?
KristenRight? Like, this is actually really, really difficult. And so it's very confusing. And I think it's the same And for adults, everyone has a superpower. And as we begin to medically treat our ADHD, do our self-development work, make sure that we're taking responsibility for the things we need to take responsibility for, our real superpowers can be uncovered. Many people with ADHD are very creative, but not all are. And so when there's a blanket statement made that's like, oh, ADHDers are so creative, like that's a superpower, it's not actually true. Not every person with ADHD is creative. Not every person with ADHD thinks outside the box.
Al ElliottNow, there's another part to this because Nancy thinks that if employers can embrace neurodiversity and provide opportunities for the neurodiverse to do meaningful work, then it'll ultimately reduce unhappiness on a much broader level.
NancyIf we could have businesses and work that was healthy, inclusive, gave people a chance to, to be at their best, we would have less unhappy, miserable people who needed clinical psychology support. Because work isn't just— work is, you know, we know that people who are unemployed are less mentally well and less physically well than people who are employed. We know that employment is good for your social integration as well as your finances and your ability to eat well and put a roof over your head. So the power of good work is transformational for people's lives. And, and more and more, as I was working with unemployed people, I was just like, oh my God, they're all dyslexic. None of them can read and write. Um, these guys can't sit still for more than 10 minutes. This is why they're not working. These guys have got their hoods up. They're trying to barrier the scent. You know, I was like, you're all neurodivergent. What's going on here?
Leanne ElliottIf you're a business leader, owner, entrepreneur listening, just take that statistic. 35% of entrepreneurs are dyslexic or maybe neurodivergent in other ways. That means that roughly 3 in 10 of every single one of our business owner listeners are neurodivergent.
Al ElliottHmm. That's a really good way to put it. I hadn't thought about that before.
Leanne ElliottYeah, it is common amongst entrepreneurs to be neurodivergent. It's, I guess it's like if you can't or if you don't feel comfortable in the world, business world that's been created for you, I'm going to go and create my own. So that is one of the reasons why neurodiversity is so important, because we need these disruptors in our business worlds to drive change, to drive innovation. But is neurodiversity important in the workplace? And the short answer is it is, and not just for the societal impact or doing the right thing. As with most human-centered strategies, it's not just good for the individual or workplace culture is good for business. Here's Nancy.
NancySo what you should be doing as a business owner is thinking, you know, are we stuck in the— in, in a loop of all thinking the same way? Do we need someone who's going to come in and think in a different way to us, who's going to add value by spotting problems that we can't see, by kind of coming up with solutions for those problems that we wouldn't have thought of? Um, and, and that's really the value you get of diversity in your, in your team. And that's a kind— that's actually a— research has demonstrated that that is effectively true, and that diverse teams are more creative and more innovative, um, and generally more dynamic than homogeneous teams. They take longer to form. So if you measure the team's performance a week after kind of making it more diverse, what you'll find is that people are a bit creeped out, and they're Oh, I'm not sure how this person thinks. I don't know how to talk to this person. This is a bit odd. She talks really fast all the time. What am I going to get a word in edgewise? Or vice versa, they talk so slow, I'm falling asleep. What am I going to do? Um, so you have that kind of group storming phase, and that can last a bit longer in diversity. But over the long term, what you get is a much more innovative and dynamic team.
Al ElliottHold on a minute though. So putting my sales and marketing hat on for a second, With more and more people choosing to buy from brands that just get them, then surely embracing neurodiversity is not only about leveraging the different way people think, but it's a great branding play too. We asked Nancy about this.
NancyThe other reason for doing it, I think more than anything, is because, you know, your customers are neurodivergent. There's actually quite a lot of us. We're about 15 to 20% of the human population when you add us all up, all the different variants. So if you want to design a service or a product that meets the needs of your customers, you need people in the design room that think like your customers. And a lot of them are going to think quite straightforwardly, but there's a bunch of us who think in a really unusual way. We'll find the problems in your design that will affect your uptake.
Leanne ElliottSo at this point, you know, it's important to have this diversity of thought in your workplace, but how do you know if you have neurodiverse employees and how do you ask them about it? Here's Nancy.
NancyIf you have a business with more than 20 or 30 people, you're going to have at least a handful of neurodivergent people. So I would kind of reach out with that as an approach, um, offer, offer, offer, uh, forum for some interest from within. If you, if you, if you put a call out and no one comes forward, that's telling you something very, very clear about the psychological safety of your business. People aren't disclosing, it's because they don't feel safe to disclose. And that's— you do need a consultant at that point because you need to know why.
Leanne ElliottIs it me, Al, or do I smell a theme You always smell a theme.
Al ElliottWhat are you, what are you, what are you picking up?
Leanne ElliottPsychological safety, employee insights, getting external support. It seems to me that regardless of the people and culture concept that you are trying to understand or improve within your business or embrace within your business, it kind of comes down to those things: psychological safety, employee insights, external support.
Al ElliottI think this is kind of refreshing for business owners and leaders who feel a little bit at sea with this. Because you go, well, actually, it's just the basics, getting the basics right, making a place where people want to go, feel comfortable, feel safe, and feel valued. And surely that's like, you know, that's the secret to a great workplace culture. Now, what Jan was saying was that open communication is key to building an effective employer-employee relationship. As to how an employer should be tackling these kind of conversations. How do you avoid being condescending? Here's Jan.
JanWell, I think you can not be condescending if you say to yourself, how do I— how would I want to be treated? How do I treat the rest of my employees? And treat them the same. If you find it's not working, you can sit down with the employee and say, I'm having challenges with this, help me. Problem solve with the employee. Now, in Andrew's case, because of his limited cognitive capabilities, and again, in some cases this will happen but not in most, my husband and I are his legal guardians. And so that partnership I talked about is very important for us because he cannot really— he can advocate for himself actually surprisingly well, but to a limited point. And so that's when I'll step in and help. Many employees don't need that. They may or may not have an advocate to help them. Many of them are very articulate about what their challenges are and what they need. So work in partnership with them. It's like anything else in life. Remember, everyone, mental health disorder or not, has challenges.
Leanne ElliottWhen I was researching this episode, one of the most frequently asked questions I came across was, how do you manage neurodivergent staff? Well, like all staff really, it's not that different. You know, you manage people with trust, empathy, flexibility, genuine care, by providing a clear role, consistent recognition, and the required resources. It actually isn't any different to manage a neurodiverse person as you would a neurotypical person. But to use perhaps a word that we've used a lot recently, it does take a little bit more intention. Here's Nancy with an example of a client she worked with recently.
NancySo, um, well, I had a client once who, um, was really struggling to get on with his new manager. And, um, he was autistic, and the manager— and I— so I was coaching him, and I start— I thought, right, I'm gonna have to coach the manager as well. I just don't understand what's going on here. So we started doing something called co-coaching, which we do a lot actually for when, when things are going wrong. And so I started— I talked to the manager. I said, okay, so what is it that you need him to do that he's not currently doing? He said, well, you know, the problem is he doesn't play the game. I said, oh, okay, is that what you say to him? Because he's, he's, he's a quite typical autistic in that he will interpret things literally. So if you say to him, you need to start playing the game, he's gonna wonder why you want him to play games at work, because it's work. So he's, why does he want me to play a game at work? What game? What game? So I said, look, so what do you mean by play the game? And he said, well, he needs to be more proactive.
JanAnd I said, I still don't know what you mean.
NancyWhat does proactive look like? Like, if I was being proactive now, What would I actually do? What's the concrete behavior? And it took me about 5 minutes to get out of this guy that what he wanted— they had weekly meetings, and he wanted him to come with a bullet point list of things he'd done last week on one page of A4, and a bullet point list of things he was planning to do next week on a page of A4. That's it. And that behavior had been labeled proactive, not proactive, too reactive. So because he didn't come with those things to the meeting, He was not proactive, he was reactive, he wasn't playing the game, um, you know, he was badly prepared. And, and this guy was just like, I, I just don't know what he wants from me. And when he said, well, I just want you to come to the meeting with a list of things you did last week and the list of things you did next week, doesn't have to be too detailed, one page of A4 each, fine. Now he can follow the instruction, and, and he was doing it. So, so there's, there's that kind of That's what we need to do to make it easier for neurodivergent people to get along in the workplace as they enter the workplace. And those kind of accommodations of environment, schedule, the way that you communicate, managing senses, bringing in some coaching if it's not working, rather than assuming that they don't care and they're not being bothered.
JanI mean, he—
Nancythat's the other thing the manager could have done at that point. He could say, well, he doesn't really care, does he? He's not really bothered. He doesn't want this job, you know, and he could have gone down that track. But don't make that assumption. Assume it's a communication issue and work on it. And if you need external help to work on it, get external help to work on it.
Al ElliottNow, it was interesting asking Jan because she is sharing her son's experience from a parent's point of view and how a change of management had a catastrophic effect. Here's Jan talking about her son Andrew.
JanSo Andrew's first employer was a major retailer. here in Toronto. And they hired him as a cashier. And I remember thinking, oh, this is 10, 12 years ago. How is he going to make change? We still had pennies then. But he had no problem. And if he did, a customer helped him. He was never ripped off. It surprised me and I was very happy. I even snuck in one day. He'd been there about 3 years just to see how he was doing. And I started crying with happiness. There were 4 or 5 customers on his line. And 3 other cashiers sat empty. And I heard staff trying to redirect them to the empty cashiers who wouldn't. And all the customers refused. And that's because Andrew engaged with them. He knew their names. He knew the ages of their children, what was going on in their lives, and he made their lives better. Each day was happier when they interacted with him. Now, 5 years into that job, New management came in, and without telling Andrew any reason why, they pulled him off cash and had him in the back stocking shelves. So I waited a few weeks to see if this was just temporary because of the need, but it became pretty apparent that they were needlessly discriminating against him because he looks disabled. And so you can imagine that I took action and wrote a fairly scathing letter. And to their credit, He was placed back on cash, but trust had been broken.
Al ElliottSo I think we've discovered that a workplace can be amazing if we embrace neurodivergence. Not only are we bringing opportunity that might not be around previously, but we've got a whole different way of thinking about problems. But how do we start? How can we make our workplace more inclusive for neurodivergent people without looking like we're just doing that stock photo, everyone's different colors, everyone's smiling? We asked Nancy.
NancyWe need to start recognising people for their talents, and we need to look at the way we do appraisals and manage performance. Because if you think performance appraisals are about kind of jacks of all trades rather than specialists, so you'll have people in data analyst jobs being asked if they've got team influencing skills and not being able to progress until they do. And then you're like, hmm, do you need team influencing skills to be a data analyst? Or do you need to be incredibly accurate and able to work at a fast pace? Hmm, you know, or you'll, you'll have people that can't get promoted out of being a graphic designer because their emails are, um, full of typos and grammatical errors. And so we've got to start aligning our assessment methods to the skill that we actually need in the job rather than this, this kind of generic one-size-fits-all. You must be a team player and able to work independently. You must have detailed processing and think of the big picture. You must be good at literacy and good at design. You know, this is, this is where we're going wrong in thwarting neurodivergent careers, because we're asking for— we're measuring for generalists, and actually that's not what we need.
Leanne ElliottI've talked on the podcast before about how the easiest way to build a diverse team or inclusive culture is by reviewing your recruitment process. I think I talked about it on the Toxic Superstar episode, and I definitely covered it in our very early episodes on recruitment. If you don't have an evidence-led, competency-based recruitment process in place, then in all likelihood there will be bias embedded within it. That's step one to an inclusive culture— remove bias.
NancyNancy shares a fantastic example of this in action About 10 years ago, it changed the game, which is fabulous. But for me, as an occupational psychologist, what I'm sitting here thinking is, right, okay, so 10 years ago, we changed the way we recruit and hire and manage people in order to be inclusive of some specialists. It's worked really well. Those specialists are doing a really, really good job, actually. So, my question now is, we haven't done the double-loop learning. We're just carrying on changing the rules for certain specialists when what we actually should have been doing is going, hold on a second, the way we were recruiting and onboarding was systematically excluding people who turn out to be really good at the job. So we shouldn't keep running Autism at Work programs, we should change the way we recruit and onboard for everybody, because then we'll be able to bring in the autists with the neurotypicals. And the point is, we will have people that are really good at the job. No one has to disclose a personal characteristic in order to get work, and we'll just be making the selection methods appropriate to the job we want. You know, I'm a big fan of work sample testing rather than interviewing for things like that, you know, and that's essentially what they did. So in order to get more autistic people through the door, they just jumped the interviews and started giving coding tests, and of course, the autists were flying through them and getting hired.
Al ElliottSo while we were talking to Nancy, we asked her what are the tools that are required for neurodivergent employees. Nancy recommended both flexible and remote work options.
NancyIn my company, we work with between 500 and 1,000 unemployed people a year, and we know how to, how to kind of get that journey from unemployed into sustainably employed complete. And it's, and it's not easy. And I think that's the, that's the rub. People don't know what to do. It's— you have to have certain provisions for neurodivergent people because we are disabled, you know, and we need, we need tools, we need scaffolding, we need slightly different rules. But once you understand the principles of what we need, it's really easy to just do this across your business. And actually, you'll find that most people benefit. The things that neurodivergent people need are we need schedule flexibility, we need to be able to travel when it's not commuting hours because we find the cognitive and sensory overwhelm of commuting really intense. And so we, you know, if we're doing a hard commute, we will get to our office in a state of kind of rabbit in the headlights and not be able to function. So flexible hours work really well. Um, remote working options work really, really well. Um, we— if we're going to do kind of hard concentration tasks that require us to minimize distractions, we need to physically minimize distractions because we find it really easy to get distracted by someone having a little chat over there. Oh, what's that? Oh, where was I? Oh, what's that? Oh, where was I? Oh, what's that? Oh, where was I? And all of a sudden you've got a piece of work that's full of typos and incorrectly entered data or, you know, whatever it is that you're doing. So we, we need to back— we need to buffer our sensory. And then the other thing is that we need more explicit instructions than you might be used to.
Leanne ElliottWe also asked Kristin, and she explained that she uses and recommends body doubling as a useful technique to help her complete the more boring tasks she has as a person with ADHD. If you've not heard of it, body doubling involves working with another person around to basically help improve motivation and focus. Here's Kristen on the value of body doubling.
KristenSo I am a company leader, I am the boss, and I have ADHD. So how do you navigate when you're the boss with ADHD, right? So I know myself very well. I can do a lot of big complex things. The easy, mundane, boring tasks, I just want to cry. Please don't make me do them. And so what I will do is I will ask my team to get on a call with me while I do the boring stupid stuff. And that will work so well for someone with ADHD. If the boss just says, hey Karen, I see that you're struggling with these expense reports, would you like Bill to sit with you while you get them done? Karen will be like, absolutely yes. Bill doesn't even need to be working on expense reports. He can just be doing his own stuff, but he's just It's just someone there who is willing to be in your space while you're doing the thing that is just very, very hard for you to do. So a lot of accountability, a lot of deadlines, a lot of praise and feedback, like, hey, I see you're doing these things really well. Great job. And then a lot of opportunities for body doubling would be really great as well.
Al ElliottSo Jan also shared her approach as a parent to securing a reasonable adjustment for her son's learning needs. that her kids need to thrive in the workplace.
JanSo the first thing that we did was Andrew and I met in a group team meeting before he started, after he was hired, but before his first day, with his managers, with human resources. And they also at Rogers have a wellbeing department, so they came as well. And we discussed Andrew's profile. Which importantly included his strengths. He has a great sense of humor, and he's very kind and caring. And then we talked about his disorders. I explained, as I have to you but in more detail, what each of them was and how they translated into the workplace, which, as I said, is largely impulsivity and anxiety in his case. We talked about what they could do to maximize his success and to help themselves. And they've put that well-meaning into action. Let me give you a few examples. First of all, and probably most importantly, they brought in a job coach to help both them and Andrew. There is a national organization in Canada called Ready, Willing, and Able, RWA. It's funded by the Government of Canada, and it helps employers hire and retain employees with autism and intellectual disabilities. They've been a godsend. So they helped Rogers integrate Andrew. And to this day, which is 4 and a half years later, they meet monthly with Andrew and his boss, sometimes alone, sometimes together. And, and if an issue comes up, they meet more often. So that's the first thing they've done. They've customized accommodations just for Andrew. Andrew has a lot of difficulty with change and transitions. This is typical with his suite of Mental health disorders. And so they've set his hours from 8:30 to 4:30 every day while the rest of his team members work on shifts. They chunk his work in smaller, more manageable pieces. They give him a few more breaks. He has more medical appointments than other people, and they accommodate that, and he works longer hours then on those days. They bring in A willing coworker, what I call a special mentor, whenever there's a large group meeting so that they can be sure he understands what's being said, or they have learned how to reframe it, get him to say it back and make sure he really gets it. And most importantly to me is the word partnership. They treat me as a true partner. They listen to what I have to say. They respect my advice, and they share their career thinking with me. You know, a few months ago at Andrew's 4th anniversary, they called me and said, you know, Andrew's been here 4 years. Shouldn't we be thinking about career enhancement? And Al, I said, please don't do that. That will get his anxiety through the roof. At this point, he's not ready for that. But what you could do is think about career enhancement, not advancement, enhancement. And that's what they've done. So they've been a role model of inclusion and diversity. And what do they get in return? They get a hardworking, loyal, valued employee who's known throughout Rogers. By the way, he participates actively in their inclusion and diversity initiatives. He's a great representative for them externally. He wants to be the best employee that Rogers has ever had, not the best to dis— not the best disabled employee, and he wants to stay there until he's 70.
Leanne ElliottSo that's neurodiversity through the lens of being an employer or an organization. But what about an individual? Should you tell your employer if you're neurodivergent? A question that came up on almost every neurodiversity term that I Googled. was, am I neurodivergent or just weird? And as Nancy explains, you're not weird, the world is.
NancyThe argument of neurodiversity is it's the world that's weird, not us. Basically, the world has gone weird. If you can't do the literacy, numeracy, sitting still, and weird hypersocial communication thing, there must be something wrong with you. You need a label, and now you're weird. So that's That's our kind of argument from the neurodiversity movement, which is it's the world that's weird, not us. But the reality is that is the world, and we do have to live in it. And so because of that, lots of us find it very, very difficult to survive mainstream education. I didn't. Um, I was hospitalized at 14. I simply couldn't cope with it. And I spent the last 2 years of my secondary education working from home on a Monday, going into school on a Monday, picking up my work, and doing it from home for the rest of the week. Um, and that's not an unusual experience for neurodivergent people. We find the mainstream education system incredibly difficult, increasingly so actually. It's got worse since I was at school. Um, and then we go into the workplace with these kind of hang-ups and shame and lack of self-esteem, and then we struggle in our careers, or we find our niche and we go absolutely brilliantly. You know, it's kind of like nowhere in between. Well, when I was younger, you know, I was just— I was the square peg in the round hole. You know, I absolutely hated school. I found the social side of it kind of overwhelming and confusing. I found the sensory burden of it overwhelming and, um, unpleasant. And also I was kind of bored, if I'm honest, as well, in most of my lessons. And I was quite a big comprehensive school in a, in a city, and it just wasn't a very nice environment. So I was, I was diagnosed with anxiety, depression, eating disorders. It was like a bingo card at at one point. It's like, oh, that one, oh, that one. Um, and then my favorite diagnosis, which was school phobia. I was like, yes! They don't call it that anymore, they call it school refusal. You see how that's subtle? I know, it's awful, isn't it? I know, I really feel for my generation, uh, with this generation. Um, you know, being diagnosed with school refusal rather than school phobia is a very, very different thing. Um, but I'm also aware that you— yeah, so I should have had an ADHD diagnosis then and there, but because I'm female, I didn't get one. And in the '80s and '90s, you basically had to be throwing chairs across classrooms and be male to get an ADHD diagnosis, and girls didn't get a look in. But I knew that I was different, um, and I was quite clearly different. And so that experience of difference was, was kind of quite motivating to me.
Leanne ElliottNow, the question of disclosure— should you tell your employer if you are neurodivergent— is both complicated and personal. It really does depend on you, the organisation you work for, and how comfortable you feel speaking with your manager. Kristen advises that before you think about disclosing your, your neurodiversity to your employer, maybe take some time to figure out your own responsibilities and how to advocate for yourself.
KristenI would say First, that a huge amount of responsibility falls on the person with ADHD because they are the ones that need to advocate for themselves. And so this is why I started my podcast 4 years ago. This is why I work with adults with ADHD every day, is to help them understand what it means to have ADHD so that they can take responsibility for themselves, for their own work environments and be able to self-advocate. Because if you don't understand what you're dealing with, if, for example, you think it might be a superpower, you're not going to go, I know what those are, but I also really like some support. Nobody's going to do that with a superpower because a superpower is a superpower, right? And so we have to be really careful in the way that we frame this in saying, listen, this is something that will hold you back until you learn about it, you understand yourself, and you're able to advocate. And so going into a work environment, it's very important for someone with ADHD to know their specific strengths, which they will have so many, and also understand that they have very specific weaknesses and how to ask for help for them.
Al ElliottJan also agreed that it's a personal choice, especially given the latest data But she does highlight that not disclosing may mean you're not actually protected.
JanI remember a survey back in 2019 by Ipsos, and it surprised me. It said that 75% of employees with mental health disorders— these were working-age adults— were reluctant or wouldn't disclose a mental illness. Now, we're not talking about severe mental illnesses where it's obvious, right? And why? It's because of a fear of stigma, not wanting to be labeled or treated differently, fear of consequences of losing their jobs, which would be absolutely terrible. They don't want to be seen as different or inferior. So that's a driving force for why an employee might not disclose. The guideline that I recommend as a parent— and remember, please, I'm not a professional— but as a parent, is to ask yourself if you can perform your job without any accommodation or help. And if you can, it's your decision. But if you think you do, I'd recommend disclosing. You know, this is not straightforward disclosure. It's up to the individual. But remember that if you don't disclose and you're fired for performance or you're disciplined, You can't use your disability.
Al ElliottSo regular listeners will know that we don't just leave you, drop you in the shit. We always try and tell you where you can get more help and support. We asked Nancy, as a business owner, what's our first step?
NancyThe first step you can make is to talk to the neurodivergent people you already have. If you have a business with more than 20 or 30 people, you're going to have at least a handful of neurodivergent people. So I would kind of Reach out with that as an approach. Offer a forum for some interest from within. Do not start with a hiring program. That's the last place you should go. There is no point hiring people until you've got your shipshape. Otherwise, you're going to hire them, and they're going to fail, and it's going to be awful, and you're going to feel bad, and so are they. So the first thing you do is you look at what you already have. And if you, you know, if you're a very small business and you don't have any neurodivergent people and you want to hire some in, then go and find a consultancy to work with like Genius Within. We have, you know, or so if you work with us on our unemployment programmes, all the work, all the support you need in terms of training for your staff, looking at your policies, working out what adjustments would be necessary, that gets funded through the DWP if you work with our unemployed clients. So there's a free way to do it if you're a small business with no representation, and that is to work with Genius Within in our employability work. If you're not and you've got more resources than that, then start by finding the people you've already got, form an employee resource group, and get them to give you some feedback on what's working and what's not working. But don't use your ERG as a replacement for professional services. I've seen so many ERGs where the first thing that happens is they get inundated with emails from everyone in the business wanting help negotiating adjustments and help with this and help with that. It's not fair on them. It's a confidentiality issue, but it's also not fair to ask disabled people to work for free, additional to their hours, to help other disabled people. That's just not fair. So if you're going to have— so the ERG is for advice, it's for pulse checking, it's It's for signposting, it's for critical appraisal of procurement of professional services, but it is not for delivering those services themselves. So get your ERG in place, get some advice, and see what they say and take it from there.
Leanne ElliottSome great advice there from Nancy in terms of where you can access support as an organisation, as a business owner. Both Nancy and Kirsten offer support to individuals, including help with diagnosis and training. Genius Within and I Have ADHD also recommend coaching as a powerful tool in managing neurodiversity. Here's Kristen to explain more.
KristenSo somebody with ADHD is going to struggle with self-awareness. That is one of our executive functions, which is housed in the frontal lobe, which is deficient. So that is like known in the community, it's proven. researched, self-awareness is difficult for people with ADHD. That in times we're not aware of our thoughts, we're not aware of how we feel, we're not understanding how to motivate ourselves toward our goals. And so mindset coaching helps build that skill of self-awareness. Mindset coaching helps with self-regulation and emotional regulation, which is Also another deficient skill of someone with ADHD. So someone with ADHD struggles to understand, feel, process their emotions. So we'll often look really explosive. We're often gonna make impulsive decisions from a big emotion. We're often gonna like, like maybe quit a job in the heat of the moment, or maybe like get married in Vegas in the heat of the moment. Like those impulsive decisions. And so that's where mindset coaching comes in, is a building of awareness around our thoughts and our emotions and how to get ourselves to take the actions that we want to take. So it's very different from a therapeutic relationship, which would be more like digging into the past and really healing trauma and making sure that you're understanding your family and how it's impacted you. What's impacting you now. What this is, it's more of, um, building an awareness of your thoughts, building, um, a willingness to feel your emotions, and beginning to develop an authority over the actions that you're taking in the moment so that you can persist toward your goals.
Al ElliottOkay, Leanne, my head is spinning. We've gone through so much here, but it's all been really, really good stuff. By the way, there is a transcript of this on the website. You'll see a link in the show notes. You can read through it all and reread through the bits that, that interested you. How are we going to wrap all this up, Leah?
Leanne ElliottYeah, it is, it is. Neurodiversity is complex, it's personal, and it can be challenging both for individuals and organizations. And I think the conclusion I've come to really echoes the ethos of Genius Within and the work of Professor Nancy. Yes, neurodivergent people tend to find some things very easy and other things incredibly difficult, and that can lead to inconsistency in performance, which as an organization may not sound ideal. But neurodiversity can be a competitive advantage when individuals are in the right environment, making use of their strengths instead of constantly trying to overcome challenges. Once we bear in mind as well that it is a tough market for talent acquisition, embracing neurodiversity will very likely put you a long way ahead of your competitors. But to achieve this, we must create inclusive spaces to work and learn that enable all of us, both neurotypicals and neurominorities, to thrive.
Al ElliottBravo, bravo, bravo. Okay, so as normal, there will be lots of resources in the show notes. Make sure to look those up, make sure to go and follow all our experts, make sure to go and buy Jan's book, and just let's all work towards making things a little bit more inclusive for those people who are a little bit different.
Leanne ElliottYes, we will. We'll leave links to all of our guests in the show notes, along with websites, with books, with articles, with publications, everything you need. And as always, if I've forgotten something, just give me a poke and I'll send you them.
Al ElliottBye for now.
midroll (Phil Agnew, Nudge)Bye.
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