Ep. 042 – Theo Smith - Neurodiversity, Inclusion, and Empowerment
Theo Smith brings a unique lens to the workplace in the form of Neurodiversity. If you’re struggling to understand what this is or how it applies to your business - I promise you, it is relevant and already exists in your business. It’s just a matter of whether you understand it, are asking the right questions or prepared to adapt and evolve to it.
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EP. 042 Transcription
[00:00:00] Steve: Theo, welcome to the Experience Designers.
[00:00:03] Theo: Woohoo. Woohoo Great to be here. Love it.
[00:00:08] Steve: Amazing mate. Amazing. Firstly, so grateful you that you've agreed to join and contribute to the show. Really appreciate it. And this topic that we're gonna explore together I come to this episode naive. I've gotta be honest naive in the sense of what neurodiversity as a topic, cuz it's such a broad. An all-encompassing rainbow that we can explore together. But also upon a personal level, my, my children are neurodiverse in in their own right as well with special gifts in their own special way. So I'm not only a father to dyslexic children but also I'm so curious up upfront, I've observed this topic from an educational perspective, but of course I'm really curious to see from a business lens as well what we can dive into.
So look, thanks for sharing and thanks for joining. So look, let's dive in. Theo, who are you, where are you? And why are you doing what you're doing?
[00:01:09] Theo: Yeah, no problem. So I'm Theo Smith. I'm a actor by trade, but before that I failed at school, but some people reminded me that I was failed by school rather than I failed at school. So I really struggled academically. Interviewed my cousin the other day and he had the same challenges. Very Very strong in certain areas, but not in the areas that they want you to be strong in school.
So good at chatting back, good at causing chaos. Good at having huge amounts of energy, but not necessarily in sports when they want you to have huge amounts of energy. Just all the things in the wrong places. And when you're a young person, that can be a problem, right? And it can get you into a lot of trouble.
And it did get me into a lot of trouble. So I just found my way. You need to work to eat and you need to live and therefore you just do what you can. But there's something there, there was something there that kept driving me. And I was lucky enough as a young person to be involved in community theater.
And then that got me into youth theater. And then that got me into a university in the end with no qualifications. And then that eventually got me into being an actor. But it was a tough gig. And I, again, with the brain that I've got, and I didn't know at the time, I was struggling with seeing things through and struggling to commit stuff and struggling with other things going on, like investing, managing timing in things that weren't good for me, right?
They weren't progressing me. And helping me. And then in the end, I found my way into sales and then into recruitment. And then I've worked across all different types of organizations, and it was my daughter. So you talked about in the introduction your children. I put up with it, I've been in some tough places and I don't know, you just, I hadn't really made too many connections with my brain diagnosed at university with dyslexia at 21.
But I shelved it because it. It didn't answer so many questions for me. The things they wanted to give me to help me didn't help me. Putting colored screens didn't make any difference to me. The biggest impact was my impulsivity and my energy and and my burnout and my inability to write as well.
I'd never really properly been taught to write essays or anything like that, so I kept failing on that basis. And it, when I was sat in a hotel room on my own, I was working for an organization living away from home three days a week. My son had just been born. I carried on doing that for two years, and I saw the program called a d, ADHD and Me with Rdy Braner, and he was exploring that he may be a D H D on this program, on the B C.
And I was sat in this hotel room on my own and a light bulb hit, and then I made the connections. There were other people in my family who were A D H D autistic. I'd been diagnosed with dyslexia, and then, It was working with a group called the R 100, the Sourcing Leaders 100 that I got introduced to neurodiversity and my brain just exploded.
So it, that's what, when you sit in a room and somebody goes, you can actually be autistic, dyslexic, and a D H D, and by the way, it is a natural part of your brain, right? We've had 200,000 years. It's taken to create the brain that you and I have. The modern brain. 200,000 years of evolution. Actually, it's not changed that much in many respects, but it has in others.
It's evolved to the environment. The environment we live in today is probably what, a hundred, 200 years max? Globalization, industrialization, the internet of things, rockets that go into space, rockets that destroy things. Ai, machine learning the way that we now see the world and that we invest energy in the world because the world is at risk.
All of these things. Modern concepts and ideas that we try and fit a brain that's taken 200,000 years to evolve and we're now going, can you just evolve into the environments with bright lights evolve into the chicken coop, little boxes that we put you in organization your brain has to evolve quickly.
It's no, it's 200,000 years. So we need to consider that in terms of the adaptations, things that we do. And that's what kind of really drove me, that I saw my daughter was being marginalized because of the way that her brain work and system impacted negatively. And I knew that lots of other people were.
So for me it was like when you've got a child you can see is gonna be treated unfairly like full China shop. I'm going at it and that's where it started. But it, I also, through that journey, Realized that I'm also, I also associated with d, adhd, and autism traits. And of course I'm dyslexic as well.
And th that's where all of this energy and work and focus has come from through the lens of my experience as a HR recruitment leader.
[00:06:04] Steve: Amazing. Amazing. And what's from the Neurodiverse work and that, that kind of light bulb moment, what's been your, what's been the journey from that point onwards? Where has that kind of taken you? What kind of, yeah, just what focus areas?
[00:06:19] Theo: So when something happens like that and you realize, oh, that's me. So that's me. They were talking about when they were stood up in front of me talking about neurodiversity. That's my child they're talking about. That's my family. That is, and you weren't aware before that triggers something, right?
Or it doesn't either. You just go, whatever. Or for me it was, how can I now get recruitment leaders and HR leaders to do something about this? Because I've worked in I've worked within the political sphere, I've worked in government organizations, right? I know how difficult it is to create sustainable change within government within education.
And so we need people to do it. But that like the mechanisms, the influence that you have to have and the tireless energy you have to give to that is something that I thought, am I the right person to do that when I already have significant influence within this HR recruit community? And that community can literally, by my words and influence, can go and change systems and practices in the organization to model.
And that is the truth. And organizations are doing that. So that was the light bulb was people are being marginalized, people are being system impacted, people are being locked out. Yet some of the most incredible brains that we can record in history that have been transformational. And in modern times, people who solved some of the most complex problems.
We think about Alan hawing with AI and machine learning that came from a period of significant crisis. What are we in now? What have we been in Covid? The walls, the planet, all of these things, right? I'm thinking we are in a moment of significant crisis, like we've never experienced it before, right?
But we also are in a period of incredible opportunity where we could eliminate significant things like homelessness, like poverty lack of ability to access education, like all it. But it's almost like the two things, one pushes against the other. And that's the same with human brain. Your strengths and challenges, one can push against the other.
If you allow people to force you into your challenges, how can you then deliver on those strengths if people are surrounding you by kryptonite, right? It is so debilitating that you struggle to do the thing that you can and you've previously done. So that, so when I'm thinking about neurodiversity, when I'm thinking about every single one of us has a unique brain, every single one of us, but not all of us have been marginalized or system impacted cause of the way that our brain works.
And autism, a d, adhd, dyslexia have existed since the beginning of time, right? Let's not kid ourselves that they're a disease, that an illness, no. There are impacting factors that mean we may not be able to do X, Y, z. Some of them are social, some of them are where we were born, the family we were born to, how much wealth or lack of thereof, whether we're able to access education, whether we're able to access healthcare support, early intervention, which meant we may not have developed speech in the right way, or communication scope.
All of this impacts then on how we see, interact, engage with the world. It's not that we are autistic or dyslexic or a D H D because we have people in the fields hunting farming, a long time ago, and they would've had these unique, incredible brains. But it's just now because of this last a hundred years of significant change in transformation.
Where it becomes a significant barrier. And it's that thing there that I really am passionate about. And getting people to see that you, you can make the change. You can make the change, or you can ignore it, and a proportion of people will ignore it. And they'll see the world in the way that they wanna see it.
You go do it. You carry on doing that. I'm not gonna waste my energy on you. I'm gonna go and find those people who want to understand this incredible concept of the human brain is the most powerful thing that we have. That's the thing that created ai. And that's the thing that created some of the technology that saves lives.
It's the human brain that achieved that. And therefore we need to better understand it and enable it. And it's the barriers that we put up. We put them up.
[00:10:44] Steve: yeah. And I think, you know what's coming to mind and hearing this journey is just systemic. It's so systemic and how do we both in terms of education and it's a very much streamed and if you're outside of that stream, then you're pretty much boggered actually.
And has all sorts of consequences. I'm really, I saw, I see the light that you've also seen. I think it's really interesting that you're bringing this or certainly driving this into ta because they are effectively the gatekeeper of new talent coming into the organization, but then of course further upstream from an employee journey or experience into onboarding into then, in life experience, like their day-to-day interactions.
Like how do we get organizations to unlock the potential. Of the most captive audience that they have as a business, their people. And actually get them. Yeah. And like to understand their brains, to understand what they actually have and unlock all that potential which would require them to move outside of a systemic and this kind of, typical systemic environments that we have.
But where do we, where do you see that, Theo? I'm really curious around that. Cuz I think that's something, which there was some stats we shared in our pre-work wasn't there, around how many people have some form of, Yeah. Neurodiversity diversity. Yeah. Brain. So what are some of the stats? Because that would also give some context.
If someone had a thousand employees, they'll give a context to how many are actually neurodivergent in their own right today.
[00:12:13] Theo: Definitely. So let's cover to that. First of all, I'm gonna say this in response and then we'll cover that after some of the stats. But experience is absolutely the central core of how we're gonna solve this, right? That's first of all, and experience. We only understand it by asking those people as they go through that process, right?
So we only know if somebody's experiencing something positively or negatively by either looking at them, right? And they're screaming in pain. We know that's not a good thing or by asking them, right? Was that nice? Experience is really important and we don't do enough, right? Cuz we fear what's gonna be said.
And what's gonna come out of it. It'll be, we'll keep the lid on Pandora's box, but some of the data and stats, right? We, the evidence that we had showed lower figures. So it was like, between eight to 10% of people were dyslexic. And these are stats that came up by people ticking boxes, right?
But the problem we've got with boxes is not everybody can tick them and we'll come to N second. And then the stats are like 1% people are autistic, 3% people a, d, adhd. However, we now know those stats are really not properly reflective. So the type of data and insights that we now get is around 20% are probably dyslexic.
We know a high proportion five, six, 7% are probably a D h adhd. The reason specifically around d ADHD is a lack of diagnosis in girls and in women. So we know that only about one in four or five women have an a d ADHD diagnosis versus men. And we now certainly know that it's not a male thing, right?
We're like, oh, the data's telling us that it's men that are more likely to be d adhd. No. The data was rubbish because our method for diagnosing women, like I found with my daughter was. Do they line up dinosaurs? Do they know all the names to stars? Do they like all the different questions? I looked at them, and as somebody myself who looks for the truth in something, some, I'm like I struggled sometimes to see the nuance in a question, right?
If somebody says, do they line up dinosaurs for me? It's yes or no. And no, she does not. Do they line up cs? No. So she doesn't play with dinosaurs, she doesn't play with the Cs, she doesn't know names, dinosaurs, she doesn't, no names of stars. So she's not autistic. And the reality is that was one line that was really poor.
And the other line that we have is things around how they show up. So women and girls, ev everybody made masks to a greater light, certain extent, dependent on, on, on the reason for masking, right? And, but for women, they're much, much more lightly to significantly mask to the extent that they may just be a very quiet child in the back of a classroom.
Now the problem is that has an impact. We also know that women are affected by migraines, for example, visual or seizures. They may then go on to have changes around eating an eating disorder or, you used to start to build all these things up and if you can write back to the point, it's around diagnosis.
So there's data and stats. If I just give you like an overarching figure, we're talking about 20 to 30% who are impacted in such a way that at some point the way their brain works right, would've stopped them being able to do something within either their personal environment, with their relationships or within that the role that they've been given.
And the reality is as roles change and develop and manages change and strategies change and focus changes, That can have an impact. And as people go through different stages of life, it can improve. They're more for, you might get more focused because your role might become more strategic. But what if it becomes more operational?
Again, I had that experience. It can significantly change your ability to deliver in that role. What if your manager, I've had several instances of this is dyslexic and my best managers have been dyslexic. And then they're not. And therefore all of that natural empathy and understand and appreciation without you even having to tell them.
There's just a natural andand and empathy when you say, I'm really struggling to organize my brain with that. Like where do they go with it if they don't understand it and don't have the empathy? And that's where the training and
Needs to come in. So when we think about three in 10 of your workforce, I went and did some work with an organization.
We did a survey, I did a lot of work with them months of work of all their assessment healthcare company. And what came out of it, they were shocked by, they were like, one in 10 of your workforce identifies as being autistic, a, d, adhd, dyslexic. And I've done workshops with them before, so they understood the terminology and everything and they were like, wow, one in 10 of I work.
Whoa, we're gonna have to do something about this then. And I went no. I said, two in 10 of your workforce. Sorry, two in 10 more above. The one in 10 also say we haven't got a label, but based on all the information you've given us, we think that we are. That's three in 10. And they're like, what? And then I, and then the board, I'm advising them and giving them this information. I had a three hour meeting to present this back with them. And then I went no. We're not done yet. And lots of other things we covered. I said around 4.5, almost half right, almost half of your workforce.
Said they are responsible for some of these, so child, friend, family member that they have some level of responsibility for who is autistic? A d h, adhd. That's almost half their workforce and they felt like we're a healthcare company. The types of jobs we've got, probably it's not relevant, we can't see it.
No, it's absolutely relevant cuz actually a lot of people who are autistic and their d ADHD and dyslexic often have high levels of like a stake in the ground for truth and honesty and integrity and the line. And sometimes that can come across as like aggressive or but we think of some of the leaders who challenge the status quo.
Greta Thunberg as an example. There's a line that you draw, which is. Right and wrong. And therefore, when you put that in the context of a healthcare environment, lots of people are driven to be there because they have an opportunity to help somebody. And therefore, that is a powerful driver to be able to go and care for somebody.
And there's a misconception that people who are autistic may not care. Now, that's completely wrong. It's that there's a line of this level of truth that they will draw. And therefore that can seem like if someone, if I said to you something like, you look really grumpy and unhappy today and you don't look very well like for a lot of people, I'd be like, I don't really feel nice after you told me that.
But there's a truth. There's, I've seen you, I'm telling you exactly what I'm. Like that, that can become a challenge, but actually in a instance of care and consideration and making sure somebody is being looked after like that, truth making hurt, but in terms of actually making sure you are keeping that human being alive, then it can really become very impactful.
Cuz you're not allowing anything to get passed. You're not, you may not make assumptions. You may, you've seen it as it is, I see this has happened, therefore that life is at risk. I see this has happened, therefore they're not being cared for properly. I've seen this happen. I'm not happy with it. I'm gonna let somebody know.
And so it's these things that become very powerful and impactful. But it's the data that we are now seeing that is starting to make organizations go, what? Like one in 10 to two, in 10 to three, in 10 to almost half my workforce. Most organizations don't even know the data. They've not even asked the question.
So they have no idea of the experience.
[00:19:58] Steve: no. And oh my God, there's so much to unfold in that one. All, I just how my brain works in this scenario. So my immediate thought is, oh my God, how much potential opportunity there is in the one in 10, the two in 10 specifically to utilize their way of thinking, to benefit the business to seek different perspectives, different ways of working, different thought processes to business challenges.
How do companies look to unlock that? And before you answer that one, I do some, a couple of things come to mind also, just some thoughts or examples that I've heard. I can't remember the exact, the guy's name, but I know there was like a famous British architect and he. Or his company business was very active in hiring dyslexics because they had such a natural ability to see things in a much more three-dimensional format rather than just a flat 2d.
And their ability to, yeah, just to work in that profession. And they were able to leverage that skillset and that brain in that context to create, amazing new levels of work. Yeah, like how can companies do that and become more aware and move into that to unlock what they have now
[00:21:17] Theo: So this all kind of came about specialist which is a European company by origin. Started started sending consultants in who were autistic. Into organizations like IBM and Microsoft as consultants and inter leading banks and what have you. And the way that they were doing it then is they were getting these consultants who were developers and testers, and they were getting them in training, looking after them and dropping them in these consultants.
Now they were able to protect them, protect their interests, make sure they were well looked after. And then what these companies were seeing was significant increase in performance. They were like, what how are these people so good? And that's when you saw organizations like Microsoft and IBM and others setting up autism at work programs because they were like, if these, if we can have consultants dropped in, why are we not developing our own kind of internal consultancies that we could benefit from?
So that, that's a very simple way to, to. Capture incredible talent who may not otherwise get through your systems and processes by nature of the experience is poor because somebody who doesn't look you in the eye, somebody who may struggle to explain what they do, but may be able to show what they do.
Somebody who may have a real problem with talking about their strengths and their abilities and what they've achieved, but you put 'em on a football pitch and they're gonna score you 40 goals a year. Or you put 'em on a hockey pitch, or you put 'em on a basketball court, you put 'em on a, let's stop with a talk and get with the action, right?
But there's certain things that you have to do so they don't keep getting injured. So that they don't spend more time with the physio than on the pitch. So there, there's certain things that you have to consider in their physiological and neurological makeup, and that's what specialist did. And that's what these big organizations started to do that have been programs in eight, eight years of making.
And so when you talk about utilizing these skills and abilities, organizations have been doing it, and especially those organizations at the very top, if you think about technology, but now organizations doing it across the space. So we've got we've got postal companies who utilize autistic talent with check-in packages, because you have to be very systematic in terms of your approach to check packages because things could be put in packages that can have an negative impact.
So it's a very critical role, very analytical role. And there's certain people who, not everybody who's autistic is good like this, right? I'm not. But there are certain people who are like, have a hyper ability in a very particular area, which means. They see things in a way that nobody else sees.
Which, when you've got a job like that, that I think when I talked to this postal company, they were they were outperforming others by about 10% accuracy, right? So the, and you've had same similar stats come out within banking and within technology that when you get the right kind of model, you'll see outperforming.
But you do need to understand what's gonna work for them. Now the trick and the challenge we've got is transitioning that into business as usual. And then when we consider, you've got all these people in your organization already, right? So we've got the people who are being locked out and people forget to do this, right?
You've got the people who are being locked out. 80 plus percent of people with autism diagnosis in the uk, US similar stats are outta work currently. Covid has had a negative impact on this, right? More than about seven or eight in 10, right out of work. But the problem is, like I just told you, there are many people who are not outta work, who are in work, who are autistic or a d, ADHD or dyslexic, right?
That doesn't mean at some point they're not gonna hit a wall and not be able to get back into the workplace. Chat with somebody whose son was at Google for 10 years, left Google now, can't get back into work, right? Because they came out of education, winning all these world high achiever, academically brilliant, got into Google 10 years later, left Google, where do they go?
This is back to the Autism at Work programs. If you are put in a space and a silo and looked after, but maybe not developed, maybe not promoted, and then you are left out. Where is your route after that? So there's definitely some work to consider around that as well. So it's not just the talent you've got, what are you doing with them?
And so there's 2010, let's call it 10% fragmenting. 10% of your employees are currently underperforming. Why? Imagine they underperforming, because of the systems and processes in place are no longer meeting the needs of their neurological makeup. And what if actually it was before, why can't it again, sometimes the change in the direction of organization is so significant.
That becomes a challenge. Auto trade in the uk, they would've magazine one day, they were a tech company the next day, right? That change requires, oh, a complete transformation of 3000 people to a 700 person company overnight, right? And complete change in skillset. That is one thing. And by the way, they do incredible work in inclusion.
When they made that transition. If we consider most organizations, they're not going to that l extensive change in transformation yet. They have people underperforming and they're losing people left and center. Now it's because they're not thinking about opening up Pandora's box, and accepting that there's gonna be a period of pain of transition, but ultimately you potentially are gonna fly after it.
A lot of tech companies, a lot of unicorns, a lot of fast growth organizations are already highly neuro divergent, right? Because they've had the ability to see it quickly, see what the giant tech companies are doing, and just embed it as part of their culture and the development of the organization and the experience that candidates.
Get right through the recruitment process. But you mentioned it on boarding most in Indeed talent, right? They come in, you may do a good experience, you may get 'em through the door, but the onboarding bit, they die a death because they may fear asking questions. They may be very experienced, technically brilliant or commercially astute, but they may struggle with the new systems, technology processes people, right?
And if you are not giving extra time and consideration, coaching support, extra training for managers, they'll go within a year. And then you're like, how did we lose that talent? And these are the problems, but these, the opportunities. The other thing is, commercially, if you don't wanna think about your current talent, which you have to, right?
But if you think also about your customer, I did a work with a health and wellbeing company that as an organization, they're like a few hundred people. But their user base is 2.5 million people. So I've worked with them at not just helping their workforce, but actually creating content to engage and connect with their user base and how many organizations and not thinking, not just about their neuro divergent people, the people who don't fit into the whatever the typical norm is, but actually the 20 to 30% of your custom base.
If you can empower your n d people, you start to empower your your consumer,
[00:28:44] Steve: Consumer, customer.
[00:28:45] Theo: custom customer, whatever. And the greatest example I saw of that was where I worked with a tech company. And when they created a neurodiversity e r g, almost overnight, the Employee Resource group, neurodiversity Employee Resource Group, the people in that group started going back into their teams and developing technology with neurodiversity front and center.
So all of a sudden, they were adapting and creating technology for young people who are autistic, for example, within their school environment. Or for gamers, considering the technology they were developing, like mics and everything else with autistic or a D H D, young people in mind. Imagine that, that gives such wealth of experience to the employee, the value they're giving to their kids and the community, but also the consumer base goes, yay, at last some of these care.
I'm gonna buy all my technology from you because you've shown that you care about my community. It's
[00:29:45] Steve: Amazing. Amazing. What comes to mind here as well is it's gonna require, and you've mentioned this already, or touched on it, around research and listening and understanding, because I think, just from a broader employee experience topic, We're seeing organizations and that requirement to understand their people in a much more intrinsic and deeper level.
How there's something in me as well as around enabling this as well, or enabling leaders and managers in inside organizations because there's gonna be there's probably, there are a ton of managers out there who have a team of which 10% are statistically nd and they have not got a clue.
So where's some of the work to doing that to get in the trenches? Cuz I, and I know a lot of stuff is put on leaders and managers, there's so much for them to do these days, to be aware of in addition to coaching and leading and performance and all these other things. But of course yeah, this awareness level, like what do you see in that piece around just empowering, enabling, educating, this kind of middle management level inside businesses
[00:30:49] Theo: Yeah. So I think training's an important thing, right? But training's a tricky one cuz they go, oh, we got too much training, we got training for everything. But you've gotta think about removing the barriers that exist within the organization. And the only way that you're gonna do that is either a combination of things, you can audit your systems and processes, and therefore the managers don't necessarily, that's not a pressure on the managers.
Leadership needs to take a view to invest in that. And then when you look at all the different stages across an employee life cycle and where the pain points are, you can start to adjust them. And by the way, they are different in different organizations. Some organizations would've invested, they'll have somebody's amazing onboarding, right?
And the onboarding experience will be like the best, but their criminal experience will be really poor. It's knowing where the pain points are. Or your training and development, for example, may not be accessible. So even though it's good content, like for me depending on how it's structured, and if I can't find what I need at the point that I need it it's not used to me because the way that my brain works and because of my poor work in memory, it's just too much information going through my head and therefore I'll keep getting anxious about not being able to use something and I'm gonna start to zone out.
If you just knew that was the case, that's the bit you can double down on and fix. And then that's what you're helping the managers, right? That's not saying manager. You need to be more neuro inclusive manager. You need to make sure your team's perform manager. How many autistic people have you got in your team?
Highest and more? No. Look at your systems, your processes, your procedures. Look at where the potential pain points are. This experience, right? And then think about, okay, what are we gonna tackle? When are we gonna tackle it? Why are we gonna tackle it? How are we gonna prioritize it?
And that's the process that you take alongside. We will also train managers and we will do some work workshops and we'll get people involved in maybe an employee resource group. You might not think you are big enough as an organization, so maybe, that becomes a barrier initially. But then you can the, it still doesn't mean you can ask the questions.
When I was at one organization, I just started an email group and said, who wants to be a part of an email group within the organization where I'm gonna be talking about neurodiversity, right? So every now and again by that little e email group we had all these different systems and, we had team, we had everything right.
But this was just for me to go, let's just strip it all back. We're not asking permissions here. I'm just gonna share some information with a few people about neurodiversity as I find it. Who wants to get it right? In the end, the financial director was coming to me to go, we wanna make these changes. Can you ask the group what they think?
We are thinking about doing this. We've had some kickback on webinars about our backgrounds being busy. Can you ask the community why that is and what we can do about it? Cause a lot of these clients are just confidential and often they're people just really frustrated. So people might be going, oh, that's, why are you doing that?
But that doesn't help. But then you can find a person to ask. So to be able to go to and say, Theo, can you just go and ask? So sometimes the things that we can put in place is so simple and the way that we can ask the questions can be protected. And if it's not through a formal, structured, heavily invested in employee resource group, it doesn't mean we shouldn't do it at all, right?
It just means we have to find other early stage mechanisms to be able to start to implement it and put a commitment to, as it ramps up and the interest grows, that we then start to think, okay, how are we gonna invest in it? How are we gonna ensure that we get value out of it? And that it isn't just a space for people to moan, it's a productive space that we can take some action from, I think is really important.
Organizations can do this themselves, right? They may have some of the incredible who works in audit and auditing systems, processes, parts of hr. But you can't wait till the end of the year, right? This is something you need to, you continually do, and you can do it within each different department as well.
You do it in your bits, you can outsource it to each segment, but you have to include people who are impacted, ask them the question. And then think about each segment and where it may negatively impact. I think that's the best thing every organization can do, cuz they're in control of it.
It's not enforcing outside views upon them. It is based on their world, their environment, what they're doing. And that then can give them the focus to say, that's what we're gonna take first, because that's most important to us.
[00:35:26] Steve: Yes, there was an example. I'd love you to share this in, in on this pod, cuz I, I, when you shared this story with me, I was like, oh my goodness mate. Which was, I think it was Forrest, was it Forrester? There was a manager who
[00:35:39] Theo: Oh
[00:35:39] Steve: yeah.
[00:35:40] Theo: So they're gonna come out. They I recorded a podcast. They've invited me down as well to,
[00:35:45] Steve: they? Oh
[00:35:45] Theo: yeah. About which I want to. So they, they work in forestry for an estate. And this estate in the UK is quite a prominent one lot, lots of People go there, it's a it's a visiting site.
And they own lots of other things like restaurants and hotels and all these different types of things. But these people are responsible for the forestry part of the estate. And when I went and did a talk for them recently up north in one of their hotels lots of the employees came and two were like chatting away in between while I'm talking, which is great, right?
This is but I'm I'm overanalyzing and processing all this all the time. I've got everything going on. I can hear the wind in the background, the trees, I see things going by. I can see these conversation, like my brain is just, whilst I'm delivering this talk, it can be a bit distracting. But afterwards they came up to me and they said oh listen, really interesting.
We, we'd like to talk to you about our experience. And I was a young woman who was about three years into his career, into her career. And this guy who was probably similar to my age, late thirties, early forties. And he said that basically when he employed her, he had some challenges.
She was having seizures, which she had told him when she joined. She was straight outta University, first class degree in forestry in Banga, which is one of the one of the leading universities for this. And he had also gone to the same university, obviously a lot earlier. And the seizures she told him about, but she no knew no more than that.
Just that sometimes she got these seizures. And she used to get quite upset and she used to struggle with certain things that she shouldn't tell me what this tree is. And it's an oak tree. And if you've got a first class degree in forestry, you're gonna know what an oak tree is. And she wouldn't know.
And and she struggles with guessing things. I come back to the truth, the line. She'd struggle with being able to say what the length of something might be. Now when you're cutting Fallon trees and chopping them up for everything, he would be like, there's approximately five meters, times 50.
There's the approximately. She'd have to measure each one. It'd be like I can't tack and guess what it is. So some of these things for him were like what is this? And he went to his wife. I'm having some challenges. Here's what the seizures had increased. She was going home at night and just going straight to bed.
Sometimes she wasn't eat, she wasn't looking after herself properly. And he was worried about her, like from a manager. And he was like worried about this incredible person who on paper should just be loving life, should be knocking her outta the patch she lived on site because that's how many properties and stuff that they have that you get a place to live as well.
And he was just saying that he was worried about her self care and these tr the trauma that was happening and something was triggering it these seizures. And he said to her, after speaking to his wife, she said he, she might be autistic because his wife's a teacher in school and therefore to have much more experience.
And he's what do I do? And she's maybe, have a conversation with her. And he's oh. So he had a conversation with him, the car drive him back after day's work and she said he was acting really weird and he wasn't normally this weird. And then he. Came out and said it have you thought that you might be autistic?
And he said she dealt with it really well and just went okay. I don't know. Cause he didn't know whether she was gonna go, oh yeah, I am. And I've never told you. And yes. But no, she didn't. She was like, and then she only told me the other day that she then went and contacted one of her close friends and went I, my manager said, no.
What do you think? And this friend was like actually, yeah, that would explain so much because he was going on a journey at this time of learning about neurodiversity. So it was just, stars aligned. Anyway, the work that they then did together, the care and consideration, he said it wasn't easy.
They then start to think about it. They had to structure it. You had to understand that sometimes she liked to cry. The ability to let stuff out when she was maybe of, was overwhelmed. Was to cry. And for her, that's okay. And he needed to learn that is okay. He didn't need to panic and worry. And that there is times when she's crying and you need to worry like any of us were.
But a lot of time it's just she needed to lie down on her back on the grass, on the floor and just have a moment to decompress, to meditate, to relax and that was okay. And it could be at any point in the day, right? It could be just a moment to, I just need to get this outta my system so that I can focus and get on with my job.
And by learning all of these things about her, he was able to make the changes. But the amazing thing that happened is that the seizures that had been increasing stopped and she no longer started to get these seizures. And to the, not just the impact on her from a health and wellbeing perspective, but she went from not liking work and she couldn't understand why to being impactful and enjoying it.
And not just enjoying work, but she enjoying life because then she was able, he said, you can ask me anything. So she was asking him questions and this may seem unusual to a lot of people, but what should I eat tonight? I don't know what to do. So then he helped her get delivery food, so she didn't have to think about ingredients and that she could just, it's just this human advice of, I'm a human, how can you help me?
And the final bit to this is he was telling her, you need to be more open. You need to be more transparent. You need to be, you need to share things with me. And she's if I'm gonna share, I'm gonna share it all. You ready for that? And he was like, yes. And that was the food thing. But what he learned is then he wasn't, he was masking himself.
He wasn't showing up as himself. He was this big, burly guy who played rugby, used to drink a lot of punchers at guy and played cricket. Yeah. And then he realized what mask have I been putting on? And actually he then started as a manager to go I want to be this person that can share more, but I need to go on my own journey.
I can't just tell this young person that they need to act. I now need to act myself. And the power of that, two people being able to transform the way they engage with the human beings, their enjoyment, their appreciation of life that just doesn't impact them, that impacts everybody
[00:42:18] Steve: Of course it does. That is such a powerful story. It's a beautiful human experience story. I think it's oh my God. I get goosebumps on that one, mate. It's absolutely amazing. Just imagine that impact it's had on both their lives, both the, in terms of their growth, how they are as people and self just self-awareness and self-growth, and all of the goodness that is makes us human in that story.
I think it's amazing.
[00:42:47] Theo: And that's the power, right? Organizations can do a lot. You can do the training, development, the audit, the focus, the investment, the, and you will benefit, right? There's significant benefits you can make, but there's also individuals. If you were a manager, if you're an employee, if you're a human being, you can change the way you interact with another human being and by association of that connection, It will improve you as a human being and
[00:43:15] Steve: will.
[00:43:16] Theo: like everybody can take responsibility and accountability of what they do on that basis.
[00:43:20] Steve: That's where the impact is I think of everything you've shared so far in this conversation. I'm like, that's, that, that's the bit, that's the connecting bit for me in, in, in that moment, in these moments where as a manager leader, you know, I just as people in organizations to each other, how we treat each other, how we listen, how we support in fact, it doesn't really matter what hierarchy you're in actually, necessarily.
I just think, yeah, just, yeah. It's an, it's a beautiful story. Okay. Where do we go from this one? Theo? My God. I was like, wow. Okay. Let's switch it up a little bit cuz I think I'm curious because I think as I we've mentioned, and I think there's a bit of a theme that we keep coming back to here.
It required, this man said manager to also listen and not only to himself, but also to his employee. We've talked about obviously organizations and some of the companies you work for, unearthing that one in 10 is neurodivergent and with additional two in 10 have some form of connection or association to to it.
What can companies do to move into, like listening to really unlock what's inside the inside that is already inside of your organization? What's the kind of, what can they do? How can they go about it?
[00:44:36] Theo: I think a lot of people, yeah, I think a lot of people don't feel like they can talk about it. From a parental perspective, just a lot of shame depending on where you are in the world. And you hear it on the playground, people still have this view of what autism is. People still even the manager that I just mentioned, he said his view he was like, she can't be autistic.
That's like a naughty boy. And he said that is that I need to own the fact that I, yeah I, that's how I perceived it and I was wrong. So if we think about him as a human being in the transformation, he's gone on, you cannot do that without being informed around the reality of the situation. And if you just go and listen to the media, if you go and read then you will unfortunately still see very biased, nuanced views around what autism is, what a d ADHD is, what dyslexia is.
And come back to my point that is still. It's a it's a spectrum or it's a, we are all in different areas of that journey because we have different life experiences and if we can help individuals understand that within organizations, that can really shift the thinking significantly.
And it's better informed training and development. But more than that stories narrative, that story that the shared experience there that exists within your organization. There are people in your organization who struggled to get help for their child. Took me four years to get the diagnosis for a d h, ADHD and autism for my daughter.
And it took, and then to get the, what we call in the UK and E H C P and educational Health and care plan, which enshrines the support in law up to the age of 25. Cause that's how it works here. So the, getting the. Getting the diagnosis doesn't get you the help. You then have to go through another process to get help.
And if you look at some areas of the world, there is no help, right? It is still only a disability and something that you don't wanna talk about. So we think about it in that context. If we are not gonna empower our employees to show them that we care and that we value this topic and we appreciate it by unlocking the communications around it, then people are not gonna talk about it and they're not gonna share their stories and they're not gonna explain where the pain points are, then we cannot improve their experience on that basis.
We just cannot do it. And it, what, bringing one person in to do a talk, I've talked to so many hundreds of companies, right? Yes. Fine. It's lovely. And I enjoy it. And I'm a inspirational speaker right by now. But there's gotta be something beyond that. It's like going to a movie and thinking I'm never gonna buy another diamond the game because I know the impact there.
The of what's happened on individuals to create that diamond, for example. I'm never gonna do it again. Then you walk out and you get back into your life and next thing you do, and you're buying a diamond, it's what, I use that as an example, but it's anything where it's this kind of thing that makes you go, yes.
And then you walk out the room and maybe for five minutes it stays with you. But life takes over. Organizations, individuals within organizations have a responsibility to start this conversation. A real powerful, meaningful, impactful way, but continuing it on. And that needs to be driven by your employees, by your workforce, but by your systems, your processes and your procedures that you put a commitment to this and not we'll do it next year.
There's not I hate that concept and idea. We're worry about women next year. We're worrying about minority groups next year. We'll wait, there's too many things about us. That's a next year project. People and in your organization today, people are being hurt, people are being harmed, people are underperforming.
People are lacking of support. People's families, people's networks, people's children. If you really want people to have a why when they come to work, think about that. Cuz their families often are more important than anything else in their lives. So if you can do something that impacts their families, their children, their their brothers, their sisters, their cousins, whoever the people they love most, boom.
There's the why. That's a reason for me to come to work every day.
[00:48:43] Steve: Do you think, we'll, I dunno if this exists, so I'll ask the question if from a hiring point of view, we tend to focus a lot on skills, competence, experience, these types of things. Are there examples of companies also adding in the ND lens as well? Wouldn't it be great to have a thing where I've got this competence, this experience this like from a framework or some kind of system and approach, so that as they're coming into the organization, there is some kind of lens in relation to nd in addition to competence and skills and these other things.
How, what are you seeing on that side?
[00:49:18] Theo: So if we think about if we think about LinkedIn as an example LinkedIn of added dyslexia is a skill,
[00:49:24] Steve: They have dyslexic thinking. I think it was, that was down to the great work with Kate Griggs actually at Yeah.
[00:49:30] Theo: and so So at least that's starting to say, let's think about it as a skill. The only problem is, the only issue I have with that is we're starting to get into very specific lines.
And therefore that is dyslexic. What about me? Cuz I have trait of dyslexia, A D H D, and autism and probably dyspraxia and dyscalculia, as does my daughter. So that's a level of complexity there. So it, I don't wanna put all of those as a skill because, they impact me in a different way.
And then the core occurrence, the combination of those mean that each one impacts me then differently. Cause they lean on one another, right? So I may be really great at communication, but then I have really big overwhelm. And sensory overload. That means I can bomb out afterwards, right? And when we think about it in that way it can become a bit tricky.
What I'd be much more interested in doing is looking. At the skills and the challenges. Professor Amanda Kirby does some great work in this area with spiky profile, right? And I use that to advocate for my daughter and to advocate for myself. So a diagnosis is still about a box, right? You still go and get an autism diagnose, a d, adhd, diagnosed with dyslexia, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Whereas if we think about strengths and challenges, often a lot of people who are nd may have a lot of challenges, right? Which is what people have talked about a lot in the past, which I don't like. But as an individual to know what those challenges are and then to know what the significant strengths are, and then to think about how you can bridge over some of the challenges to get to those significant strengths is really important, right?
[00:51:06] Steve: interesting. Yep. Yep. That's interesting.
[00:51:09] Theo: and a lot of people don't. The problem you've got as well, because you've spent all your life saying, Theo, you seem really confident, therefore, you should always be doing this. Or Theo, you can't get overwhelmed because you're so confident or you can't it gets really confusing that you can no longer understand what your strengths are, what your challenges are, what the, when I used to fill out these sec psychometric tasks, and one of you, I'd get really confused going, do you get overwhelmed?
And I'm like I can, because I like going up on stage and doing this, so I must be really uber confident. So I'd always fill them out, like to, to that extent of being exuberant and confident and verbose. And but I'm missing out on all the challenges and only just like focusing on the strengths, which means if I walk into an environment, organizations think that I can achieve those strengths in whatever situation.
No, I can I need the mechanisms and systems and processes in place to be able to get to those strengths. And if I can, then I'm the fastest human being in the world. I'm the greatest athlete. I'm the best scientist. I'm the most incredible artist. I'm the, the best talker, speaker, most creative dynamic, whatever it is.
Whatever. I can achieve that. But only if you do this. I can only see if you give me glasses, I can only walk with assistance. I can only but if you give it, then I may well be the greatest that I can be in that given instance. And that is what, that is. What organizations that do that well, they then get the best out of a group of people that otherwise are often missed, misunderstood, mistreated, and unfortunately can end up in very challenging situations.
Because of the fight or flight. People just leave in leaving their work, leaving their focus or fighting back against the system. And that's great. If we're fighting back against political regimes, you don't believe in or fighting back because of climate change. But it becomes a challenge when an organization is trying to perform and you have individuals fighting back because they feel there's injustice, which actually they may well have been, but that can become really disruptive, right?
So not only are they struggling, not performing, but then they're disrupting a proportion of the organization that then is collapsing under it. Now that individual needs to be supported, not challenged in the way that we often do. And you get into that, right? But if you understood the strengths and challenges and how to bridge, boom, watch them fly.
[00:53:48] Steve: I think that's the two bits, right? So it's like your hiring selection moment is critical to identifying that and not just, Ticking boxes or doing psychometrics that are, again, limited limit, crazy limitations. And then you've got onboarding, which is then how do you ensure that you are supporting them in that very early and quite often for anybody.
Quite vulnerable moment for most people at various times. And then you've got your leadership and management in terms of capability and understanding and awareness of those challenges and capabilities and superpowers to unlock that and enable that and support it in the right way. And I think that's that's an amazing challenge to to overcome and to create for sure new experiences.
[00:54:34] Theo: For a very important one, very impactful one, and one that is worthwhile and I think will significantly impact on those organizations that will ultimately outperform others.
[00:54:44] Steve: Yeah. Hey, listen, there's a there's a whole, I've always said it. I've, my son. I can I see his superpower. I genuinely, and that's, I'm, of course I'm biased, but I do see it. He's, his dyslexia is one thing. And I remember watching a video of this dad in Ireland when I first, when we first discovered Thomas Dyslexic.
And I was like watching it and I was panicking like, what the hell is this dyslexia thing? I had no idea that I need to educate myself. And I just remember this, I remember it so clearly, this Irish guy with about, regarding his daughter, and he just said, just get them through school, but just maintain their confidence if they can get through school and at least maintain a level of confidence.
Then you've, it's you've done okay. And fighting against that kind of systemic kind of system. So I think, for me there's that side, but then what his superpower, and, for me it's his empathic lens. He's got an amazing level of empathy. He his what, his ability to connect with other humans is really interesting to watch.
So
[00:55:40] Theo: we need more of that in the world based on what we're experiencing.
[00:55:44] Steve: We do. Theo, thank you so much, mate. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We did it. I'm so grateful for your time, mate. Really am. How could people find you connect with you?
[00:55:54] Theo: LinkedIn. And if you don't like LinkedIn, I'm on Twitter and what have you, Theo Smith uk. You'll find me pretty much anywhere and everywhere.
[00:56:00] Steve: yeah. Brilliant. Theo, I've watched your journey from Sweden, mate. Absolutely amazing. I'm grateful that you could join me on the show and yeah, look forward to taking conversations further in the future. Have a good day, mate.