What the Neurodivergence? (podcast)
Published on 30 September 2024 • Written by Dr Lisa Colledge
[Lisa] The World Health Organization says that 15% of people are significantly neurodivergent, so then it makes me think - okay - how many are insignificantly neurodivergent.
[Music]
[Sabine] This is exactly why people are tired of diversity equity and inclusion: because it's all about the terminology.
[Lisa] I completely get that organizations are a bit tired of it and think - oh my God, another one.
How can you actually set everybody in your organization up for success?
[Sabine] I'm open about my ADHD but a lot of people are not open about it they don't even know it, right? How can you recognize those people and include them without being biased?
[Lisa] To make sure that our teams and our organizations ask people how they prefer working.
[Music]
[Sabine] We have this one rolling, that one rolling, this one is rolling. How are you feeling? Welcome, how are you feeling?
[Lisa] Slightly sweaty!
[Sabine] It's a hot day today
[Lisa] It's a hot day, yes.
[Sabine] First I would love to introduce Georgia. You are working on diversity, equity and inclusion at a big corporate company. It's so cool because we met at a conference in Amsterdam and we had this Great Click. I sent you a message and and you replied
[Georgia] Immediately, yeah.
[Sabine] And now you're here - that's so cool!
[Georgia] Exactly yeah thank you so much for having me as well.
[Sabine] Yeah, so we are three today. Good to know
[Sabine] I got your name from a colleague at my work, and then we talked over Zoom and I was so inspired by how quick and concrete you could talk about neurodiversity and this is what we are going to talk about today. I thought I want to interview you because there are so many people who are have so many questions about this subject.
[Lisa] I'm Lisa Colledge and I'm the owner of Lisa Colledge Consulting, and in that business I use my expertise in neurodiversity to work with organizations to make their cultures more inclusive of all the different thinking styles that that we all have. And the link with neurodiversity there is that I take the inspiration from the extreme of that difference which is which is neurodivergent people - people with Autism, dyslexia, ADHD and so on.
[Sabine] What is neurodiversity?
[Lisa] Ah yeah, the terminology is tricky. Neurodiversity is something that we all have; we all have different styles of thinking. You told me earlier that you are at your best at 6:00 a.m. and I am practically human at 6:00 a.m. - only just - I'm more of a night owl right?! That's a different way of of how our brains like to work and there are lots of differences of course. So neurodiversity is the differences in how all of our brains work, and neurodivergence that's a kind of extreme of that when people are diagnosed with ADHD or Autism or dyslexia or Tourette’s or, you know, there's a whole whole range of different conditions that fall under the area of neurodivergence.
[Sabine] You said something earlier in our conversation. You had this very concrete positive things about people who have autism or dyslexia. Could you name them?
[Lisa] Yeah, of course. I mean, there's a lot of research on this. So people who have ADHD are really much better at trying something new than other people; they have much lower resistance to to having a go at something new, obviously something that is really nice um for businesses. It comes at a cost - not good at other things - but this is a real strength. People with dyslexia are really good at taking in a whole image very quickly; they'll look at the sides as well as the middle and details, which is what I I tend to do, and they're very good at predicting outcomes. There are more advantages as well but I'll just pick some here. Autistic people are really good at focusing on details and repetitive tasks and making decisions without being biased by social influences or what they think people might expect, so there are situations where let's say the social challenges that autistic people have are really really beneficial. So yeah, but it's always a balance right? So people are very good at some things but it comes at a cost of not being good at others.
[Sabine] Can you give me some data about about this topic. How many people are neurodivergent? I mean, you cannot say that I know but can you give me a little bit?
[Lisa] I can give you an idea. Let me give you some statistics. Nobody knows, I think is is the answer, but it's significant. The World Health Organization says that 15% of people are significantly neurodivergent - so then it makes me think okay how many are insignificantly neurodivergent, if you can be? I was reading a paper yesterday which was just about dyslexia, and it said that the estimations for dyslexia are between 5 and 20: that's only one type of neurodivergence so how can it only be 15%? I tend to think of like 20 or 30%, and some reports do give those numbers but, yes, who knows? A lot of people who are neurodivergent don't know so they couldn't say even if we were trying to count them. Difficult topic but a significant number.
[Sabine] Because why are you doing this? I mean you studied a lot of very beta [subjects].
[Lisa] The short answer is because life takes you in strange directions and if you do what the universe tells you then you end up in these places. Yeah, in my heart I'm a scientist. I studied science. I love working with data - you can see me doing that all the way throughout my corporate career. But I got into this area when we found out that our son is autistic with learning difficulties. When he was two it became clear that, you know, he just he just was struggling with playing, with learning to speak, with things that we take for granted. It took a while to find out what the diagnosis was but ultimately autism with learning difficulties.So I spent some time working out what we could do to make things better for him, to make him better able to interact with the world and be happier, and there's lots of things that you can do. After a while, I thought, what would that look like if you did it in a business environment and equally there's lots that everybody can do and the impact is just as transformational in a business environment as we found it is in our personal lives for our for our son ,and for all of us actually.
[Sabine] Beautiful. So by looking at your son, having it so close by, you realize like oh my God, he's different, but he's beautiful in his difference, but the world is not made for people like him
[Lisa] The world the world is not made for people like him, but I think honestly it was because of our ignorance. We had a very simple view of autism at that time which is probably what most people have - quite influenced by the Rainman film, right? - that people don't interact socially very well, don't recognize emotion when people show emotion, and don't like contact, they don't like cuddling. But our son did like cuddling and he could recognize, you know, if you were happy or sad - he recognized it. Okay the social bit is like – yeah - but we thought, he likes cuddling, he's not autistic, and that was the level of understanding that we had. But once I started to read more about it and learn about really the quite simple things everybody can do, and see the difference that it made, yeah, then I think it's a very important thing for people to to know about and to bear in mind as they as they go around the world and and talk to people.
[Sabine] So you combined your your science background, your – everything, your knowledge - with this new thing of your son, right? You combined it and then you made your work?
[Lisa] That's right. I'm a scientist at heart. I can't change that. My way is is always to go to the literature, to the research, to check what's actually known or what's suspected and what patterns there are. I'm not someone who wants to make a whole organization do something because I think it's right. Of course I have opinions but they're informed by what you find in the research and so that's what I did here as well. I went reading, asking people, and I found patterns and I found evidence and proof about about the differences that we can make if we're all a bit more aware that there are these differences in thinking styles. Not only like autism, but that's one example.
[Sabine] It's so beautiful because you combined the the feeling of of seeing your son and knowing that you want to give him a good place in in this society and on the other hand you're a scientist so you know the data. So that's beautiful that you can combine it because it's not only a gut feeling ,right, there's hard data that can prove, there's a lot of research going on in this area.
[Lisa] You know research papers - they're quite dry. Though. I mean if you're not trained in this and you don't like it then that's probably not the first place you're going to go, but I do like it. You know, I like putting that data together and and finding out what all the different pieces of the jigsaw mean. I like that, so that's the strength that I that I offer.
[Sabine] Why do you like that? What happens?
[Lisa] I just enjoy it. It's like looking at the pieces of a puzzle and it's almost like some point things just go oh yes oh yeah [mimics things slotting into place] and it's happened a few times as I've been reading papers about neurodiversity that things that I kind of had in my mind and I couldn't quite work out, they just fell into place when I was started to read a a paper.
[Sabine] And do you have something neurodiverse yourself?
[Lisa] Possibly. I don't know. I'm not diagnosed. Autism is a largely genetic disease. It doesn't just appear from nowhere, so our son gets it from somewhere. I've certainly got traits of autism in me.
[Sabine] There's no such thing as a diverse person. Groups and organizations can be diverse but not individuals.
[Lisa] Yeah correct. I mean diversity is differences, it's just the differences between all of us so I cannot be different from myself. I’m just myself, that's me, that's it, take it or leave it. The three of us standing here, we already have diversity in this small group and when you when you put it in the context of a large organization - corporate organization, university, whatever - then yes it's crazy how much diversity there is there.
[Sabine] And the pitfall could be that we only look at, for example, how we look and then we think people or a group is very diverse but maybe they think exactly the same or do the same, right? And if you look at neurodiversity, you don't look at the looks you just focus on, for example, the example you gave like don't wake me up up at 6:00 in the morning - and I'm the happiest person alive at 6:00 in the morning in the summer like I go to the beach and you're like oh my God.
[Lisa] Give me give me 2 A.M and I'm perfectly happy.
[Sabine] But this is already a difference between us and if we can use those differences to work together right.
[Lisa] Yeah, I mean we at the very least need to acknowledge the differences and not be threatened by them and that just takes some effort to not be threatened by difference. It's in us to be a little bit scared and intimidated by differences and we needed that to survive years and years ago, so we have to work to accept the differences. And then it's another step to actually really get the benefit from combining the differences in the best way; not just accept them but but really enable them so that we can all just be a brilliant team together.
[Sabine] And it's interesting because I heard I was talking with a diversity and inclusion lead of a bigger corporate - I would not call the name - but she said to me like yes now we're focusing on gender and the [LGBTQ+] Community and, yes, neurodiversity, oh yeah, we also have to work with that but it's a little bit too much now. I'm getting overwhelmed right. How would you respond to that?
[Lisa] I would say stop working on representational diversity programs like everything is separate because it's not. Look for a feature - and neurodivergence is a feature - that all of your employees share and focus on an inclusion program inspired by that. So what I mean is, yeah of course, if you have a program for improving gender diversity and a program for improving diversity of people of color and another program improving diversity of women in tech, you have all these different programs it's really hard work, and they usually don't join up in organizations. I completely get that organizations are a bit tired of it and think, oh my God, another one, but if you stop just boosting the percentages of people in all these different segments and think how can you actually set everybody in your organization up for success, right ,regardless of whether they're female or of color or whatever educational background they have or whatever diversity, then you would come to something like neurodiversity.
[Sabine] This sounds great right but how would you implement the program? Can you maybe mention a little step or something that you are doing then in this program?
[Lisa] If the CEO or a very senior leader would say, I'm not going to join any meeting anymore unless it has an agenda shared two days in advance, and actually sticks to it that would be a good step in the right direction. This is a behavior really inspired by neurodiversity because, especially people with Autism, hate to be surprised in meetings. They like to know what's coming up. They like to prepare and they like to have the option. Then they can do better in a meeting.
[Sabine] Is there another example because I love this example and I also hate meetings and all these moments we are all together talking, not doing anything; well we're doing something but I think the working life could be much more easier if we're not having meetings all day. But that's a side step. Can you give another example of neurodiversity and a very easy step?
[Lisa] Yeah let's take an example of a brainstorm. A typical brainstorm is that people you know get into a meeting and they look at some data and they fire out ideas and they say okay we've got these three ideas that we're going to continue with. That's fine if you're an extrovert person, maybe if you have ADHD you like that, but if you're autistic or you're someone like me who's not autistic but that's just my style, you hate that. You want to think about things a bit more. Maybe you want to digest what other people have said and feed back after the brainstorm and why can't you feed back after the brainstorm? It takes like two or three more days - fine and you get a much more complete, rounded and bought in team as well as a result. So that's another another simple behavior which we could all change.
[Sabine] Wow, I love it, and also because you're really focusing on people who are not extravert and you're seeing it from a different perspective and not how we always do it. [Lisa] Right. I mean there's there's not always something wrong with the way that we've always done things. There's a lot of good stuff in there as well and a lot of times people are basing their techniques on best practice, so we shouldn't beat ourselves up too much but yeah there are always improvements, I think people tend to think about a brainstorm as being good if it's been very interactive and energetic and high energy, but have a think. Were there two or three people in the brainstorm who didn't say anything, and you thought, it doesn't matter we got some great ideas. Fine, you know ,maybe they were just tired or something. But maybe they have something to contribute and maybe that was the the most valuable answer to your customers and maybe you missed it just because you wanted to go ahead now and not wait for two days.
[Sabine] I was diagnosed with ADHD and I think I heard about [neurodiversity] online and I was like neurodiversity, what is that about? Oh my God, somebody is saying a good thing about my disease, right? So for me, it made me feel seen right, and I can imagine that more people have that. Uh, is there some data that you found mindblowing about this subject?
[Lisa] Yes. One of those papers which uh which really made, you know, things fall into place and made me feel very excited was a a paper that I read about which teams are better at solving problems. Those researchers found that the only thing that made a difference in ability to solve problems was cognitive diversity, that people come at problems in different ways. There were still a few occasions in organizations that they looked at when that wasn't enough, and they found that those organizations were very unsafe and people didn't dare to dare to put their problems forward. So you need those two ingredients, right; you need cognitive diversity and the right culture that's why it's the culture that I focus on with with organizations. All the diversity that we can see is also really important, right, it's important to understand our customers and it's important to be socially impactful and socially relevant for organizations so don't stop doing that, but how you can put it in the context is that yeah there there is some diversity that we can't see. I suspect that's why it's usually bottom of the list of all of those diversity dimensions that organizations have, unfortunately because I think it's the most impactful one that they could focus on.
[Sabine] Love it, okay, beautiful quote. By the usage of data, how can we [speed up] the impact of diversity and inclusion?
[Lisa] As we get better data we we're better able to link those metrics to the actions that we're taking in an inclusivity program. [Also] when we think about how we can use all of the new tech opportunities, that's really a fantastic opportunity to invite neurodivergent people to the table, right, so it's pretty well known that autistic people are very very good at coding; they like to work on their own, very detail focused, they can work for hours without talking to people, great! So that a project like that would be a fantastic pilot to try a neurodivergence inclusion program in an organization.
[Sabine] I'm open about my ADHD but a lot of people are not open about it or they don't even they don't even know it,right, so how can you recognize those people and include them without being biased or, okay, you're an autist - I need you come here sit at the table; you're very good at working alone so do it do that. Yeah, I mean, how does it work?
[Lisa] So first of all, I I don't think there's any need for people to declare that they are Autistic or dyslexic or ADHD or whatever. If people feel comfortable doing it, great, but I don't think that inclusive behavior should depend on that. The way that we can do it is is to make sure that our teams and our organizations ask people how they prefer working. You know, are you somebody who prefers to brainstorm and throw ideas around in a meeting, or are you somebody who prefers to sit and think quietly? Are you somebody who I should call if I've got a question or are you somebody who I should send an email to or a Teams message so you can answer it when you want? You know, those those kind of questions can give you an impression of, well not an impression, they tell you how people want to work and it doesn't matter actually whether they have a diagnosis of neurodivergence or not.
[Sabine] I love this because now we take the terminology out of the story and this is exactly why people are tired of diversity equity and inclusion because it's all about the terminology. We should include include neurodiversity, but just ask a person what time are you at best in the day, or would you prefer to work alone, like you're saying – beautiful.
[Lisa] And then there's another step, you know; people have to not only know that, but understand how to work in their team so that they can make people feel welcome and comfortable, and able to do their best work and provide their best to and have a safe environment.
[Sabine] Exactly, exactly, yeah, wow, beautiful. And what would be your question to the next person of this video series? What would you want to know?
[Lisa] What I want to know is why I hear so often companies are giving up on DEI programs. Is it just that they're giving up on diversity but they want to move to inclusion, or giving up the whole lot? Not really clear to me, and why.
[Sabine] Lovely question feel it in my body that we had so many [interesting points]; I was looking at you but I could see Georgia like nodding and then I felt like we have some good quotes here.
What if organizations shifted their focus to enable different skills and perspectives, regardless of what gender or color package they come in?
I was proud to be interviewed by Sabine van Ditzhuizen for her What the DEI? film project, on a last hot summer day. It was a great way to spend the last school day before the summer holidays.
Together, we explored how language shapes our attitudes toward neurodivergence and why reframing the conversation around inclusion is critical for future-ready companies.
Neurodivergence—such as autism, ADHD, or dyslexia—is often accompanied by desirable strengths that improve organizations’ innovation and resilience. For example:
People with ADHD are excellent at dreaming up and trying out new projects.
Autists excel at identifying patterns and making logical, data-driven decisions.
Dyslexics often spot unusual connections and are visionary thinkers, foreseeing future trends.
One staggering statistic: the WHO states that 15% of the population is significantly neurodivergent, but estimated for dyslexics alone reach 20%. I believe the number could be around 30%.
It's time to learn how to enable and tap into the unique talents of this community more effectively?
In this video portrait, Sabine guided a great discussion to not only explore the potential that neurodivergence brings, but also to tackle the hard and sometimes uncomfortable questions about inclusion, organizational change, and talent.
The interview is also available on Sabine's What the DEI YouTube channel here.
I'm Lisa, and I help leaders create inclusive cultures that embrace all neurostyles. By empowering every team member to contribute at their best, while fostering mental well-being, you will boost innovation, retention, and talent acquisition—leading to enhanced business performance.
Click here to learn more about how my services can transform your team.
