Neurodiversity coach on ADHD, Autism, Dyslexia & Inclusive Leadership at Work | Emma Wee

25:50Emma Wee:So I mean, the irony is, of course, that an ADHD brain, you know, hates a timetable. So if you kind of lock things into a day and you get to it and your brain goes, no, not braining. And then you sat there staring at a screen for 20 minutes and then you're smashing yourself around the head going, well, I should be working right now. You know, what you want to be doing is kind of choosing tasks according to where your brain is at. And that requires a tiny bit of structure, but not timetabling. So that's a different thing. So you've got to gamify your brain. You've got to work with where your brain is at in that moment.

26:19Emma Wee:And I think it is important because I think the narrative, particularly around ADHD and where kind of some people will kind of, you know, they'll talk about ADHD taxes, like, oh, there's something else that I've lost or all that money I've spent and I've forgotten to turn up to it. You know, it's that kind of, you know, I don't want to kind of say that people will weaponize this. And I know you want to ask that this later on, but everybody that I work with just doesn't want, they just do not want to be kind of a victim to the challenges. They want to find answers. They want to have strategies.

26:51Emma Wee:And I think that's really important because everyone else is kind of laying blame at our doors for being the rubbish ones who can't organize ourselves and they can't communicate and they can't kind of keep to timetables. There's enough of that guilt being heaped on people. We don't need to do it for ourselves. You know, we can be really good at stuff that other people find incredibly difficult. It's just sometimes the really simple stuff just kind of goes straight past us. Yes to that. And yes, I think, and in general, I read the book called ADHD 2.0. I personally found it fascinating. I don't know if you've read or anyone else on this call read it.

27:25But one of the things that research identified, it was two researchers who both had ADHD who did the research, which is lovely. And they were talking about the fact that actually negative emotions, like whether it is like blaming someone or guilting someone actually makes ADHD worse. So, and therefore, anyone who was raised in the conditions, whether it's school or families where you were punished for all those behaviors actually made it worse long term. So you might have your ADHD might show up more if you constantly being kind of had this negative reaction to it.

28:00Emma Wee:And this is where the kind of like the argument of nature versus nurture comes in, right? So, So, you know, sort of where we have the acquired neurodiversity is which are kind of like conditions that happen to you after you're born, right? So the things that sit within the mental health space, the transient ones. So that's kind of like if you think of like your pre-existing neurotype as a hosepipe where everything flows. The acquired neurodiversity is like someone stepping on that hosepipe. And of course, when you have kind of, you know, sort of any kind of anxiety or depression, you know, it kind of becomes something that kind of really gets in the way of you processing well.

28:34Emma Wee:And there is a kind of, you know, I think there's probably about a 30 % higher occurrence of particularly AU ADHD is experiencing trauma at some point during that kind of like teenage formative years, the kind of those social building years in particular. And so being neurodiverse doesn't automatically mean you're going to have poor mental health, but there's quite a high occurrence of it because people might not understand how they kind of work. Other people might judge them, judgments, you know, sort of lack of compassion around the way that they need to kind of process and all the rest of it.

29:03Emma Wee:So, you know, it's quite interesting when I'm working with someone who, you know, is a clinical neurodiverse and then has a lot of trauma or they're kind of bipolar, for instance, and kind of for OCD, you know, all these things are quite separate. But you can see the point where they kind of move into one another if that's kind of what's been going on for someone. So that's where I find it endlessly fascinating in terms of kind of like, oh, I can see where that's just moved into something different. But again, it's kind of when people don't have the answers and they're just they're calibrating against what they're being told is kind of really is really damaging if you don't have any other any other mirror to kind of hold up against.

29:43Emma Wee:I have one client who she's late diagnosed dyslexic. Her parents knew that she was dyslexic because they had a test when she was younger, but then didn't tell her and spent her entire kind of like, you know, the next 20 years telling her or kind of spouting the narratives that dyslexic people are really lazy and kind of useless. And she's now kind of been kind of diagnosed again as an adult. And she's traumatized doubly from it because these are people she's supposed to trust. It's really damaging. We'll dive into dyslexia actually in a second, because I think this is one of the top conditions that we have actually today, neurodivergent types that we have.

30:23I actually don't like the word condition, because I feel like conditions, disorders, they have such a negative feeling about it. Well, I think it's just, it's wonderful things that we have just different brains. That's all it is. And we should celebrate each one of them. So neurodivergent types, we'll dive into dyslexia in a second. I just remembered one more thing from the book that I personally find fascinating, which is hugs help. So for ADHD, if you've been hugged as a child, or even as an adult, that actually helps to, I suppose, calm down the brain, there are hormones and everything going on.

30:54But I suppose all these things that you just mentioned about extra processing and kind of what the ADHD brain might require, obviously, hugging and creating a safe environment actually helps people. So hug, If you ever feel like you're overwhelmed, a hug might help you. Take it at your own risk. But that's something I personally found very fascinating.

31:15Emma Wee:Now, let's move to the second. We have two more winners in this lovely poll. We have dyslexia and autism. Which one shall we go into next? Dyslexia is one of the applied neurodiversities. And it is basically how you process autism. So it's not about if you can't read and write. It impacts everything in terms of kind of how you process kind of everything to sort of encoding and decoding, right? So I suppose one of the best ways of describing, particularly within the creative space, is that you'll have this spiky profile for kind of being prolexic. And one of the things that you'd be really good at is perceptual reasoning, spatial reasoning, right?

31:57Emma Wee:So that will make you really, really good at spotting patterns and taking information and kind of going, oh, I can see where the gap is with that. and moving that information and kind of being able to understand that. Okay. One of the things that kind of the flip side of that is that your brain is also doing that with words and sounds. Oh, which way around is this sound? Is it fit with this shape? Right. And that's what takes the additional processing when it comes to reading because it's decoding and encoding. So does that make sense? So your brain is probably really good at kind of like problem solving and spatial manipulation.

32:30Emma Wee:It's about 25 % quicker for that stuff. But then it means that you're about 15 % slower when it comes to kind of processing written word. And that's why it takes a little bit longer to kind of process it. There's a bit more to it. Like there's kind of how you process kind of phonological sound and kind of like where that kind of sits within the brain and stuff. But essentially, it's kind of it's not about not being able to read and write. It's just lots of other things around that. It's just those things typically will have a greater impact in terms of reading, writing, organization, time management.

33:02Emma Wee:you know the classic thing is you'd be great in a meeting come up with lots of ideas walk out not remember a single action point right or come up with a fantastic solution and project and then go oh god how do i make a concise paragraph with that right so that's where kind of things like assistive tech can be incredibly useful um you know to kind of gather your kind of thoughts one of the classic things that i get to do with people who are doing lots of really involved client meetings is that as soon as they walk out, they give themselves a kind of essentially, so they're debriefing someone else that conversation, but send themselves an email, dictate an email to themselves so that they're emptying the brain out.

33:44Emma Wee:It's like having a whiteboard that you wipe clean. So you don't have to hold all that sound in your brain until you get back and have to make sense of it. You can kind of rid of it out of your brain. And by the time that you get back to kind of wherever you're dealing with it, it's already kind of ready for to edit. This is so brilliant. And I love that we, I think, probably in the best time in life right now in the world where I suppose all these neurodivergent brains have so many tools that can help us, like, as you mentioned, dictation, and then transcribing and all these things that are so accessible now to most of us.

34:18So I think, again, if you are aware that writing or reading is not how you naturally process information, then knowing that recording an audio note or whatever that is, that will be transcribed immediately as an email, as a note. And again, AI can now summarize it for you and all of that. It's wonderful.

34:37Emma Wee:Yeah, I mean, one of the classic things that I get people to do is kind of, there's a great tool called Goblin Tools, which is kind of an AI tool that is designed by ND brains for ND brains. It's very user-friendly. But one of the classic things that a lot of dyslexics and sort of ADH years as well, is when they're trying to kind of cram this whole narrative that they have into their brain into a document that someone else needs to read. Quite often they'll read it, check it, wonder if it's the right thing, wonder if they're getting the right thing across. You know, autistic individuals are probably going to write bags and bags of content because they've got this huge narrative, but it's too much for someone else to process.

35:15Emma Wee:So actually you can stick it through a tool to kind of go summarize this or bring out the salient points or what am I actually saying? you know judge the tone of this what am i actually getting across so that people can actually work a lot quicker a lot more efficiently and that's where the reason adjustments you know all this tech can kind of it's goblin tools it's a kind of a it's just an online tool um the one the two kind of things that i use um predominantly with people is the judge and formalizer uh which is a really great so judge as well or judge the tone of say an email that you've received in case you might be reactive to it and then it will also suggest a response and formalizer can be you can just go by dictating to it and it will kind of put a filter on it whether being i love the kind of filter more sarky more polite more professional less kind of like waffle more waffle you know they're kind of like great kind of you know typical filters that we kind of use uh you know as a colloquialism.

36:14Emma Wee:But it means that you've got, it's like having someone there going, actually, this is how it's coming. And do you think these tools, I think this is so great, all the tools that you mentioned, and I 100 % agree that this is something we should utilize to most of its abilities, because I think this is so great that they exist and definitely can make life so much easier. I wonder, and I don't know if you have answered to that question, where they're relying too much on tools overall. I think that's a conversation overall in the society. If we rely too much on Google and everything, we forget things, we can't remember anyone's phone numbers anymore, all of that kind of skill is lost.

36:51Do you think it's the same as neurodivergent brains that we should give some sort of space for learning and strengthening the certain skills versus relying on everything? Where do you think is this balance between making our brains better and training them in the gym versus relying on tools?

37:11Emma Wee:I mean, I think it's the amount of effort. Like, you know, I'll give you an example. I had a client who dyslexic, dyspraxic, she's a journalist, and it used to take her about three weeks to kind of research, write, proofread, submit her articles. Once she had mind mapping software, dictation software, and read aloud software in place, that went down to two and a half days. So the amount of effort that it took her, that was kind of like, you know inherently she was still doing the work but she was getting there on par with her kind of you know her peers and that's where the kind of the leveling up of those tools that are you know whenever I use um when I'm writing in word I will use there's a function design which you can color the background of the page so visually I can make uh the text to background color a lot more low contrast so black text on white paper is very high contrast so if you're staring at that sort of format day in, day out, then your brain's going to get knackered really quickly.

38:10Emma Wee:Whereas if you use it to kind of go low contrast, then you're not going to experience as much visual stress. I'm not doing any less work by writing my reports in that way, but I'm getting there with more bandwidth and kind of some resources left in the tank at the end of the day. I love your example because I think it also kind of shows that it's not just our brains, but it's the world that we live in that requires things that are not natural to the brain. Just writing a report is not what ancestors did. So therefore, our brain was never wired to write a report. So using an artificial tool to write a report is totally normal because I think that's essentially, we found an artificial task and we're using an artificial tool to do this artificial task.

38:52And like reading things on the screen, again, our nature is much more beautiful than black and white. So therefore, our eyes are not used to looking at something that is so high contrast. So it only makes sense that we get tired.

39:03Emma Wee:I mean, you know, it's not a coincidence that dyslexia was kind of discovered, shall we say, around about the time of kind of the Industrial Revolution, because that's when book printing started to come into the fore and formal education started coming into kind of like into society. before that those people who were dyslexics ADHD who didn't do the book learning were the entrepreneurs were the ones who are the makers who ones that kind of like came up with new ideas so it was only when kind of formal education became kind of norm these challenges started to be discovered you know hello ableism right that's kind of where um you know some people were being kind of judged for not keeping up with norm whereas in fact they'd been doing pretty well And maybe that's the time where we change the world and make it a bit more creative and less set up for only one type of brain.

39:59And I feel like there is a lot of already change happening, but I think it's really empowering to know that, again, it's nothing wrong with us. It's just the world has been set up in a weird way that is absolutely not natural. And we just need to find different ways to make it more natural to our brains. Which leads us to the next one of the top three types of neurodivergent brains that we have today in these conversations, which is autism. So tell us more about autism.

40:25Emma Wee:So I describe being autistic as having my senses on mats the whole time. So I'm absorbing vast amounts of energy and sensory information constantly. But it's a bit like a seesaw. I've got all this kind of high level kind of capacity for seeing all the what ifs, right? My brain can see all the kind of variables and how that's going to pan out very quickly. And the seesaw is kind of like high level processing, sensory social processing on the other end of the seesaw. And it can flip out at any point. So it can be. So, for instance, when someone was banging on the door just then, I really, I literally could not hear what you were saying.

41:00Emma Wee:It wasn't that it was particularly loud. It's like socially, I could not engage with what the language you were saying at all. It just kind of cancelled out. So the seesaw just went because that was such a sensory distractor for me. And I mean, there's lots of different kind of aspects around autism, but I think sort of predominantly there is, you know, one of the things like the classic thing is that people have this misconception that autistic people don't have empathy. Whereas in fact, we're just experiencing things at a very high level. So all of that social language, all that kind of like sort of how we're supposed to understand what you're feeling and what you're saying gets really confused very quickly.

41:37Emma Wee:and one of the things around that is um the mirror social mirror neurons in the autistic brain are switched off so these are the kind of the monkey see monkey do cells right i see someone pick up a spoon to eat i pick up a spoon to eat and the social mirror neurons are not switched on in the same way so that's where they're not picking up kind of the nuances of kind of like someone's body language or tone in the same way there's only 60 of what we experience kind of communicators words everything else is like my face doing something weird or like tone right so all of that gets very confused what will happen with um you know particularly someone who is autistic is that the small talk will feel quite stressful because there are lots of variables where all those conversations can go whereas if you're just talking to someone in a shop and you're just buying something there's only so far that conversation will go and you'll be kind of probably all right okay so it's about kind of like well how much capacity have I got to deal with all the what-ifs versus oh something that's kind of clear and predictable and kind of like quite concise that's fine I can deal with that I think one of the kind of the key things is that sort of this idea of kind of being uh sort of unable to deal with change not really I think it's really what I experience is sort of particularly with creatives is that if you understand the landscape right if you're in control of all those variables that you that sit within your world and you understand what they are for instance for me in theater theater is completely chaotic nothing ever goes the way that you want it to right it'll always happen that's my mantra it'll always happen but i've been doing it long enough to know where all those variables can go so i can deal with the change in that space but if you tell me the wrong entrance to go into a building i will lose it very quickly, right?

43:23Emma Wee:So it's kind of the seesaw kind of flips kind of quite quickly. It's one of those things where someone might be seemingly incredibly very productive and kind of high processing and able to do very, very complex stuff. And then they can't figure out how to open the file. It's kind of like... I love how you differentiate kind of different misconceptions and things around like how the brain works, because I agree, I think autism probably is the one that has the most misconceptions overall. And I think also speaking of negative biases and connotations, I think historically had so many negativity around it.

43:59And I think that actually it's probably, again, we can look at many successful leaders, inventors, and people who've done lots of things, and they do display certain traits of autistic brains. So therefore, again, we're not going to diagnose anyone by how they look, but there is a high chance that a lot of inventors and people who solve these difficult problems kind of had a very differently wired brain. I would love to hear a little bit more also about what, if you know someone, it's like one thing is understanding yourself, but a second kind of part is obviously as a leader who has to lead a team that has all sorts of different neurodivergent people, and we just talked about the three ADHD, dyslexia and autism.

44:45What would you recommend kind of things to do to make sure that you actually create this inclusive environment for everyone?

44:52Emma Wee:I think what's really interesting is that particularly if you're kind of being someone who's gone through a career and kind of found their way of working, and then they create a company, so you're leading other people. Where the conflict often comes is where the assumption is that everybody thinks the same as you, right? Why don't you get it? it's really obvious to me. Why aren't you doing it the way that I would do it, right? So I think kind of being able to kind of have spaces where you say, okay, so what works well for you in terms of communication? It might be, I need to have regular check-ins.

45:24Emma Wee:Okay, but what does regular check-in look like? You know, is that every week? Is that twice a month? Is that three times a year? What does regular checking look like for you? And being able to ask questions without assuming that you know what that answer is, I think is really important. because that's where, you know, trust is built, isn't it? Being heard and kind of that stuff being paid attention to. And I was just talking to a client the other day and she was complaining because this other person didn't know how to do their job. So what do you mean they don't know how to do their job? Well, I've explained it three times and they keep coming and asking me again.

45:59Emma Wee:So is there perhaps something in the way that you're explaining it that they're not processing that information in the way they understand it? so the assumption that someone doesn't know how to do their job like I would say where's the curiosity don't assume that everybody works in the same way that you do and blame them for kind of not having the same kind of speed or kind of lack of it whatever you know in the way that they're kind of understanding look for different ways of kind of sharing information I personally found that the more interesting extreme versions of the brain you find in your working circle the the more you actually improve your processes as a company.

46:39I mean, there is a mantra overall about inclusive design that designing for edge cases improves process for everyone. And edge cases can be, whether it is certain abilities, kind of extra abilities or disabilities, the classic example of if you're designing a knife, you can design a knife for a professional chef who uses more than any other person in the kitchen or for someone who has kind of any conditions that stops them from using normal knives. So it's, again, no matter which edge case you look at, if you design for edge cases, actually create a product that will be so better, faster, easier to use for everyone.

47:15And the same, I think, applies for any sort of team culture, briefing, how do you report, anything like that. If you listen to these edge examples of someone not understanding you, if someone repeatedly doing something different and really try to understand what would make this process better, is that everything needs to be written. Everything needs to be written in a certain way, in a certain format. Actually, that will be better for every brain.

47:40Emma Wee:I often say to companies, don't get so wound up on the kind of like, we have to have an individualized work plan for every single person. How do you step back and make the space work for everyone? It's about kind of being able to, and this is where the masking kind of thing is really interesting. Whether you're neurotypical or neurodiverse, it's a pressure point at which you kind of go, I'm just going to do it because everybody else is doing it that's probably a pressure point where you could do with a different system I oh we just get on this is just the way we do things around here is that really the best way of doing things around here or is it just because everybody's been doing it from day dot I think it's kind of that's when when I'm working with organizations I get them to look at what resources and kind of what hurdles exist within communication onboarding, interviewing, you know, the unspoken ground rules from a neurodiverse perspective, because they're going to be the initial kind of pressure points, the masking points where people are going to go, I'm just going to, it's going to cost me more to work in the way that everyone else is working because I'm already kind of dealing with a load of extra processing.

48:46And following actually, I think you mentioned that last time we spoke and we had our internal workshop as a team where we created the manual of me and where everyone can download that one, But we found it incredibly helpful to actually sit down as a team and discuss these things. Again, how do you prefer to be briefed? What makes a good working condition for you? And then kind of lots of nuances. What makes you stressed? What makes you excited? And it's fascinating to see how, again, lots of things that you assume everyone is the same. Who would not like it that way? Or everyone hates that. Of course, it's how things are.

49:21And when you hear everyone's answers and also when they talk more about why they prefer that way, like, oh, wow, there are like so many things that you just assumed are the norm. Even if you are a neurodivergent person yourself, again, there are other brains that are wired differently. So I think it's so good to just actually communicate and understand how everyone works and just create a system and a place where everyone can contribute in the same way.

49:52Emma Wee:And I think one of those phrases that I often kind of encourage individuals to use is rather than saying, I can't do X, Y and Z because of blah, blah, blah. What works well for me is this means that I can. What works well for me is this means that I can. If you kind of say, I can't do X, Y and Z, then you've got this hurdle. people see the label they can't see beyond that if you spent some time figuring out your solutions and then manage expectations about this is what you'll see if these solutions are in place a kind of disclosing without having to disclose b you're showing that you understand yourself and you're not just waiting for an answer right i can't get things on time because i'm adhd or whatever actually what works well for me is having clear deadlines and a reminder two days before it's due, this means that I can deliver things on time, right?

50:40Emma Wee:It's a very different narrative that, isn't it? It means that you're owning the process and coaching in particular is based off those two principles, self-awareness and the responsibility to do something with that. It's a very practical thing. It's not like you just kind of sit there and someone tells you a bunch of stuff. You have to own it and you have to understand it. And so kind of being able to spend some time really understanding how your brain works, what it needs to work at its best means that you're going to be bulletproof. You're not having to wait for someone else to give you a solution.

51:10Emma Wee:You can kind of go, actually, I know what the solution is. And you can't tell me I'm lesser because of it because you're getting all this good stuff at the other end. I'm so glad you mentioned this because I wanted to spend some time talking about the dark side of knowing everything about all these conditions and people self-diagnosing and diagnosing others and kind of putting this label left and right. I cannot do this. I'm dyslexic. I don't want to do this. I'm ADHD. But I love how you spoke about this from the point of enablement and responsibility. So first of all, you need to be aware of what you have, but then also you need to be responsible for how you want to behave with other people to get the work done.

51:47Emma Wee:I mean, I think there's a certain amount of, you know, when people kind of arrive at a certain point and they don't have the tools and they don't have the strategies because they've never been allowed to learn them or discover them, then there's all the ableist narrative, like you can't do this because you're x y and z then that becomes a bit of a perfect storm right because actually what you're doing is if someone doesn't feel as though they can achieve something they're kind of backed into a corner and so they'll kind of go on the defensive i can't do it because of x y and z because when you know often when managers go well what you need how can we help you i always describe it as a bit like you know the scene in jungle book when you got the vultures on a branch and they're going what do you want to do i don't know what you want to do and nobody has any answers because they're just going back and forth right so being able to kind of really understand what you need is really really key to then going oh there's a solution here brilliant I don't have to wait for you to tell me how to do something so I think that that's kind of one of the things is that being able to kind of investing in someone and I think it's about if someone is not performing on a certain level being able to kind of understand that there are going to there may be things that are kind of dips in the challenges not I don't like calling and weaknesses is about what are the things that need tools what are the things that need strategies to level up so then you can start to see all the good stuff because essentially when you've got a brain that can do all that creative kind of problem solving can think out the box can kind of work in different ways you want to really harness that for a business but all the grunt work the way that the business kind of operates that needs the stuff that kind of like feels really difficult so that's why you need the extra tools i think it's really interesting in terms of kind of you know the judgment that someone will have placed on them if they're not functioning or performing at a level that is seen as acceptable.

53:30Emma Wee:And it's often conflated with them as a person, rather than going, what's not working well? There's some organization time management stuff. Does that mean they're a bad person? No, but they're said to be lazy and therefore not worthwhile. And if they've heard that narrative throughout their lives, then there's a certain point where they're going to go, yeah, I am not very good. So if you can separate that out as a leader and go, okay, so what's working well? All of this stuff. What is the stuff that's not working right? What can we do? What are you seeing and hearing that's telling you that stuff's not working well?

54:00Emma Wee:Once you level up that process, once you put tools in place, that's when you can start to say, is this person able to perform? And if not, then it's about saying, is this job the right thing for you? But until you've got all those tools and strategies in place, you can't really make account on that. Being diagnosed officially and being undiagnosed does not make one jot a difference to that person's life in terms of having a report, right? What makes a difference is understanding how to support the brain and having tools to do that. So having an official label, it might give people answers. It might kind of go, oh, that makes sense.

54:37Emma Wee:But fundamentally, in terms of how they run day to day, does not make one jot a difference. And that's where kind of if you associate with traits and kind of see yourself validated in certain levels, you know, numbers of traits, then that's all well and good, right? But unless you've got the tools to be able to support the way that you need to work in a particular space, then it's still going to be chaos. It's going to completely continue to be chaos through job to job. That pattern's not going to change. And how would you go about, I love how you spoke about this of kind of creating reasonable adjustments, understanding the tools, but also still be clear, it's not an excuse not to do work.

55:16Like you need to give people fair chance. You need to understand how they perform, what conditions you need to create for them to perform at their best. But then it's also okay if this is not the right role or the right job. It's also okay if you create all the conditions and all the adjustment and the performance is still not there, it's still fine. I think like on a human level, we're all different and we each have a perfect place and perfect role that we can do and we will enjoy and just sometimes it's not the right match and it's

55:43Emma Wee:yeah totally fine it and it doesn't have to define you right it doesn't have to define you it's not a failure it's just a kind of a learning experience and I mean I was working with a young woman recently who she'd gone into a very corporate space she's autistic she'd kind of been there for kind of about a year one of the things we did towards the end of kind of her coaching was kind of look at her working values like what are the things that were important to her in the workplace and actually none of it was about the performative stuff it was all about being supportive and kind of having an inclusive space that accepted her and saw her strengths that could be any space right because none of that was being fulfilled that was kind of a in a and it was the work was not interesting for her anyway so it was kind of okay so let's move on to something else right let's just kind of get another job because it's fine that's not working you don't have to feel as though it's all your fault.

56:36Emma Wee:That's just a bad, bad fit. So how would you go about it? Let's say you're, you're a leader, you're realized that you have this team and you might not know all the answers as well. I feel like that's another thing, like no matter how many books you read and how much research you do, I think there are still so many things that you will never know about every single person and condition. So, and as you said, like, if you just go to your team and say, what do you need? And they'll be like, well, we don't know what we need. So how would you go about, let's say you identify, you want to make this investment in creating an inclusive environment, what would be maybe the first few steps that you would do as a leader to create this supportive environment where everyone can perform?

57:13Emma Wee:I think one of the things that kind of, I mean, obviously having clear kind of non-judgmental conversations that are kind of like, and, you know, even the way that you give brief, like making sure that people are not just walking out going, yeah, I understand that, like checking that they kind of get what you're talking about. Because if you're not communicating clearly then you're not going to get the product you want at the other end of the at the end of the process are you i think kind of being able to uh kind of quite often people will have developed lots of strategies to do the way that they or match the way that they need to work but they will often forget those things like 90 of the time when i'm saying have you tried this and go oh yeah well i used to do that it's like why aren't you doing it now it works then why are you're not doing it oh because no one else does it i don't feel as though i've got permission to do right so you know a lot of the time you can kind of go right if you're can you think of a time when you were organizing yourself well or is there something outside of work where you're able to organize yourself well like what are the elements that allow you to do it there then you've got a model you can transfer across into the space that went the workspace because there's going to be variables that your your brain has naturally been able to kind of utilize that's the working model.

58:24Emma Wee:And I think sort of being a, you know, someone is asking for reasonable adjustments is going, well, what are the things that you need to kind of, you know, what are the things, what's the work that you're doing? What is it that you need to make? Where are the pressure points? What are the things that feel easy? What are the things that feel challenging? What can we do to kind of like support that stuff? And not shying away from kind of conversations where someone might need to do something differently. I also think modeling good practice is really essential. If you're the person that sits at your desk for eight hours a day and doesn't take a break, then you're going to get a load of burnt out brains right behind you.

58:56Emma Wee:So kind of being able to model good model, you know, good behavior, healthy working behavior is really important as well. Thank you. I think this is really great advice. And I like how you talk about this in a very much coaching way of having a conversation. It's not about having one meeting, please write all the things that you need. And we'll do that. It's more of okay, go back, have a think where, where are these things that you need help on? Where did it work outside of work? What kind of things have you figured out in life and having this more reflective conversation with someone so they can also find answers that maybe they don't know yet and they kind of can reflect on this.

59:32On the flip side, if you are a neurodivergent or you suspect you're neurodivergent or you've been actually diagnosed, there is a lot of, we had lots of questions about stigma at work, no one will understand me. And again, we are very privileged to be in a creative world where maybe there is a bit more accepted, but especially if you are maybe in not such a creative company where maybe neurodivergency is still seen as something bad. How do you go about it? Do you disclose? Do you not disclose? Do you talk to anyone? Like, let's say you found out that you are a neurodivergent. What to do next?

1:00:03Emma Wee:You know, as I was saying that, what's quite interesting is that kind of a lot of the kind of what you would see is kind of more neurotypical industries have actually kind of really had to pull their bootstraps up a lot around neurodiversity and had to put reasonable adjustments in place. When I think about kind of the performing arts in particular, yes, there were bucket loads of nds but actually because there's so many freelancers disclosure and asking for kind of like for reasonable adjustments is often seen as a oh god they're a pain in the ass we're not going to employ them again so a lot of people won't disclose and they won't kind of ask for things that are seen as kind of like oh that's a bit too much right so i think it's a tricky one because i think a lot of the a lot of the creative industries is that assumption oh well everybody kind of can work in this space because everybody's brain works like mine sort of thing why do you need extra stuff and so it's kind of I suppose the thing is is sort of if you've got a space where you're kind of creating a space where everybody can engage with the work and is comfortable and there's kind of feeling as though they've got space to discover ways of working do you have to disclose that's the thing and I think so disclosure is really tricky there are still some places that kind of particularly around autism like people would be really severely judged through doing nothing different at all and i think part of that is to do with you know the kind of herd mentality you know when people kind of disclose if they've been around a certain number of people it's a bit like a constellation star constellation right you've got these different points from the constellation and everybody kind of calibrates by you know locating themselves to kind of one another and if one of them appears to change everybody freaks out and goes oh my god you know I'm different now.

1:01:44Emma Wee:Well, I must be different. It's like, no, you're still the same. It's just, you know, different information, right? But that's where kind of people really kind of like struggle with disclosures because it's by its nature can make people feel quite vulnerable because people will treat them differently. So I think that's where you kind of get into the space. Well, if you're an inclusive workspace and you're supportive of people, then, you know, being able to normalize these conversations will make them feel more able to and say actually I need to work in a slightly different way. So am I right to say that if you don't feel safe to disclose do not disclose if you feel like it's an inclusive environment?

1:02:23Emma Wee:No I don't think so but it is quite often where you know a neurodiverse person is often expected to be the educator and to be the one to tell everybody kind of what they need or they kind of like you know explain what being autistic or explain what being ADHD is or you know with So the conditions that say in the chronic fatigue space or kind of like, you know, there's a condition called FND, which is function neurological disorder where nerves just don't play ball half the time. It's like the software is kind of, the computer's fine, but the software is kind of corrupted. And people might appear drunk one day and not be able to speak one day and then they're perfectly fine the next.

1:02:59Emma Wee:And massive assumptions are made about that individual because they're not consistent from day to day. Right. So how do they feel safe enough to kind of say, well, there's something going on for me when all they want to do is. of work it's still we're still not there I think we're kind of like we've come a very very long way from kind of seeing reasonable adjustments and kind of being able to um and kind of kind of say coaching and strategy coaching as being something that's an automatic kind of way out and I think one of the key things is making kind of workplace needs assessments and conversations and work feel like they're not an automatic step to the exit I think that's really really important and like this week's being, last week was Menopause Awareness Week and I was doing a lot of talks around menopause because menopause, perimenopause is seen as an acquired university now because it has such a massive impact on kind of people in the workplace.

1:03:52Emma Wee:And, you know, I think it's really important to kind of not, to let people feel as though they can find support without feeling as though they're going to lose their jobs, essentially, by kind of asking for support. I agree with you. And I also would say, I think it's such a personal choice, like in general to disclose or not disclose and i feel like no one should be forced to disclose that someone disclose full stop you shouldn't be disclosing like four people either you know i mean if you think about any other kind of types of kind of like like diversity you know so when you think it's like someone's sexuality like you wouldn't stand like it's being a kind of like a kind of a team meeting oh by the way they're gay you know it's like you know it's like you wouldn't do it it's rude so why do it with any other kind of like so sort of you know identify 100 and i feel like the probably maybe the first step if you feel like your workspace is not ready or not there with understanding neurodiversity maybe invite someone like emma uh to have a neurodiversity awareness some sort of or just kind of talk to someone in hr or people officer to say that maybe we have people in the team who are new diversion wouldn't be nice to have a bit of an awareness day we can invite someone to talk about it so we can all learn what does it mean so you don't need to specifically say i am the one i think it's probably you're not the one first of all there are other people who are masking it very well and i think bringing just awareness is the first step to the entire organization could be a great way to for people to open their eyes and see it's like oh actually we can relate to lots of things that are happening.

1:05:28And again, you might find kind of that's a good conversation started to reasonable adjustments, tools and processes that can go from there.

1:05:36Emma Wee:I'm conscious of time. Seriously, I feel like we need like a 10 episode series on this topic because there are so many other conditions, topics, things that we can dive in. But I thought we'll do a fun round of kind of advisory. So we have a few different scenarios of like what leaders need advice on. And we would like you to help as a coach with kind of few maybe notes of what would you do. So I'm going to share one by one different scenarios and maybe kind of your first thoughts of what you would do in this situation. A team member avoids group brainstorms and prefer written output. What would you do?

1:06:14How would you go about it? You invite someone from brainstorm, they don't come. They're like, I will.

1:06:19Emma Wee:So is there a way of them being able to contribute remotely? Is there a way of being able to kind of have a kind of an online version of the same kind of brainstorming kind of tool? Letting, giving them some of the information ahead of time so they can submit some of the stuff that they kind of like want to kind of suggest and then having an opportunity for them to kind of input into it afterwards as well. You know, kind of being able to sort of manage the kind of resources that you have as well. So if you have to go to that space, then making sure that you might have some decompression or not go to meetings beforehand and no meetings afterwards, that sort of thing can kind of, you know, useful in terms of kind of, it's about kind of managing the resources you have if that's a requirement.

1:07:04Emma Wee:It's a bit like building a business case for people working from home. So I've got someone at the moment who's been working super productively for years, working from home. But now there's this insistence that they can return to office. It's like, so they're not going to get anything done in the office, but they're doing really well at home. I'm not sure that's, and it causes them distress to come into the office. Not even sure that makes good business sense. Thanks. Great advice. A designer with a DHD consistently misses deadlines, but delivers great ideas. what do you do? Okay, so then it's about kind of going, well, what is not working well?

1:07:38Emma Wee:What is it stopping them kind of getting to that deadline? And it might be that they don't understand the impact of kind of not finishing that deadline. There may be a little bit of that kind of naughty kind of like, you know, sort of fight, flight till freeze kind of like thing going, well, I know I'm going to get some calibration back if, you know, something's going to happen, a reaction's going to happen if I don't deliver it on time. And that will actually spark my brain off. I think one of the things about particularly ADHD is they actually need quite a lot of calibration, I call it. People think it's about being needy or needing too much feedback.

1:08:11Emma Wee:Actually, I think it a bit more like a racehorse, right? So you've got a racehorse when they're going over hurdles, if they lose their rider, it'll go to the front of the queue and it'll keep going dun-dun-dun-dun-dun. And then after a while, it'll go, oh, I'm just going to tail off, right? So in order to kind of keep that racehorse doing well, you need to kind of keep it going with some motivation, knowing it's on the right track. Someone who's not delivering on time, you need to keep kind of almost towards the end kind of going, yeah, you want the right track. It's fine. We're going to get there.

1:08:39Emma Wee:And this is what it's going to feel like at the other end of it. Love it. That's great advice. During discussions, someone keeps interrupting others impulsively. So it's tricky. One of the things that can, I'm thinking about a client I had who used to do this so badly that people would be terrified to say anything because he would just jump in and i just when he was describing it i said you do realize that you in a meeting is like people being in a room and then you shaking up a coke bottle opening the door and just lobbing it in there and it exploding everywhere and everyone's going oh no idea what's happening and so the thing that i did with him which was really useful and sort of actually worked really well because he used to do it in another company was have a mini meeting before the main meeting.

1:09:25Emma Wee:So he could go, what's everyone doing? Just do all of that. And basically kind of get rid of all that extra energy and then have questions that he had to listen out for. And he shut up for about 70 % of the meetings thereafter. And all he had to do was just let go of some of that steam. So he wasn't the kind of like Coke bottle kind of shooting everywhere. That's brilliant. I love it. I heard also someone once advising to write, like whenever you have a thought or a question, make sure you write it down. And instead of like saying it, just trick your brain to writing the thought rather than saying it.

1:10:00Emma Wee:Yeah. That can be problematic for some people because quite often they'll worry that they'll miss the next bit. That kind of FOMO is quite big. So kind of like being able to, I think what can be helpful is kind of having plenty of points at which you summarize what's being said up to that point. Oh, nice. Yeah. Love it. So that you don't just go like hours and hours without having a break. You kind of like stop every 20 minutes and go, so just to summarize, this is what we've discussed up to this point. Is there anything else that we've missed? Next one. A neurodivergent colleague reacts emotionally to feedback.

1:10:34Emma Wee:Okay. So if you have someone who is reacting rather than responding to feedback, then there's a good chance that what they're responding to is fear that something terrible is going to happen to them, right? And it may not just be the way that you're saying it, it's kind of like what's coming out of your mouth. So if you're trying to be nice about some feedback or you've just gone straight in with the bad stuff, invariably that person is just going to feel like I've got to be on the defensive, I've got to justify kind of my existence here. Trying to make the language transactional can be really useful.

1:11:11Emma Wee:So the tool that I like using is something called clean feedback. It's part of a clean language model. So something that's working well and why, something that's not working well, what's the impact, something I'd like to have happen differently and what this will mean. And what it means is that if you use that script, anytime you're giving feedback, both sides know that it's very fact-driven and it's transactional rather than it being emotional. If you're trying to kind of, if you're trying to say something that is kind of a nice way of delivering it. Particularly if someone's autistic, what happens, and I quite often relate it to kind of, you know, Charlie Brown in the classroom when the teacher's talking.

1:11:48Emma Wee:It was like, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. Right? That's what's coming. It's just noise. And actually the autistic brain is going, for the love of God, just please get to the point. And by the time they're kind of listening, waiting for the point, they're already wound up because they feel that like they might have missed some of that language. So the more specific and clear and direct you can be with the facts, making it transactional rather than being emotional will mean that you'll probably have better outcomes. Fantastic advice. I have one last one. Two neurodivergent team members have clashing communication styles.

1:12:20Emma Wee:That's it? Okay. What do you do? Yeah, what do you do? Put them on opposite sides of the room and play tug-of-war with balloons. Yeah. I think, again, it's about having language that can be clear and kind of also what time of the day are these people meeting right if they've already just come from back you know back to back meetings there's a really good chance they won't have any spoons left to mask think clearly have agendas right kind of decide what it is that you want to kind of like get from the meeting to start with where that kind of clashing kind of kind of often comes is where someone is arguing over semantics of something and I call it a little bit like stop staring at the rock look at the landscape what's the landscape what do you actually want to achieve from this conversation rather than getting all pissy sticks over kind of like the details right so kind of set out the conversation have and any time it starts veering away from kind of like that outcome is like well notice we're not kind of on track let's get back on track what do we need to achieve from this conversation but clean feedback again is a really good way of kind of you know having transactional conversations and it's been as a tool it's been invaluable for kind of getting people back in the room talking to one another because if they have conversations that they know they can get in and out of without it getting into conflict or getting difficult then over time they can build trust to go i can actually have conversations with this person and it's not all going to go to hell and and a handcart basically.

1:13:54Emma Wee:Can I add one more? How do you do, how do you deal with if it's... That's it. That's it. Done. Sorry, no, there was a follow-up question. If it's in an open plan office, like what do you do if there are two different personalities in open plan office? And I think kind of, you know, respecting that kind of the sensory impact of other people's kind of communication in spaces can have a massive impact, you know, and kind of misophonia kind of sensitive to sound is a real thing right so allowing someone to use noise cancelling headphones going to work in spaces kind of undisturbed if that's a problem then uh for someone then kind of respecting that that's a real thing if they're not able to concentrate on the work on the screen then then clearly something's amiss you need a different tool well thank you so much Emma for giving us and we are out of time we are out of time we have we just wrap it up in a few minutes but I feel like everyone is sending so much love, hearts and just incredible words towards you.

1:14:52I think it's so good to hear the real examples and the real stories and how it works. So it's incredibly practical and helpful. So I really, really appreciate all the work that you do. Also creating the awareness in the broader community. I feel like everything that I've been hearing like every session that we have with you at Design Leaders Program. I can see people just leaving that completely transformed and kind of rethinking so many things that I know that the work that you do literally transforms life. So really, really appreciate. We have one last question that we ask all the guests that come on our podcast.

1:15:30So we'd love to ask you that one as well, which is, if you could change one thing in the world, what would it be?

1:15:37Emma Wee:I think that for people to at least at some point have a conversation with someone else that makes them feel as though they're not alone. Hearts are flying your way from everyone because this is such a beautiful, beautiful answer. And definitely, I think we are not alone and I think we should talk to each other more. And I think so many, so many things could be resolved if we just talk to each other a bit more and share and talk and understand and listen. Thank you so, so much, Emma, for this conversation, for the work that you do, for being honest, for being you. And thanks everyone for joining.

1:16:13Emma Wee:Hopefully you found that useful. If you found any insight personally useful to you, please share them with a wider audience. I feel like we need to bring more insights and attention to this topic. So don't be shy. Go on LinkedIn, share anything that you found useful, helpful, so more people can know that neurodiversity, being neurodiversity is a great thing and we should all celebrate it and we should all find tools that will help us be better, be more be ourselves and collaborate as a creative community so thanks everyone for joining and until next time thank you