EP205 - Understanding Neurodiversity in the Workplace with Gabriel Herman & Ian Luckett

INTRO: In this episode of the IT Experts podcast, we talk with Gabriel Herman about how to understand neurodiversity in the IT channel.

Welcome to the IT Experts podcast. The only podcast to help MSPs scale to 1 million and if already there, get to 5 and go fast. At the end of the day, isn't it all about building a business that works for you rather than you for it? I hope you enjoy the show.

IAN: So good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to the IT Experts podcast. We've got a slightly different one for you today. We're going to be talking about neurodiversity in the IT channel. We've got an absolute expert today. We've got Gabriel Herman from a business called Aspierations. There's some amazing work. I'm going to introduce him to you guys in one moment, but I just want to just put it out there that, this is something that Stuart and I have been very passionate around the whole mental health conditions, IT people, autism, ADHD, all of this kind of great stuff, because understanding this and understanding people from leadership, self awareness point of view is absolutely critical. And we've had some really great conversations with Gabriel about today's show and you're in for a real cracker. I heard someone talking at a CompTia conference, how this all started. I think it was nearly 18 months ago, and the team have been looking for someone for 18 months who would align with the type of work that we're doing here at the Growth Hub and understanding these conditions and these challenges, but also superpowers as well. So today, we've got a real bumper show for you today. And Gabriel is going to expel some myths, give you some tips and tricks and you are going to learn an awful lot from here. So Gabriel, welcome to the show. Please just introduce yourself. Who are you, what do you do, and who'd you help?

GABRIEL: That's a question isn't it?

IAN: And there you go.

GABRIEL: How long was the podcast going to go on for? Okay. Thank you very much for inviting me onto this podcast and it's a pleasure to be here. I'm leading a social enterprise called Aspieration, the spelling A-S-P-I-E rations, is a little hint to Aspie, which is light touch for Asperger's or Asperger's syndrome, which has slightly gone out of fashion. And we can go into reasons why later. But it actually now not I suppose to A-S, which is autistic spectrum. And that's really what we're all about trying to get autistic individuals into work. And that's really what our social enterprise is all about.

IAN: Fantastic. And what type of work do you do, to help these people get back into the workplace, either get into the workplace or enter into the workplace? Because remember when we were speaking before, there's some pretty shocking stats about people who are on the spectrum and have autism that affects their life quite a lot, that they're never going to get into work, are they? So what is it that you do to help them get back into work?

GABRIEL: I wouldn't say never get into work because we've always got hope, but the thing is that, of all the disabled communities in the United Kingdom, the least likely to be employed is an autistic person. So there is an absolute crisis going on because there's not very many interventions you can make for an autistic individual to help their life. And one of the things I think is to get them into work, because there is a social impairment for a lot of autistic people. They don't find friends very easily. School is one thing where they're thrown together with other people and they don't that's quite nourishing to the soul to just be around people. But what happens after school or after university? How do you get into work is a big problem for autistic individuals. And I think that being in work and being around people is very important. So if we are as a society are not actually offering that there's a big problem there.

IAN: Yeah. And also understanding the needs as well, which we're going to, which we're going to cover off later on in the show from a leadership point of view on, how to identify, what to do, how the culture, how the environment and everything like that kind of affects.

GABRIEL: Well, maybe we might look at how Aspierations as an organization has changed because I think we were, Here's a bit of lingo for you. We were very neurotypical. That's a normative thinking, a traditional business, a traditional social enterprise. And I think now we've become more autistic. And I'll explain that later, perhaps.

IAN: Lovely stuff. Let's talk about the, about neurodiversity in the workplace. This is, this show has not been put together for clickbait. This show has been put together so we can understand who's has a condition, cause this can be limiting. It can be quite normal and it can also be like superpower as well. And what we want to get out in this show is understanding it. There's a lot of media going on at the moment around. Some of the other, mental health conditions around ADHD and all of these things, and I think it can be really easy to go, oh, that person has got mental health issues. But I think through the conversations we've had, they're very different, and they can affect you in very many ways, can't they? What are some of the challenges that you find that people? having either getting into the workplace or when they get into the workplace when they have autism.

GABRIEL: First of all anybody who is in work there in their organization, if it's quite sizable, we'll probably have autistic people already working in the organization. They're probably going under the radar unless they're declaring on in the entry point of their organization. But I think that it's There is a barrier to getting autistic people into work, which is, I think, not quite understood and I think is the nub of the problem. And here it is. And that is that an autistic individual, because of their condition, finds it very difficult to describe their own condition. And if they find it difficult to describe that condition, it's very difficult to give them the legal rights which come through the Disability Act of reasonable adjustments. And therefore, if they can't ask for the reasonable adjustments to make their life a little easier in terms of levelling the playing field, they're not asking for anything more, levelling the playing field so that they are given an equal chance and opportunity at the job interview stage than they're already on the back foot straightaway, but here's the thing, it's a double whammy because a lot of organizations may not see a candidate for their autism. They might even if they did, they might not be able to offer reasonable adjustments because they don't understand the reasonable adjustments that could be asked for. And I think that makes the autistic community unique in the neurodiverse community, which is slightly bigger and has different conditions, as you mentioned before.

IAN: Gabriel, so let's just touch on the word neurodiversity at the moment. It has lots of different conditions in it. Can you just give us a, an overview like you did before, which was really useful on, what the different conditions are, what the main conditions are, how they affect people and what should we really need to look out for?

GABRIEL: I think that when I help autistic individuals, one of the things I do is introduce them to neurodiversity because , it might be surprising to you that if somebody who says they're autistic might not understand where they fit into the neurodiverse community. And I think it helps us to look into that because what neurodiversity simply means is how we think differently. Neuro being neurology, neuro to do with the brain, and diversity being a pop band or something. But it's very important, I think, not to be told you've got, you're autistic, or you've got autism or whatever, that you've got to know where you are in there. And I think one of the ways in which we can do it is have a look at the other conditions in that neurodiverse universe. For example we could talk about dyscalculia. There's a little clue in the word calcula calculator. It's to do with having trouble with numbers. And It's quite obvious if you have dyscalculia, what you need to do about it. You say, I've got dyscalculia. I've got trouble with numbers. I don't want to become an accountant, please. It's quite obvious. Dyslexia which I think it's always an unfortunate name for a condition about words.

IAN: Yes.

GABRIEL: I don't know how to spell that word. But dyslexia is to do with having trouble with words, which can look very jumbled up when you see a word, which is a it's something very, it's like a phenomenon, really. People who don't have it can't actually understand when people tell them what it what it feels like when they see words. But if you have dyslexia. Then of course, you know what the condition is and you, again, you can tell people please don't put me into a library where I have to read books all the time or something, but the thing is that if you're autistic and by the way, this is what's so strange about it. The term neurodiversity was coined to help autistic people because they were sick and tired of being said you're autistic. We wanted to shout back you're neurotypical. Yeah. That's basically normative of thinker, but actually now the conversation is all about neurodiversity and not really about autism. That's now become a subsect, which is a shame. And the reason why it's a shame is because autism, I think is a condition which makes it very difficult for you to determine your own. condition, how it interacts with you, that's the condition in itself. And therefore, if you can't articulate what autism is to you, you can't then work out what the intervention might be. And therefore, it's a bit of a problem.

IAN: So where do the likes of ADHD fit in this, into the whole neurodiverse function?

GABRIEL: It is simply another condition within there, but it's interesting you mentioned ADHD because we're running a podcast or in we're in the beginning to create a podcast I should say and I was interviewing a lady Who said that she had ADHD and autism?

IAN: Okay.

GABRIEL: And I asked her well Is it autism and ADHD or ADHD and autism? And she found it very difficult to answer that question And I think that there If there was more autism, she would answer it in one way, and if they, if she had more ADHD, she'd answer it another way, because of the way in which those two processes are clashing for that. So it was a very interesting discussion.

IAN: Where does you know, neurodiversity fit on the whole the whole mental health scale because you hear people say, oh, so and so's not doing very well. They've got mental health issues, which is and I guess this is now just going to blow the whole conversation open super wide into depression. And also, does it sit under, there's autism and these conditions sit under the mental health banner does it sit with that?

GABRIEL: It's an interesting question because if you do have a neurodiversity and it's debilitating to you, and you're right, it can lead into depression and I can explain why in a moment you need help. But where do you get that help? You have to fill out forms. And when you're filling forms, you have to classify yourself in the way in which the form creators have pigeonholed you. And where else can you go but mental health? And also, where else can you go other than disability? That does not mean to say that people with these conditions feel that they are disabled and also they have a better understanding of what we mean by mental health. Perhaps the word wellness could be used equally. We're not talking about people who need to be sectioned off from society. These people are struggling with wellness, not physically, but mentally. So it's one, I would say it's one step back from mental hell. But where else can we put this?

IAN: And I think the point we're making here, or you're making here, is very key.

It's absolutely about the individual because, autism, it isn't necessarily a bad thing. Some people are incredible in their roles because of their tendencies that they have. But I think what you've just mentioned there about how people can identify and then ask for help and get help. One of my sons has got quite severe learning difficulties and special needs and, he can't do stuff on his own. So it's down to us to interpret for him, which is great. And I've often said to my wife And this is going to sound really weird. I'm actually really pleased that Daniel is in such a poor state that we have to look after him. Because if he was halfway and, I'll say, normal as it would be, and I'll use that term loosely, he'd be lost. He wouldn't know where to go. And I think that's the thing here is understanding whether, is it yourself or is it others? And how do you get that help? And how do you get that support? And I think what you're doing, the work you're doing is absolutely incredible. How do we identify if we've got a, you're in an IT company, we know that a lot of techie people are, very much high on the S and the C scale in DISC, they're very literal, it's on or it's off. I want to do things absolutely right, which are, autistic traits. Everything needs to be in the right way. How do we identify in the workplace? What are some of the traits that we need to look out for?

GABRIEL: I think that, your question is probably about interventions, probably, and all the sensory issues. Come up to the front. These are not only autistic issues, but other conditions as well. So for example not being able to concentrate in a very noisy environment, right? And the obvious one is noise cancelling headphones for an autistic individual. It might be. You don't seem to be doing, you don't seem to be coping well with this environment. Would it, could it be that it's too noisy in the office, right? Now, a lot of autistic people will know instinctively what the problem is and be able to identify it. But I think management have a responsibility to history. You look as if you're suffering a little bit, what's going on here? But then it's a pretty obvious one about noise cancelling headphones. It could also be lighting. For example the strip lighting that sometimes is used the frequency of light is something that I didn't realize myself growing up, but in the seventies and eighties on the tube system they had the fluorescent tube tubes all over I wouldn't say fluorescent tubes on the tube, which is, I suppose is true, fluorescent tubes. But I noticed that I found it very difficult to get it in my eyesight because there was something going on there. And then many years later I went to a hotel and we were in a bar and there was a light right above me. And I said, does anybody notice that the light's flickering? And the people around me said, what are you talking about? And it was because of the speed of the light, of that lightbulb, that I clocked onto it. And I was seeing it flickering, whereas other people weren't. If you aren't aware of that phenomenon, right? You're not going to be prepared when one of your employees say, I can't stay in this office. The lights are flickering.

IAN: Yeah. Yeah.

GABRIEL: And that's got to be explained and dealt with. It could be well we switch off the lights for you in this part of the room. It's got to be reasonable for both sides, right? We're not saying, this building is a sick building, which I think you might have heard of, it's perfectly fine. Knock it down and start again, because otherwise I can't work again. It's not that, it's about being aware of reasonable adjustments before they're asked for, so that you're ready to be able to offer them. I'll give you, but I think three, I was just going to say yes, all the sensory issues, but also social impairment for autistic individuals. For example is your induction program too boisterous? In other words, you would go to a camp and have a one of those assault courses as a way of getting people into the mood. That might be a step too far for autistic individuals. In truth, it's probably a step too far for a lot of neurotypicals. What about the Christmas party? Do you force all your employees to go to it because a lot of autistic individuals would find that very challenging indeed, so those are the extra ones I would put in. By the way, I'm not being prescriptive. I'm just saying those are the types of things we've got to think about for autistic employees.

IAN: And what we've got to consider here as well is that the people who know they're autistic, they understand, they're aware of what's going on in their world and how it works. But there are people who are not aware that they have autism. Autism and I didn't realize, someone sent me a video which I wanted to watch for my son because we believe he's, we've only been waiting three years for his assessment, but we were a bit late to the party on it, but it's 'cause it didn't really matter. We just knew it. But one of the things that I was absolutely blown away by was the can happen in some is the amplification of sound and noise and hustle and bustle. And whenever we used to get off the train at London. I used to get out the train and Daniel just grabbed my hand. And I thought, oh, that's nice. He wants to walk with me. No, he's overwhelmed and he wants to be safe. And he would walk all around London holding my hand. And I think leadership self awareness is the absolute key thing, here is, as you mentioned, we're going to talk about culture in a minute. But we talk about employee recognition and I worked an organization many years ago. I won't go into the details cause it was quite an interesting place, but. They had a secret Santa and some people had some quite interesting secret Santa presents. And it's, it was around, how do reward thing and the recognition, the onboarding process, you have to fit it for lots of different types of people, not one size fits all, back in the eighties, everyone used to think that team building was going out, getting absolutely leathered, go bowling, go to a nightclub or wake up with a sore head in the morning and be late for work. But as time's gone on and self awareness is, leadership self awareness has become a thing And a way to understand how people are different and wired, because that's what we're just talking about here, how we can help and support people who either know that they're wired differently or react in a different way. And I think it's, I think it's a fascinating subject with lots of different connotations. It starts with that leader going. Performance isn't quite great. What, what's going on around him? What's going on in, inside them, him or her or whatever. And understanding that.

Let's talk about the culture for a minute from your, you've done some work with your main sole purpose is to help people get into get into work and help people not only prepare for the interview and presenting themselves, which they must feel extremely uncomfortable about, but also supporting businesses to understand autistic people as they are coming into the business. How important, what are some of the big cultural things that you've seen that can really help to either identify or make it, make the workplace accessible for autistic people.

GABRIEL: A little earlier you said that some people don't know they're autistic.

IAN: Yes.

GABRIEL: And I think that's a very good point, and again, which is quite unique to the autistic community, I think colleagues might say, I think that person is showing signs that they might be autistic. Now, what do you do with that knowledge? That person might say, oh, don't be silly. Or they might say, yes, you might have a point, but not get a diagnosis because they choose not to.

IAN: Yeah.

GABRIEL: Or in the world that we live in, they probably can't get it. I know it's another issue. So let's imagine, you're autistic because you've actually been diagnosed. You don't actually have to declare your autism to your employer. You might have a diagnosis and declare to your employer, you might not even know that you're autistic at all. Or if you are told that you might be autistic, you might not go for the autistic or the diagnosis. So it's a little bit more complicated. And it's also don't forget a hidden disability. So the, you've got to factor that in to the equation. Yeah. But let's imagine that you want to be autism friendly as an organization. The first thing is you've got to tell people that you are autism friendly.

IAN: Yes. Open the conversation. Sorry to interrupt. Yeah. Open up the conversation. Tell everybody that you are, it's not a hidden thing that everybody needs to put people in the box, in the cupboard, in the corner. This is something that we are going to embrace.

GABRIEL: Exactly. So I was asked to audit the recruitment process of one of the top accountancy firms in the country. And actually I was pleasantly surprised. I thought, yeah, actually that kind of, that works.

IAN: Yeah.

GABRIEL: But the big problem that they had was on their website, on their recruitment site, It didn't tell anybody they were autism friendly, right? So if an autistic candidate went onto their site, how would they know, so that was, I think, one of the big problems. I think that any organization that wants to become autism friendly should start off with an autism awareness event. And start the conversation. That's the first thing, because unless everybody's aware of the issue, then you can't actually do anything to help the issue. Then I think after that, you then have a look at your processes and see, are we really autistically friendly? Or do we need to make a few changes? And I think again, you alluded to this earlier. I think that a lot of companies in the seventies and eighties says we have our recruitment for a process for a purpose. You either survive it or you're not good enough for us. And I think that's completely gone out of fashion now. And I think to the extent that some companies are saying we don't care if you go to university or you left school, right? We want to know who you are. So I think that's very helpful to the process, that it's not just surviving the interview, it's actually bringing the best of yourself to the interview.

IAN: Yeah.

GABRIEL: And one of the reasonable adjustments for a lot of autistic people going into an interview might be, can I have the questions in advance. Now in the 70s and 80s, they would have laughed at you and said, but now they say why not? What's the problem? And I think the reason for that is that a lot of autistic individuals who have no grounding in their thinking of what they're going to find in the job interview. They don't know who they're going to be. interviewed by, they don't know what the room's going to look like. And suddenly they're going to be said I don't even know what the questions are.

IAN: Yeah.

GABRIEL: If they ask me this question, I'm going to probably respond this way. And if I respond that way, they're going to ask me something like this. And then you rehearse in your head. But can you imagine all those permutations, you'll be going on round and round in circles and you'll be burnt out before you even get there. And that is a real condition. And therefore, that's why we would ask for questions in advance for some autistic individuals. That's a small example.

IAN: And I suppose if you've put it out there that you're an autism friendly employer, then the more than likely that someone. Who, either has traits or has been diagnosed as having autism, who applies for a job is going to say in just to let you know that I am autistic and I'd be great to have these adjustments because I just, as you were talking, then I wasn't getting overwhelmed, but you can imagine the, you've come on the tube, you're going somewhere different, you're out of your comfort zone, you meet someone that you don't know at reception, you then sit down and the rooms are Warm or cold or hot or bright or whatever it might be. They might, and as you say, before they've even asked you a question about how you are, and then you've got to perform we talk a lot about when we're recruiting in the in the MSP space about, you recruit somebody for their values and their behaviors and the way that they work rather than their exact skill set. If they're , brilliant technically, but they haven't got that their personality comes out and the way that they as I say, the value set comes out, that can be really difficult, but for an autistic person, that can actually be the hardest part to even bring out in an interview, isn't it?

GABRIEL: So I wasn't diagnosed until very late. And so this is pre diagnosis. I knew, as everybody does, that you need to get a job. Not quite knowing how to get a job, but okay, you see the adverts in the paper, you write off and you might get a job interview. I got a job interview for South London. And as if you live in North London, you have no idea what anything about South London and vice versa. And that was equally doubly true for me. Now in those days I needed to use public transport and what I would do is phone up two, two, two, one, two, three, four, which was London transport information is probably Oh two, Oh seven, two, two, two now, but anyway, that shows you how old I am. And what I would do is get some instruction. You need to take this tube line and then change here, get to this tube, and when you get out, you take this bus and then you can, that's be fun. Yeah. So then what I would do is get the a z Yeah. This is like ancient history now, which was a I'm following you. Ga Gazette here. A map of London. And with a pen and paper, I would draw the bits that I needed, how to get from the final destination to what, to the location and. I liked the tube, but I didn't particularly like the old British rail. Because in the in the old stock of train, you had to somehow undo the door. And it was very clumsy manual system. Yeah. And very often you ended up walking between two rows of chairs facing each other, which was very social. And I always thought I was going to fall into one of them. And it just felt really odd. And then when you went out of a train, it wasn't automatic doors. You had to go through the window with your hand. And I felt completely clumsy about it. And I just hated that experience, but sometimes needs must.

So anyway, let's imagine tube and then bus. Now, the bus stop would be in a completely foreign place. You think to yourself, okay, I can see the bus stop there. I know that the bus stop num the bus number is this, so that's fine. Now, I didn't know that buses went in two directions. So I could have got the wrong bus, especially if it's a circular route. I could have gone the long route rather than the short way. And you might think how is that possible? Why wouldn't you ask the bus conductor? Cause they did have bus conductors in those days. I wouldn't talk to anybody. I had enough information on my piece of paper, right? Anyway, let's imagine I got the right direction and I got the right bus. It's now pouring down with rain. The windows are steaming up. How do you know which stop to get off at? Now, today, of course, there's a dot matrix, but in those days there wasn't, so what I would do is I would wipe the window desperately looking for clues as to where I was on the map that I'd drawn, which, by the way, now is drenched with water because it got wet through the rain. Again, I won't ask anybody which stop to get off, so I make a best guess. And of course, when you ring the bell on the old bus, you have to climb through people because they're all, so that's not great. So then you get off the bus and it's pouring down with rain. You've got a small umbrella and you're now trying desperately to look at your map to work out where to go to this place, what the map doesn't tell you is that you run out of pavement at one point and it gets very muddy. And there's no clues on the map as to whether you're in the going in the right direction Anyway, the long and the short of it is you make your face to the diet to the location you're drenched as a rat. You're stressed out And you haven't actually gone into the interview room yet. And when you go into the interview, they have no idea what you've had to put up with getting there.

IAN: No, you're right.

GABRIEL: So how can you forgive yourself? So the quick point I'm going to make is that the world has become more autistic. Because now you've got your apps on your phone, which is in live time for the transport, you've got dot matrix everywhere, you've got voice announcements everywhere, they're mac, mechanic voice. And it's no surprise to me that the world's becoming all more autistic because who do you think wrote those apps on your phone?

IAN: Yeah. Absolutely. Brilliant story. And I think , that really did just top the show in terms of. understanding the different environments that you went through with, with that interview. And it's just a real eye opener for everybody just to remember this, while going around the world as we're doing today.

Gabriel, absolutely brilliant. Love it. Love the stories. Love the show. I think it was some really good value information there for people all around the whole neuro diverse and particularly in the autism side of things. Let's wrap up with your final thoughts.

GABRIEL: First of all, I think that what is good for autistic people is probably good for everybody. Those apps on your phone are as advantageous to you as it is to autistic individuals, right? The other thing is that why should you employ an autistic individual if it's not for their positives? I don't like the expression superhero, which has probably come from the film Rain Man. Autistic people are quite normative, but I think that what's slightly different about them is that they tend to have high skills in one area, And perhaps lower skills in other areas. And so all you need to do really is to see the person and say for goodness sake, if we want their heightened skills, we've got to put a team around them. And if you put do that, then actually you're getting what I would call third way thinking. In your organization, which is where all that creativity and heightened creativity can come from leading to your bottom line. So quite frankly, you'd be quite daft not to employ autistic individuals. And of course, many people already do without realizing.

IAN: Yeah, and it's always about that right person with the right role. And I think with the awareness from the individual and the awareness from yourself, you can really bring out and help, get the right person in the right role. And then they get into flow, don't they?

GABRIEL: You need to bring yourself to work. That's really what it's about. And one final thing. Don't forget, this is not just your employees, you also have autistic clients.

IAN: Yes.

GABRIEL: And you also have who are bringing up autistic children who are not perhaps talking about it when they get to work.

IAN: Absolutely. I think as they say, that's the mic drop moment where I think it's just it's an opportunity all around, isn't it? Wonderful stuff. Gabriel, how do people, if they want to continue the conversation with you, how do they get in contact with you?

Now, we'll drop all these links and the email numbers and whatever it might be into the show notes here. So you can just hit the website and check those out, but what's the best way for people to continue the conversation?

GABRIEL: They can contact me. That's Gabriel, G A B R I E L @ Aspierations.

It's A S P I E rations. org. Our website is www.aspierations.org. So one way or the other, you'll be able to find me.

IAN: Lovely. And we'll drop all of those links into that note. Just leave me to say good luck with the great work that you're doing. I know you're doing some amazing coaching and you're doing some amazing courses and training with the business environment. I do not think for the last minute, this is going to be the last time we speak. I'm thinking there's going to be many more that we can go into some deeper subjects on the podcast. Hope you guys and girls have all enjoyed today's show. Thanks again, for your time, putting this together, Gabriel, and we look forward to catching up speaking with you soon.

GABRIEL: Thank you very much.

IAN: Take care. See you soon.

GABRIEL: Bye. Bye.

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