The Chief Psychology Officer

Ep55 Creating Neuroinclusive Workplaces with Dr Ian Iceton

• Dr Amanda Potter CPsychol • Season 3 • Episode 55

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As we navigate the complexities of the workplace, it's essential to foster an environment where every mind is valued for its unique contributions. This episode introduces Dr Ian Iceton, a neurodiversity advocate with a rich HR background and personal ties to the topic. We delve into the importance of language, the evolving understanding of conditions like autism and ADHD, and the role of inclusive communication in developing a supportive corporate culture.
 
 Our discussion with Ian extends beyond mere awareness; we confront the misconceptions that can arise when neurodivergent behaviours are misinterpreted, stressing the need for education and sensitivity towards differences in communication and sensory experiences. We illuminate the unique ways in which neurodivergent individuals may express and perceive emotions, offering insights for managers and colleagues to build truly inclusive teams.
 
 Finally, we celebrate the diverse ways in which we learn and work, acknowledging that what might seem unconventional can be tremendously effective. We champion the idea that embracing cognitive diversity is not only beneficial for neurodivergent individuals but also enriches the entire team. Our conversation with Dr Iceton concludes with actionable advice and resources for those seeking to support neurodiversity in their organisations, ensuring that every employee, regardless of how their brain is wired, has the opportunity to thrive.

Connect with Dr Ian Iceton on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ian-iceton-1865695/

Timestamps

Creating Neuroinclusive Workplaces

·       00:00 – Introduction to Neuroinclusive Workplaces

·       00:40 – Welcome: Dr. Ian Iceton

·       03:34 – Choose your words carefully

·       04:16 – Neurodivergence & Neurodiversity: what’s the difference?

·       09:17 – With open arms

When you look in the mirror…

·       11:05 – Establishing Psychological Safety

·       16:47 – Reading between the lines

·       17:21 – Compassion for your fellow man

·       19:18 – Too many voices in the room…

“Words without thoughts never to heaven go” – William Shakespeare

·       20:07 – Seeing red!

·       21:04 – Words.

·       22:22 – How do you like them apples?

·       25:19 – Imposter Syndrome revisited

·       26:39 – A change in the future

·       27:30 – You can’t say that!

·       28:48 – The invisible subject…

I’ll tell you a story.

·       31:43 – A project long in the making

·       33:06 – I didn’t discriminate, did I?

·       38:29 – The Line Managers can suffer too…

·       40:51 – Dr. Ian Iceton’s contact info

·       41:26 – The end.

Episodes are available here https://www.thecpo.co.uk/

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Angela Malik:

As proponents of cognitive diversity in all its forms. we are thrilled to speak with Dr Ian Iceton today about neurodivergence and how we can celebrate and support all types of neurodiversity in the workplace. This is the Chief Psychology Officer, I'm Angela Malik, and today I'm here with Dr Ian Iceton, a neurodivergence expert and neurodiversity advocate, and, of course, our very own CPO, Dr Amanda Potter. Hello both. Dr, angela, Iceton, or do you prefer Ian?

Dr Ian Iceton:

Oh, Ian's much better.

Angela Malik:

I understand you are an expert in neurodivergence and also autism. How did this come about?

Dr Ian Iceton:

I always am a little bit nervous when you talk about being an expert, because it is such an emergent subject that we're all still learning a lot about this, but I spent quite a bit of time in my career in HR. I did a lot in the diversity field and towards the end of my corporate life I did a doctorate equivalent of a PhD looking at the challenges of recruiting autistic people into the workplace, and as a result of that, I interviewed a lot of autistic people and people that had other neurodivergent conditions, and as a result of that, I spent the last couple of years mostly focused on this subject and learning a great deal of information about this and trying to help organizations and people who are perhaps more likely to be neurotypical understand the neurodivergent workplace.

Angela Malik:

How did you go from having a career in HR to now becoming a neurodiversity advocate?

Dr Ian Iceton:

It was an interesting combination of things that happened to me that just came together to make this happen.

Dr Ian Iceton:

So, as I said, I was working in HR, I was a HR director, I'd done a lot of diversity, thinking about how we promote more women and more ethnicity in the workplace, and I decided towards the end of my working career that I just wanted, for personal reasons, to complete a doctorate and complete my education, and I knew I wanted to do something in diversity but hadn't quite decided exactly which element I was going to focus on.

Dr Ian Iceton:

And kind of two things happened almost at the same time, which kind of was like a light bulb moment for me. One was I had a case within the business I was working in where someone was about to be fired and they asked me to investigate the case as the final kind of court of appeal. And it turned out this person was autistic and the root of all the issues between them and their manager was to do with their autism. And as I delved into it I realized that their manager didn't understand the individual. But, worse than that, the organization had done nothing to help that manager deal with that situation. And it wasn't really the employee's fault, it wasn't the manager's fault. It was us as a company that had really created that situation and that kind of started alarm bells ringing for me. And then at the same time one of my own children was having trouble at school and they ended up going through the process and actually got diagnosed as autistic and the two things kind of came together and sort of set me down this path.

Angela Malik:

So there's a personal slant there for you.

Dr Ian Iceton:

Yeah, there's very much a personal slant and actually that progressed over the last five years. So now two of our three children they're all grown up but they've actually been both diagnosed and going through the process with them. Although I've never been diagnosed, I've really come to realize myself that I am also autistic and it kind of another light bulb moment for me that, although I've been very fortunate in my career that I've managed to navigate many challenges that my autism has brought without me realizing that that's what it was, it's kind of helped to explain some of the things that have been a bit quirky and a bit unusual about me that that have kind of sometimes said said, "where that come from? So it's become very personal for me in many regards.

Angela Malik:

Amanda, I know you and I do not identify as neurodivergent ourselves, but we do have quite a few colleagues at Zircon who are not neuro typical. I know you're just as keen as I am to learn where we as a company can both celebrate and support our lovely, innovative, different thinking team members.

Dr Amanda Potter:

I completely agree, and the reason why I think this podcast is a really important one is because one of the things I worry about is language, and I always worry about offending people, and I have realized I'm consciously incompetent in the area of neurodivergence and looking at neurodiversity and, to be honest, I don't even understand the difference between neurodivergence and neurodiversity.

Angela Malik:

I don't know if I've ever considered that aspect before. Is there a difference between neurodivergence and neurodiversity?

Dr Ian Iceton:

That's a good question. And back to Amanda's point as well about language. It is a tricky area, this whole topic, and it's one of the challenges that many people, as they start to think about it, actually struggle with and are very nervous about, particularly in a litigious climate that we're in now, where managers worry about not just offending people but potentially causing grievances. The other thing that's really challenging in this area is that actually what's considered acceptable and what's appropriate has been progressively changing over the last few years, and even now there is differences of opinion within the autistic community, within the neurodivergent community, as to what is considered appropriate and best language. So I think the honest answer is nobody should worry about getting it wrong if it's come from a good place and really, depending on your audience and depending on the circumstance, as long as you genuinely show that you're trying to understand. I think that's an important starting point me o F neurodivergence is a description to describe an individual.

Dr Ian Iceton:

They are divergent from the neurotypical norm. People sometimes mix neurodivergence and neurodiversity. I don't think an individual in my mind can be neurodiversity. You get neurodiversity when you've got a mix of people. So for me that tends to be more about plural when you're talking about a group or an organisation, and neurodivergent is when you're talking about an individual. Does it, if that makes sense?

Dr Amanda Potter:

That makes much more sense. So I might work with a neurodivergent colleague and they might have a particular neurological function that is not typical and therefore they might identify with a certain group. Oh my gosh, I'm being so careful with my language.

Dr Ian Iceton:

That's absolutely spot on, and they then help create neurodiversity within the organisation. So when people talk about neurodiversity, I'd like to think of it as the output of what you get by having neurodivergent individuals within the organisation.

Dr Amanda Potter:

So we could have a neurodiverse culture? Yes, by having neurodivergent colleagues in that culture, exactly. So what about using terms and labels like autism, adhd, dyslexia and so many others? How appropriate is it for us to use that language?

Dr Ian Iceton:

That's again. It's a really good question and it's been evolving. That brings with it the kind of challenges we've just been talking about within neurodiversity. Interestingly, there isn't one fixed accepted standard definition of what conditions are included and what are not. But generally the ones you've listed autism, adhd, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia are the ones that most people have heard of, but even within them the language has been changing over recent times.

Dr Ian Iceton:

If I give you two examples, you know autism, which is the one that probably you know got the most attention first, has gone through a journey where people have talked about autism, spectrum or autism spectrum disability. Typically I try to avoid the phrase spectrum because I think certainly in most people's minds you tend to think of any kind of spectrum. You know, when you go back to your kind of science lessons at school as kind of going from low to high or from left to right and it kind of feels a little bit one-dimensional or it's actually that what I've learned a lot about autism and actually when we go on to the other conditions is the same is that autism is very multi-dimensional and therefore spectrum I can get an unhelpful phrase. I tend to talk about autism, but even within that you may have heard, some people identified themselves as having Asperger's over the last five to ten years. Historically that was a different definition from autism and it was given to people that had, again using a rather clumsy phrase, what was seen as high functioning autism. They were probably more articulate and more likely to already be in the workplace, but they still had autism. But that became very clumsy as people realised that there are many more facets, as I said, to autism than just the communication skills.

Dr Ian Iceton:

So actually Asperger's was stripped from the official definitions 10 or 15 years ago and nobody knew would be identified as Asperger's. It's just be within the autism condition. But some people that were self-identifying as Asperger still call themselves that because that's their self-identity. But again it shows the challenge in terms of the language and similarly within ADHD, which is now getting a lot of attention, certainly in the UK in the last couple of years. Historically there were three different definitions. Add, for example, was something that people were diagnosed as, but that again was seen as a subset within ADHD and as the people have got to understand ADHD as being much more complex and rich, again, rather than giving individual definitions they now talk about someone who's just having ADHD and then they kind of give details underneath it. So it is somewhat complicated and it is evolving, hopefully for the better, but it does make it a challenge for colleagues and for managers. The best thing always, if you're dealing with an individual, just to ask them what language do they prefer.?

Angela Malik:

Short of actually having a one-to-one conversation with every single individual who may or may not be neurodivergent in an organization., ho d d an how does How does an organization approach their language in, say, onboarding documentation, for example, where they haven't had that conversation? They don't necessarily know that person well enough to know how they identify, and perhaps that person is not being forthcoming about their own difficulties just yet because they're so new. What kind of language should we be using in those types of documents, for example?

Dr Ian Iceton:

That's an absolutely fabulous question and I know that you said keep my answers to two minutes, but I could spend two hours answering that one question because it's such a fabulous question.

Dr Ian Iceton:

So if I give you the kind of the real punchy version of it, then you can pick up any bits that you want to.

Dr Ian Iceton:

First and foremost is to use as open and as inclusive a language as possible. If you can make some kind of statement in any website any job adverts, any invites to interview, anything like that that says we want to be neurodivergent friendly. We recognize that it's a complex area. If there's anything we can do to help you, then please let us know so you open the door for the individual to give you a clue. I think the second thing you can do is if you have within an organization anybody that's openly declared themselves to be neurodivergent, or if you've got a working group or an employee group that represents people that are, you can ask them to look at anything that you're going to publish, any documentation and say how do you feel about the language within that. I think that's two great places to get started Once you get people on board, and if you recruit someone and they declare or disclose that they are, then obviously you can have a more personal conversation, but beforehand, those are the two things that I would recommend.

Angela Malik:

So the first step there is really to establish psychological safety right off the bat. Open the door for a safe space to talk about those aspects of their life openly, so that the organization can equip itself to really offer proper support.

Dr Ian Iceton:

Yeah, and that's a really, really important point because there's a lot of evidence to show that a lot of people who are neurodivergent do not choose to disclose that they are so their employer certainly not when they're going through a recruitment process.

Dr Ian Iceton:

Partly that's because some people have had difficulties in education and they feel that people in authority don't necessarily understand them, which quite often, unfortunately, is true. But also partly, unfortunately, people find that they get discriminated against in previous circumstances and they're very nervous there for disclosing. I was recently involved in doing a survey neurodivergent individuals working in London in the city in financial services, and over half of them said they didn't disclose their neurodivergence to their employer. So you can't guarantee that just because someone hasn't disclosed something that they don't have needs and requirements. So creating a sense of showing that you're interested and you want to create psychological safety and then kind of not being put off by the fact someone doesn't say things, but still try and train and educate people to keep that psychological safety going in all circumstances, whether it be in an interview or during onboarding or once someone becomes a team member as well.

Dr Amanda Potter:

I had a lovely example yesterday. I was at a client's site all day yesterday and I was in a meeting with my client stakeholder and she openly declared herself to be neurodivergent and I won't tell too much about it because I don't want to share her confidence, but she was completely open, so open, I felt really comfortable asking her questions about it. And when she realized and how she became, how she was diagnosed and how it worked with her team, I then had a meeting with her line manager, who was sharing how fantastic this person was and how her diversity not directly relating to the neurodiversity, but her diversity more broadly what a difference it makes in the team because she thinks differently and she challenges her, and how she brings something really unique to that team. And so that was a brilliant day because I felt psychologically safe to ask questions and then, having met her line manager, you could tell there was so much trust and personal connection and respect between the two of them that actually they were embracing and celebrating that diversity and actually benefiting from it Because of that diversity that she brings.

Dr Amanda Potter:

She brings incredible thinking capacity and challenge and she asks questions that people wouldn't normally ask, which is just brilliant. So it was a brilliant meeting and I ended up having this very deep conversation with her, which was just so meaningful for me, and I felt safe to ask really probing questions too. So it was very cool, but I don't often feel like that, but that was because she offered the information from the start, which is very interesting.

Dr Ian Iceton:

I was going to say that's a great example and what's really optimistic and positive is that we started seeing more of those conversations in workplaces, but unfortunately it's still the exception rather than the norm and there's still a lot of people that don't feel psychologically safe at work. That's why, obviously, I do a lot of the stuff that I do to try and encourage organisations to create the environment to replicate what you saw yesterday, because that is exceptional at the moment and is not the norm.

Dr Amanda Potter:

That's led me to think about interview questions. Could you give me some examples in of rubbish interview questions where we might go wrong or the things that we might say that might offend in an interview or an onboarding process?

Dr Ian Iceton:

I suppose I'd caveat my answer to that, like I kind of want to do to every question, but I won't do it to every question which is that what I'm learning is that everyone that's neurodivergent is different, so I have to be careful not to stereotype, even just in giving answers. Having said that, there are some generalisations of differences between neurotypicals and neurodivergent people that do come out, particularly in an interview. Neurotypical people generally have expectations and things that they look for in interviews, which may not happen as frequently with neurodivergent individuals. One of the classic ones is eye contact, and some autistic people find giving eye contact, particularly when they're thinking, is hard. So they can look at someone to start with, but when they're going to think and they start looking elsewhere, some people find that off-putting. Another classic one is that many people who interview aren't very good at interviewing and they'll ask a question and then they won't wait long enough to get an answer.

Dr Ian Iceton:

Neurotypical people kind of dive in to kind of ask a second question while the person's thinking about the answer.

Dr Ian Iceton:

Sometimes a neurodivergent individual just needs a little bit longer to process because they think in a different way and if you then ask them a second question, it sounds like multiple questions and you just stack in questions on top of each other and making it much more difficult. The other thing is to avoid asking questions that have got built-in assumptions that might be neurotypical assumptions without you realising it. I mean, a very classic one is and I have this all the time and I have one particular individual in mind who said he was asked this question, which is what will you be doing in five years time in your career the person answered by saying I have no idea what I'll be doing. The world is so volatile. How can I possibly know? And after can interview they got criticised for that really unhelpful answer and actually that is absolutely the correct answer. Nobody c an an possibly know what they're doing in five years time. So it's a neurotypical person asked a daft question and got a really daft answer.

Dr Amanda Potter:

And it's a ty pical question, isn't it

Dr Ian Iceton:

What they meant was a a w from a career point of view. Where do you perhaps envisage the things that you might be interested in i developing and are you interested in furthering your education? All sorts of things that are implied in that question that a neurodivergent person might not necessarily understand the implications. So if you're going to ask a question, ask what you really mean, not using some phraseology that you hope people understand without realising it.

Dr Amanda Potter:

That's really interesting. Do you know what that's led me to think about the conversation we had? Because we had a client come to us and ask us about neurodiversity and neurodivergence and compassionate leadership. So we're running workshops around compassionate leadership for a global client and they came to us and said is this course that we've developed suitable for people who are neurodivergent and neurotypical? So then it made me realise I need to go to the expert and I'm calling you the expert and ask you the question could someone who is neurodivergent, and particularly somebody who's autistic, could they show self-compassion and could they show compassion for others?

Dr Ian Iceton:

And of course my answer is yes, of course they can.

Dr Ian Iceton:

Everybody is capable of showing compassion, but they might show it in a way that's different from a way that a neurotypical might expect it to be shown. So if they've got a very narrow definition in their mind of what they think compassion looks like, then they might think that the person isn't showing it, but they might demonstrate in a highly different way. And this is a real challenge in training courses, in recruitment processes and even in performance management processes. Quite often the look force, the things that are considered the ticks, the positives, are designed by the neurotypicals and they think about what they're looking for in a neurotypical way. And actually, quite often, the more you delve into it, neurodivergent individuals can achieve the same outcomes, sometimes better outcomes, but they do it in a different way and they demonstrate it in different ways, and that can be for an untrained or unhelpful line manager a real problem. So we have to open our minds and open organisations minds to think about what are we really after and how will people best demonstrate it?

Dr Amanda Potter:

So interesting, isn't it, Angela? So interesting because I definitely see in our colleagues who are neurodivergent that they demonstrate different behavioural characteristics in different ways. They ask questions in different ways, they get excited in different ways, they engage in meetings in completely different ways. Everybody is completely different, which is cool, but it means that sometimes, depending on who's in the room, you might take a slightly different approach to make sure everybody has an opinion, everybody's heard, everybody has a voice, etc.

Dr Ian Iceton:

A classic example that I've come across is that again, it's a bit of a stereotype, but a quite typical neurodivergent approach to being in a team meeting where neurodivergent people often cannot like being in groups and cannot like the noise and the buzz of a team meeting is that they will not look at the speaker and they will potentially not look at the screen and they might be fidgeting a little bit.

Dr Ian Iceton:

I've had situations where people have said to me that person was so distracted they weren't paying attention and actually if you speak to the individual afterwards, they've taken more in than anybody else in the room. They've just taken it in in a very different way and if you have, again, an untrained or unsophisticated manager, they can start making assumptions, and bad assumptions that are totally false, just because they haven't taken time to think about how that person best operates. And we haven't talked much about sensory issues. But sensory issues are a massive challenge for many people who are neurodivergent and therefore sometimes it's not just the language that people use, but it's the environment that people are put into that makes it more difficult for neurodivergence to operate, and that can be a whole range of things.

Angela Malik:

I know we've received feedback that red is a particularly sensory-driven color for a lot of neurodivergent people. So, on the one hand, apologies to any neurodivergent people who do not like the CPO. Bright red in your face.

Dr Amanda Potter:

Sorry, we're going to tone it down a bit, aren't we?

Angela Malik:

So we're just talking to the designers to tone down the red a bit so there's not so much red on the brand We've definitely taken that step throughout Zircon's branding as well, to soften some of the tones that are used so that it's not as aggressive looking on the page. So that's one example of a visual sensory issue that we've become aware of.

Dr Ian Iceton:

kind of recently I did a job for one client where it was just a question of looking at branding and their communications and it's amazing how many things, when you stop and think about it, can be visually distracting and visually difficult for people to deal with I think autistic people, adhd, particularly dyslexic people. It can be colors, it can be font types, it can be font sizes, it can be how much stuff you have going on on the page and it's incredible when you look at some corporate documents, how incredibly unhelpful they are for neurodivergent individuals and it's such an extent and also some websites that I know many neurodivergent individuals who would never apply for a job based on their branding and based on their web pages and based on their letters. And actually that means as a recruiter, you are missing out on potential fabulous talent without even realizing before you even have an interaction with them, because they are self selecting away from you, because you are not creating a sensory environment. Now that's a real challenge. You've got a brand that's established in a hundred years around a hundred countries, but genuinely those things can matter and if you then take it into a workplace and you have something that's too noisy or too bright or something like that, it can be a massive issue.

Dr Ian Iceton:

Really really fascinating example that brought this home to me was when I was doing my doctorate research. I spoke to an individual who had certain sounds that really triggered him, and the one that was the most offensive to him was the sound of someone biting into a crunchy apple. He said the feeling of someone biting into a crunchy apple actually was painful inside his head. It felt like he was being hit on the head with a hammer when someone bit into an apple and he said to me if I asked you if I could hit you over the head with a hammer in the office, you'd look at me like I was crazy. And yet nobody asked me whether they're okay to eat an apple in the office. But I feel exactly the same.

Dr Amanda Potter:

That's the extreme, isn't it a really extreme feeling and personal pain as a result of something which most of us do every day is bite into an apple. Are there any gender differences that we should be aware of Historically?

Dr Ian Iceton:

certainly around autism and, to a certain extent, adhd. When they were first being explored, they were considered to be almost primarily male orientated conditions. The first bits of research were all around young boys in school that were having difficulties and for a long time the diagnosis levels were about 80% to 90%. All neurodivergent people were males. What's become really clear to me particularly, I think to other people as well in the last few years, is the actual existence of the conditions is nowhere near as good between agendas as that would suggest, but part of the challenge is that it's been a very male dominated process. All the diagnostics were designed by men looking at men, and it ignored the fact that women often present their neurodiversity differently.

Dr Ian Iceton:

One of the real challenges is that the way that young girls develop their social skills at school typically is different from how young boys develop their social skills, and therefore young girls typically learn to camouflage and mask their differences any kind of difference, whether it's neurodiversity or anything else because they want to fit in desperately to their social group, and what happens is that they therefore are much less likely to be diagnosed as neurodivergent during education and often that carries through to higher education into the workplace.

Dr Ian Iceton:

They are masking and they're camouflaging and actually their brain is working so incredibly hard to hide their neurodiversity, sometimes intentionally, sometimes almost without them realizing it. Some of the autistic women that I interviewed in my research said they were so physically worn out by the end of the day because of the amount of masking and camouflaging that their brain was doing that they went home and they were good for nothing and literally just slept all evening and then went back to work the next day. So I think that all those stats show that neurodiversity is more common amongst men. I think that's a historical quirk that in the future will get eliminated and we'll actually find that. It's just another example of how complex and how rich this subject is.

Dr Amanda Potter:

It's made me think about the imposter syndrome, which we don't call it syndrome so much because it's so multi-dimensional as well.

Dr Amanda Potter:

Very much, like you said, avoiding the word spectrum for autism, I avoid the word syndrome for imposter.

Dr Amanda Potter:

Now I've started to realize I'm changing my language, but the point being that imposter syndrome, as it was regarded then, was very much seen as a female syndrome and not regarded to be something that men would experience, and so it was very much regarded to be a syndrome experienced by the weaker sex, which is just horrible, which of course I'm quite offended by. But actually the data, more current data, shows that both men and women have imposter moments and they are prone to experiencing self-doubt, questioning their belief, etc. But actually the data is still quite skewed because of that historical lens. And also quite interesting in the imposter research is that in those situations men are much more likely to camouflage. They're much more likely to pretend or show up saying yeah, I'm fine, I can do this. We're in fact inside there questioning and have self-doubt. So how interesting that in that scenario, in that situation, it's actually the men who are camouflaging, whereas with the neurodivergence it's in particular autism, as you mentioned, it's the women or the girls.

Dr Ian Iceton:

It is very interesting that they're kind of like mirror images of the two situations, because the two social constructs have been developed with kind of again a kind of perception as to what it looked like and in both cases one male-oriented, one female-oriented. I genuinely believe that all the evidence will show in the future, as we get to understand it better, that there is the same prevalence in each case for both genders. It's just because it's been looked for in a certain way and assumed in a certain way. That's what historically we're seeing. But yeah, certainly from a neurodiversity point of view, in the work that I've done I've seen no reason why any less common in women. It's just not being looked for so much. But if you look at the diagnosis levels in recent years, they're getting much closer together as people get a much better understanding the fact that it can look differently but still with the same thing.

Dr Amanda Potter:

I'm still a bit nervous talking about divergence. Are there any terms or words or things that I should avoid? What are the big no's that I should watch out for and that could be offensive?

Dr Ian Iceton:

Again, it's a really good question. Things are changing Almost. The first thing I'd say is if you're in an individual circumstance, always take the clue from the individuals. Probably the thing that from an autistic point of view that's kind of had the most debate was the progression from a person with autism through to a more common description, being someone that's an autistic person. So rather than it sort of being kind of seen as almost a person with autism, it's almost like they've got a disease or they've got something that's kind of attached to them, whereas actually the way that your brain operates is just part of who you are.

Dr Ian Iceton:

That's something that I think is becoming as more acceptable language. But what's really interesting is it's also different by culture and by country, and that makes it particularly challenging for larger organizations and multinational organizations. So the whole understanding of autism and neurodiversity in the language that goes with it differs. For example, in some cultures. Particularly in the UK, the black community and the Asian community have historically much less talked about that autism and neurodiversity. There are fewer role models and it's much less likely that a child growing up in those communities get diagnosed and get the support.

Dr Ian Iceton:

So that brings a challenge for them in terms of their understanding and then, if you go to a broader context, that different countries in the world are different places in terms of their use of language and their understanding of autism and neurodiversity. Some still see it very much as a medical condition, whereas the North America and certainly the UK and perhaps Australia, are kind of more sophisticated in the language and you might be quite surprised in some cases. For example, I was doing some work last year in Switzerland, which is a very developed country economically, but they treat autism and neurodiversity as something that really ought not to be talked about in the workplace. In the same way that you wouldn't share someone's health conditions, you wouldn't talk about their autism. And if somebody brings it up, line managers are told don't deal with it, hand it to HO and let them deal with it behind the scenes. So I think language and understanding is a challenge everywhere, but it gets more complicated the more different groups and the different countries that you're working in as well.

Dr Amanda Potter:

So the thing is to say that X is an autistic man, not that he has autism. Is that correct that?

Dr Ian Iceton:

is the way that the conversation is progressing. You can still find some people who prefer the other way. That is the way things are progressing, but language and understanding of it and the community is constantly thinking about it. So one of the strongest punchlines certainly the autistic community try and get into every conversation and every discussion with a corporate entity is if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person. Don't stereotype, don't make assumptions, because that complexity is so rich. I might have mentioned it to you before.

Dr Ian Iceton:

I try and use the analogy of a Rubik's cube.

Dr Ian Iceton:

If you think of a Rubik's cube and have in the sort of six different faces of the cube, all with very one colour on them, like the starting position, and then if three of us were all to change the Rubik's cube a few times and move it around, each of us would have a different pattern on the side of it. And if you think of one of the faces of the Rubik's cube being communication skills and one face being sensory issues and one being some other issue, maybe the logistics capabilities, each autistic person would have a different Rubik's cube face and they would have different challenges. So it's not easy to use the same language or the same assumptions with any two or more people you etch back to. You know the original point, which is you almost want to create that psychological safety environment whereby you can say to people what are your needs, how could you operate at your best, what could we do differently to help you? And then that will open the conversation both about language, but also about other facets as well.

Dr Amanda Potter:

That's so brilliant and it's making me think about our BeTalent product suite. So we have our suite of questionnaires that you know about, ian, and that we've designed over the past 12 plus years, and one of the things that I'm really interested in is around making sure that those questionnaires are suitable for people who are either neuro divergent or neurotypical, and I would like to collect data about whether people are neurotypical or whether they are neuro divergent. So we've been debating and we've been talking to you, Ian, and to other neuro diversity experts about how can we ask the question in the data capture, which is optional, to say do you identify as someone who is neurotypical? If no, what term would you use? What phrase would you use?

Dr Amanda Potter:

The reason I'm saying this is because we're going to start collecting that data and because it's optional, people can disclose if they want to, but, given the Rubik's Cube situation you've just described, it's not as clean as saying ADHD, add, autistic, etc. Etc. Etc. Because everybody is unique. Everybody has a slight variation. If I use strengths, for example, I'm not necessarily going to find such clean differences between certain groups, but I am interested in making sure that our tool doesn't discriminate.

Dr Ian Iceton:

I think your point is a really great one. I think thinking about how it doesn't discriminate is really valuable and really important. I'm not an expert in that particular field but my hunch is there's a risk that it does discriminate or historically could potentially discriminate, because historically the neurotypical perspective on many of these tools was kind of the primary voice and that the diverse voices were in the quiet ones in the room that were perhaps out overruled. So I think the whole concept of opening it up and collecting data and asking people about their potential neurodivergence I think is a great one. Just because we can't then stereotype, I don't think we should avoid it, because it's taken us in the right direction. It's asking for more information and there is definitely more commonality across the neurodivergent group than the neurotypical group. So you're definitely making progress and I think in time we will learn to go at the next level down again.

Dr Ian Iceton:

You know I think about apologies if I'm using something that's a bad example, but if I think about when you do buy breaks at some eyes breaks, you know it has got. You know the EI and the NTJs and all that kind of stuff, and then and then eventually they did a second level to it, which allowed you, within the E, in the I, to actually be much more sophisticated, and that was really much more powerful, because I came out right between E and I and could never quite understand. It was right in the middle. But when you did the second level, there was three aspects of being introvert that stood out at one end of the spectrum and two aspects of extroverts stood out one end of the spectrum and that helped explain to me. I think the same will be true in terms of collecting data about autism neurodiversity.

Dr Ian Iceton:

We'll start at one level and then eventually we'll progress down to the next level, but getting more information is definitely the right way to go. The other thing is that progressively, people are using neurodivergent individuals in working groups, in assessments and actually taking them as a deliberate, conscious decision to include them in testing, assessment tools and other things to say both how does the language work for you and how does it work as a test for you? Because sometimes, even if you get the test right but the language is inappropriate, you actually get the wrong looks for us in terms of the way that neurodivergent people respond to it. So it's kind of at two levels, but it's important to ask that community to be involved in these kind of processes and assessments well, we're doing exactly that.

Dr Amanda Potter:

So our product team both the design, development, validation team have colleagues in there who are not neurotypical, who are neurodivergent in different ways, which is brilliant, and as a result of their challenge, we are reviewing our colours of our reports. Angela's already mentioned the red. We use primary colours because that's what our designer came to us with and we chose and we briefed him before Christmas actually to change the colours of be talent and to come up with something that would be more suitable for people who are neurotypical and for people who are neurodivergent. So it isn't threatening or seem to be uncomfortable for some people to read. So we are actively changing our reports to be much more inclusive for all types of people.

Dr Amanda Potter:

I hope we're really trying to think about it, but I'm very clearly learning in this space because I'd never considered it five years ago. To be very honest, what's interesting something you said earlier around everybody learns differently. My son had some exams this week because he's 18 and he was revising with the telly on, and I know that he's better if he revises with the telly on or if he's got music on or something in the background to create a noise, and he was coming out and I was testing him on the terms and he was smashing them, so I desperately wanted to go in and go. Why are you watching telly while you're revising?

Dr Ian Iceton:

that's absolutely fabulous example if you kind of translate that into a workplace environment. That's the challenge that many neurotypical line managers have with neurodivergent employees. They see them operating in a way that doesn't fit their mental model and yet if you let them be, they can produce as good as, if not better, results, because that's the way that they are wired to operate. And back to your other example of the colleague that you were speaking yesterday. Actually, often because their brain thinks in a different way, they bring a diversity of thought and bring benefits to a team and to a situation that would otherwise be lost. There's been a couple of great examples I've come across whereby the neurodivergent voice in the room has been the person that spotted something that the group think has missed and could have caused a massive corporate issue. And sometimes you know just by listening to that person that seems a little bit different but operates a different way can be hugely beneficial.

Dr Amanda Potter:

We've definitely benefited from that in our organization, we do genuinely try to make sure everyone has a voice and everyone gets heard. I want to continue doing that.

Dr Ian Iceton:

So I think one of my main takeaways, as we kind of come to the end of the podcast, is around language, and it seems that, if nothing else, we could all work on being more explicit in what we're asking, more explicit in what our expectations are and more compassionate in our interpretation of how others are perceiving those questions and how they're responding, and I think I would extend that compassion to another group that we've only just touched on, which is actually in my research, I found that people who are line managing neurodivergent individuals were demonstrating a higher level of stress and mental health issues than average, because they were desperately trying to support their neurodivergent colleagues but were really nervous about many of the things we've talked about on the podcast in terms of using the wrong language, not quite understanding the condition, not wanting to get things wrong or, in some cases, suspecting someone who's neurodivergent but they hadn't disclosed, and really nervous about the situation.

Dr Ian Iceton:

And therefore, as colleagues of the managers and perhaps, if we are in positions of authority in organizations, if we've got an opportunity to provide counselling, training and support to line managers, that's really important because if they don't feel comfortable, they're the ones that are on the front line often of these conversations and these dialogues.

Dr Ian Iceton:

If they don't do it well, it goes wrong and they end up feeling bad and sometimes you lose the individual as well.

Dr Ian Iceton:

And, as I said, right the way back to how I got started, that was what happened in the case that first got me aware of this, which actually a manager fell out with an employee, and it was neither of their fault, but as an organization we haven't given either of them the tools to have a conversation about this in a way that worked for either of them.

Dr Ian Iceton:

So extending that compassion and extending that use of thoughtful language to a line manager group and then eventually to colleagues as well. You know, training people to be more accepting of people that they work with that operate in a different way can be really helpful If you start to give kind of moderate, reasonable adjustments to people who are neurodivergent which you can quite often can be a hidden challenge. So people don't look at me and think, oh, he's obviously autistic. But if I need to have some support and you don't explain it to the person next to me in the office why I'm getting something they're not, they start to get a bit uncomfortable and think they're getting special treatment. It can ripple out if we don't handle these conversations in a very sensitive way.

Dr Amanda Potter:

I think the point you've made, ian, is so useful. I think all of us can learn from you and from your PhD and the research you've done, but also just to feel more confident as a line manager that we're not going to get it wrong, that we can support people, and to be more confident, as you said, as long as our intention is good. Actually, that's what people want to know, but I think there's some definitely some skills and some learning around language and what we should and shouldn't say, which would be very useful. So if people want to contact you, ian, if their organisation does need support, particularly for line managers, how can they contact you?

Dr Ian Iceton:

You can contact me directly. Thankfully, my name's fairly unique, so if you just do any kind of search for me, you'll find me very quickly and can see me on LinkedIn. I'll get my email. I also do some work with the Autism Centre of Excellence based in Cambridge University, so that's another route to be in contact, and they're doing some great work in this area, and actually beyond me, there are now emerging a number of other organisations working in this field that are doing great stuff. So if you want to use someone that has more clients and more expertise, there are other places you can go, and a few quick searches will show you some people that are starting to do some great stuff in this area.

Angela Malik:

Well, thank you both for the fascinating conversation. I think that now draws us to the end of this episode. With awareness of neurodivergence rising, I'm sure everyone knows at least one divergent friend or colleague. Please share this episode with them. We'd love to hear feedback and more ideas about neurodiversity.

Dr Amanda Potter:

Thank you, ian. Thank you so much for being our guest, for sharing your knowledge and your expertise so openly, and thank you to our listeners as well, for sticking with us and working through all these different episodes that we keep publishing.

Dr Ian Iceton:

Thank you very much for inviting me and also thank you very much for all the work that you're clearly doing in your organisation, which is well ahead the average. So, in terms of setting a good direction for others to follow, it's a fabulous thing. So I hope that the podcast gets listened to by plenty of people here here and thank you everyone for listening.

Dr Amanda Potter:

I hope you have a wonderful and successful day.

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