Nancy Disbrow - Working in the World of Neuro-Diversity

This week we explore the world of neuro-divergent employees who, on average, represent around 10% of the workforce.  We are joined by Nancy Disbrow, the founder of Neuro-osity, who through her own remarkable journey realized how the qualities of neuro-diversity can truly enhance the workplace and give people a chance to shine in ways we may not expect.  Truly a new way to look at how we reinvent the workplace.

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Transcript

Sara Best: 0:01

Hi everybody, welcome back to the Bosshole Chronicles. This is Sara Best, co-host. Today. We have a great subject matter expert episode for you, John and I will be talking to Nancy Disbrow. She is the founder of Neuro-ocity and our subject matter today is neurodiversity in the workplace. We believe this is a very important subject to Bosshole Prevention. Neurodiversity is just it's one way to describe how people's brains work and think differently. Nancy, as a former HR leader, very accomplished HR professional has made in her business literally to help organizations build accommodation and capitalize on the unique ROI that comes from neurodiversity. So let's dig in.

John Broer: 0:54

The Bosshole Chronicles are brought to you by Real Good Ventures, a talent optimization firm helping organizations diagnose their most critical people and execution issues with world-class analytics. Make sure to check out all the resources in the show notes and be sure to follow us and share your feedback. Enjoy today's episode.

Sara Best: 1:17

Hey Nancy, welcome to the Bosshole Chronicles. It's so good to have you.

Nancy Disbrow: 1:21

Thank you, I'm so excited to be here.

Sara Best: 1:23

We have some pretty important ground to cover today, and well, first of all, we'd like to welcome our Maverick guest. You are in the world of Predictive Index. You're a Maverick, which kind of is a nice segue into the subject matter for today, which is Neurodiversity. And why are we talking about it right now?

Nancy Disbrow: 1:41

Such great questions. So first, neurodiversity, in just the very simple terms, is really just diversity of thought, right, and each person I think we know this intuitively, but each person thinks a little bit differently. Neurodiversity is exactly that term. It's not a medical term, it is more of a social term that we've used and sometimes it can get tied to different conditions. But in general it's just a different way of thinking than maybe what is a typical way of thinking.

Nancy Disbrow: 2:14

And the best example I can give of this is that, generally speaking, everyone kind of thinks in the same types of patterns. They might be a little bit more creative or they might be a little bit better at verbal processing, but in general they're kind of in that normal range. When we look at a neurodivergent person, they're going to have higher highs and more extreme strengths, but then they're going to have more extreme challenges as well. So that's what we call a spikier profile. So you're going to see really strong verbal skills with somebody, but maybe a lower working memory. So they're going to have a harder time processing and holding in information in a meeting, but they can come up with these eloquent pictures and just describe this beautiful picture in their head very, very easily. So you'll see that that's awesome.

Sara Best: 3:04

The second question, the second question was why is it important and why are we talking about it now?

Nancy Disbrow: 3:10

Yeah, so this is such an important topic it really has been for a while and it's finally getting kind of the press that I think it really deserves. But most people don't know, is it? 20% of the population is neurodivergent in some way. So if you even have a small team five to 10 people you are going to have some diversity of thought just naturally within your organization or your team. So truly anyone who's a leader is going to come across this at some point. It's important, especially when we look at Gen Z, even because they're well more versed with social media and what divergent skills and traits look like than former generations. So they're expecting leaders now to really understand what neurodivergent characteristics and traits look like and how to capitalize and really invest in their people to make it the best possible work environment for those, so we can stay out of the bosshole zone there you go, that's right, Well, and so it's not a new idea.

Sara Best: 4:18

Or is it a new idea? Or is it just newly at the forefront of our awareness, especially as it pertains to the workplace?

Nancy Disbrow: 4:26

Yeah, so dyslexia, autism, ADHD, those are the three big ones that we really kind of know and understand. There's lots of different conditions that get tied into the neurodiversity term, but those are the three big ones. They've been around for decades I mean even early 1900s so it's not necessarily something new. It is much more known as far as diagnoses and the different conditions are. There's more awareness around those, especially with dyslexia and ADHD. Those have been documented for early 1900s. Autism we have seen a spike and an increase in the actual diagnoses over the last 20, 25 years. There's lots of potential reasons for that, some environmental, some more on the awareness side. So doctors know more what to look for and how to diagnose it and we're just doing better as far as the research goes of researching men and women. The conditions look very different in men and women in many of these situations so we're learning more about it. So there's better just understanding in general about all the conditions.

Sara Best: 5:37

What I think is fascinating about you, Nancy, is you have come to awareness and insight of your own. That's a story we want to hear a little bit about, for sure, and in your career, you've made it your business to support and develop people. As an HR, a VP of HR, a consultant, a team leader, you've been focusing on these things. Now you've made it your business to help organizations really understand and master what they need to know about neurodiversity. Hence the name of your organization Neuro-ocity. Tell us about that.

Nancy Disbrow: 6:12

Yeah. So the best way to do it is to tell a little bit about my story and how this came about. So, growing up I knew that I was different than other people, but I didn't know why or how. I just knew that I had to work twice as hard as every other kiddo sitting next to me in the classroom. Spelling has always been a challenge for me. Really focusing on details has always been a challenge, and just keeping my concentration into kind of a laser focus Just really it's taken me a lot of energy to do what other kids seem to do so easily.

Nancy Disbrow: 6:48

So fast forward into the workplace. It honestly served me really well. I was already used to working twice as hard as everyone else just to keep my head above water. So in the workplace it was great. I worked twice as hard. Everyone thought I was a rock star and life was pretty good. I was getting burned out in the process, but I didn't know that at the time.

Nancy Disbrow: 7:10

Fast forward to actually a director of HR at the time and my daughter started to have some of the same struggles that I did. She was having trouble spelling, she was showing signs of anxiety and I'm so grateful that a teacher reached out and said she's working so, so hard. You should get her tested, because don't let anybody tell you that she's not a hard worker, but things just aren't progressing like they should. And so luckily we did, and that's a whole story in itself. But we found out she has dyslexia, dyscalculia and ADHD.

Nancy Disbrow: 7:45

The interesting part was that when I was sitting in the psychological evaluations and they were reading back these notes to me, literally you could have replaced my name with her name in any one of the situations. And I'm thinking to myself my gosh, they're talking about me. Are they confused or are we really the same type of brain? Once we got my daughter on the right track, it really kind of intensified for me to figure out do I have dyslexia, do I have ADHD? And I can tell you it was life changing in the best way possible to figure out how my brain works. It was like this light bulb of I'm not broken, I just see the world differently, and it explained so much.

John Broer: 8:34

Well, Nancy, you have a quick question. So up until that point, you had not medically been diagnosed. You had coped, you had figured out your way and just thought this is how I have to work. This is my adaptation, if you will. We talk a lot about adaptation, but up until that point in your daughter's experience, you had not been diagnosed.

Nancy Disbrow: 8:56

No, I had joked about it, because I always transpose numbers and I would say oh, that's my dyslexia. And everyone would laugh because laughing is part of my coping style. But no, I truly never actually gave it real thoughts that I had something different with my brain than anybody else. I never had thought about it, and the really cool part was the more I learned. Dyslexia is so hereditary. There's almost a 0% chance that a child with two parents with dyslexia doesn't get dyslexia too. I mean, it's so strong I never knew that interesting.

Nancy Disbrow: 9:32

Yeah, and so then we started going back, and my father, who is a really successful business owner, has multiple patents that he's developed, welding machines, was never taught how to formally weld, also dyslexic, and by putting all the puzzle pieces together. I assume that my grandfather as well was, who's very mechanical and loved to just put everything together and could take things apart, and so it really makes sense as we look back. My sister struggled in reading in class, but was never formally diagnosed either, and so all these puzzle pieces started to come together, which made it a really cool story for my daughter to say hey, look like your brain is wired differently and in a beautiful, powerful way, and so it was a pretty good narrative from the beginning, for her at least.

Sara Best: 10:24

No, that's good for you, taking what you were gaining insight about and then applying it to your expertise in developing people and creating I love this term "inclusive workplace design. I don't want to jump too far ahead because I know there's probably a lot that happened in between there, but tell us about what are the gifts, what are the things that company owners and leaders should know and understand and, by the way, I know you're working to create awareness all over but as it pertains to the workplace, if 20% of the population is neurodivergent, then we need to sit up in our seats and listen here. Tell us. Tell us what you think.

Nancy Disbrow: 11:06

Absolutely so, looking back, the reason I was successful and I got to that VP spot before I was 40 was literally because of my brain. Every time that I would sit at a table, from an HR perspective, I would see the entire business through this, but I can describe it as a helicopter view of the actual entire business. So I can see marketing and purchasing and finance all playing roles together in a way that most people don't necessarily see, which is a huge trait for dyslexia and really just that big picture perspective. In different situations I would be sitting there and just come out with a crazy idea. Literally everyone would sit around and be like where did she come up with that? I said that like, "who's that girl in the corner? And now I know that creativity, that innovative brain of literally I don't even recognize that there is a box. It is a free world of never-ending ideas. I like to joke that I have three business ideas every morning before my second cup of coffee, because it just never. My brain never stops, which can be a challenge too.

John Broer: 12:24

Well, as you said, it's exhausting. It can be exhausting, I would think, and it can be misunderstood.

Sara Best: 12:30

I think it can be, misunderstood easily by potential Boss holes. John, what were you going to say?

John Broer: 12:35

Well, in Nancy, because, again, this is really sort of leading up to the work you're doing at Neuro-ocity. Did I say that correctly, at Neuro-ocity? But I want to go back to something that we've been talking about for a long time and you've heard it on the podcast this transition from the command and control work environment, which has been prevalent for several decades, to more trust and autonomy and this fits right in there, because many of us were brought up under that framework of this is how you act in the workplace and this is the way you think, and it works within confines. You're blowing out those borders, at least in terms of what I hear you saying is that for you to be optimized, for you to really leverage this gift, these constraints need to be broken, and that's when you can really come to life. That's what I'm hearing.

Nancy Disbrow: 13:25

Yes, you know, you're absolutely right. The more freedom I have to explore all of these crazy ideas that are coming in, at one point is absolutely that's where it's all born. Yeah, and truly it takes that mental freedom and that mental space to be able to do that. And I think at higher levels and those more strategic meetings we do have that right. Like you can get past that middle manager level and up into senior leadership, you've got that space to explore. But there's so many middle managers that have wonderful ideas that we're not tapping into because they're in those confines of. I need to, you know, play this role. Instead of really giving them the freedom to just say, hey, you're closer to this, what do you think? And giving them that safe space to be able to truly explore and that freedom of failure as a fabric. I don't even know, I can't even spell that word right, it doesn't exist in my world, but that freedom is so important.

John Broer: 14:31

And, as we would say, with psychological safety, failing safely and failing intelligently, but at least creating that climate, which is what I think the point on neurodiversity is. Create the climate where what 20, 30, 50, 60 years ago would have been outlandish conversation, and this meeting is taking us in a different direction. We need to explore those directions, absolutely.

Nancy Disbrow: 14:51

Absolutely, to not judge so, so many times I see people in meetings and they look like they're daydreaming. They are literally in the best thought of their life. That could change your business if you just let them stay in that space. And even with kiddos I say to parents all the time if your child is just staring out the window, don't ask them what they're thinking about, just let them go, let them dream and explore that world out there and I guarantee you in three to five minutes they will come back with something you couldn't have imagined. Right?

Nancy Disbrow: 15:23

But so many times I think we try to stay in those boxes and then we don't even let ourselves go into those, those awesome kind of zones. And it's so much energy to try to stay there. If we're trying to answer the question like we think we should, versus just being ourselves, it's exhausting, especially people on the autism spectrum. They spend so much of their energy just trying to play the right part or answer the question as they should or keep facial expressions the way they think they should. You're not even seeing a tenth of their brain power because they're spending so much energy just trying to do what's socially acceptable and try to figure out the small talk and all the little things that most of us take for granted.

Sara Best: 16:12

That's so powerful. I can't help but think about the leaders, the people that are not adapting their own understanding or their own style, and they see all of this as problematic or laziness or lack of productivity. And it really comes down to can a leader appreciate each person not only for their natural behavioral wiring but for how their brain works? And it's amazing we haven't highlighted this as an important key to optimizing the people around you. But I'm thinking about the people who might be listening going eh, poppycash.

John Broer: 16:52

Can I offer up a practical example? And, Nancy, I'd love to get your perspective on this? People I know well. There's a family member who, years ago, was diagnosed with autism and he is working. I mean, he has a job at a retailer. I mean, this is a very nice gentleman and the thing is, what I'm thinking of are the supervisors and managers who may encounter this person what they need to know? To me, Nancy, I think what you're doing is we have to clear a pathway, create that runway to allow this to happen and embrace this neurodiversity. But what are those managers and supervisors that are on the floor on the front line? What do they have to know so that they don't drift into the bosshole zone based on this person? Does that make sense?

Nancy Disbrow: 17:40

Yes, it absolutely does. And I think, John, to your point. So many people they want to do the right thing. We just don't know what it is to do.

John Broer: 17:48

Right.

Nancy Disbrow: 17:48

Because we haven't been taught or we haven't talked about this and it's so important. People communicate in very different ways. You know, with a person on the autism spectrum, they need to be a very literal, factual, based communication style and they don't get their feelings hurt like some other people do. Personally, I would probably get my feelings hurt if I was, you know, coached in a certain way, but they actually really appreciate just a very straightforward approach which, to be honest, isn't our kind of social norm right now. Before that, like fluffy, we want to make you feel good in the process. That confuses people on the spectrum, like you wouldn't believe, because they're like wait, you said I'm doing all these things right, but then I think there is something that you might have, I might not have done, but they can't connect those dots. It's not clear.

Nancy Disbrow: 18:40

That's one big piece of it and then just honestly giving them some grace. As far as like social norms go, making small talk is something that, if you think about it in a very literal perspective, it sounds really weird. When we come in and say oh, it's Monday for somebody on the spectrum, they're like I know what day of week it is.

John Broer: 19:04

That makes sense. Yeah, yeah.

Nancy Disbrow: 19:06

It's raining again. Yeah, I just walked in from outside too, I know that. So those type of things if you can appreciate that that's the way their brain is wired, it all makes sense and you kind of chuckle and it's endearing and you go about your day. But if you don't, it becomes that kind of barrier and those barriers start to build up. The one thing I always like to say is that people on the spectrum don't necessarily not enjoy social interactions. They do. They generally like to be around other people. They just don't understand our social norms and how they work and they're not so structured that they could learn them in a way. Sometimes we even do face training where it's like, okay, this is a happy face, they'll actually see a picture of a smile. But if you think about it, we have so many different facial nuances that are happy but they're not the smile. To learn those and to adjust those and really commit them to memory is just so much work, even just talking about it.

John Broer: 20:10

Right. So your point, though for the manager or the supervisor working with this individual, the norms that we're so used to actually could serve as a real barrier to helping this individual be effective, enjoy their work and be fulfilled in their way, so that manager, that supervisor this is where we can help them understand how to best coach and work with In this example, this person who happens to be on the spectrum. That's incredibly helpful.

Sara Best: 20:40

Yeah, and not misunderstand.

John Broer: 20:42

Right.

Sara Best: 20:43

It's not unkindness, or this person isn't nice, or they don't like their colleagues. I don't mean to oversimplify, but it yeah, shut up, now go ahead.

John Broer: 20:53

No, no, no, I'm sorry, just because I've experienced this the instruction of taking things literally. That is so helpful, Nancy. I mean it really is, because it's just very practical and pragmatic. But that should guide how a manager or supervisor help in this case. I'm sorry, I don't mean to I love examples. I think our listeners really like examples because I know their manager is going. I'm not quite sure how to handle this or what I should do, so I'm going to shut up now and turn it back to you.

Nancy Disbrow: 21:23

No, no, I love that example and that is what I just love. I mean, I literally pinch myself every day that I get to do this, because I love hearing those real-life examples. Another one that comes to mind and I think this could be relatable is I just heard it like two weeks ago there was a manager who was on a line and there were different stations and there's equipment that they had to wear long-sleeved shirts with thumb holes in them, okay. And so the person wasn't wearing their thumb holes. They were wearing the shirt but didn't have the thumb hole in. And so the supervisor said to the person online hey, can you go talk to that person? And so they did.

Nancy Disbrow: 21:59

Three times went by and the supervisor said, hey, didn't you talk to him? And so, anyways, the supervisor luckily wasn't a Boss hole and took him into a private room and said hey, I think we've talked to you about this before. What's going on? And to this young man's credit, he said well, you talked to me, or that supervisor talked to me on three different machines. They rotated six different machines every 30 minutes, so he took it literally. And that machine he wore thumb holes. The next one, he didn't.

John Broer: 22:31

Oh, my God. Wow.

Nancy Disbrow: 22:33

The supervisor, you know. So, on the one he was spoken to, he did, which is so much more brainpower right, to remember which ones had thumb holes and which ones didn't. A simple communication would have said we need you to wear thumb holes on every machine.

John Broer: 22:47

All the time. All the time Okay.

Nancy Disbrow: 22:49

Yep, so just those little tweaks, and again the way that brain works. But can you imagine I mean some leaders would have potentially written them up or fired them.

John Broer: 22:58

Yeah, for being in subordinate and you're not. Yeah, sure, yeah.

Nancy Disbrow: 23:03

And it's a safety thing. The other thing, John, and just as we're talking, hiring in the interview process is so unfortunate for people on the spectrum. To be honest, we're doing a better job, I think, than we were doing years ago, but it still has such a long way to go, and it's really unfortunate because so many people tend to hire people that they enjoy talking to during the interview, right, and for somebody with social challenges, it's going to be tougher to engage that person on that social level, but it doesn't mean that that might be the absolute best person for the job. I can tell you that I've talked my way through interviews, honestly, because I'm just a good talker. There are probably people that were better at doing the actual job.

Nancy Disbrow: 23:48

Of course, it might have gotten overlooked because of it, and I think it's important to. I've done everything wrong. I have been that leader that I didn't know better either, and I tried to get everybody into the room for a potluck. There's just so many things that I look back on my career and think, my gosh, if I knew what I knew now, I would lead differently too. So all we can do is go forward and do better as we're growing as leaders.

John Broer: 24:15

Yeah, well, I think that reinforces what we've been talking about, that I think the manager of the future is a very different kind of manager. They are far more aware not only of themselves but how. I can't approach and treat everybody exactly the same, whether it's behavioral diversity or neurodiversity or creating that psychologically safe space. That's my key role and I've got to be good at it, and I think that's what the calling is moving forward. Sara, I interrupted you, sorry.

Sara Best: 24:45

No, I would agree, John. Well, we've been talking about social norms which are so pervasive and outside of our awareness that it's good to just be reminded. It's just automatic, so becoming aware of those things. What about the workplace norms? And, in particular, you mentioned dyslexia and ADHD. I know those are common. I know people work hard to mask any symptoms. What could a manager be thinking about when it comes to workplace norms and helping to tap into the strengths of people with dyslexia and ADHD?

Nancy Disbrow: 25:22

Yeah, so that is, oh gosh. There's so much there to uncover.

Sara Best: 25:26

Another episode maybe.

Nancy Disbrow: 25:28

Yeah, part two. So for every challenge, I truly believe that there is a, it's almost like a teeter totter, there's a strength that outweighs on the other side, right? So one thing I always encourage managers to do is catch people doing things right which is not new, right? We've all heard that. But these sparks of genius where you see that one person just come up with that creative idea or find a pattern that nobody else saw, or really just get into that problem-solving space or do well in a crisis, people with ADHD are phenomenal when it comes to crisis situations. They will jump in, take action, make decisions, good decisions, and it will look so easy for them. And yet they struggled to get started on a project that they knew was due in two weeks because it's not exciting and it doesn't have that sense of urgency to go along with it. Right? I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not calling you out, Sara. Doesn't everyone work better with a deadline? Okay, sorry, back to you, Nancy. So if you know that person loves and really thrives in that crisis situation, there's a good chance that they are going to need that same sense of urgency and to build that up in a project that's not due for two weeks, right, so that leader could almost flip it and say, okay, how do we make this exciting today?

Nancy Disbrow: 26:57

Another thing with ADHD is if we don't see it, it doesn't exist, which my husband does not like. But I will go eight hours without texting him because he's not in front of me, right, like. If it's not here, I just don't, it's just not on my brain. But putting a whiteboard in an office is something that can be really helpful. We all have digital calendars and digital reminders, but some of us need a physical whiteboard and a calendar to see exactly what we need to do next. So when we feel ourselves kind of going and spiraling down an email rabbit hole or whatever it is, we have something visual to come right in front of us.

Nancy Disbrow: 27:36

The other thing is with dyslexia. People don't believe how bad of a speller I am until they actually see my written work and even then, as long as it's on a computer, it's half corrected already, right. But volunteering somebody or volunteer-tolding somebody to go on to a whiteboard literally sends me back to second grade and reading in front of the class. Like it is, cause you are getting my unedited version of spelling and I can tell you so many stories about the most simple words that I've written incorrectly in front of a group of executives and just literally wanted to crawl under the table. Now, if you're sitting in that room, you wouldn't have thought that I had that much anxiety over it, but I can still tell you who was in those rooms and exactly how that felt. So to not underestimate that, but then just offer for people to do those type of things, like if you're reading something on the screen, ask for somebody to volunteer, instead of maybe reaching out to somebody and telling them. And also, if it's a spelling error, I mean honestly, if you still understand what they're saying, just go with it.

Nancy Disbrow: 28:43

Mm-hmm, I know we like to try to correct people and if it's important, if it's going out to all- company email and of course, but if it's just between two internal people, it's probably not worth it to bring it up. What I love to tell leaders is that you would love to have my creativity in innovative brain and you can easily farm out somebody spell checking my work, like I can get anybody I can get my sixth grade step son to spell check my work. That's not a problem. But trying to get that creativeness is something that's really hard to find in a person. We've got to pick our battles, and it's, you know, especially coming to the new age of how are we going to ask better questions and problem solve and figure out these complex problems? We need these brains in our organization right now. Mm-hmm, we have the technology to spell check people's work and to do some of the more simple things that are really hard for me to do.

John Broer: 29:44

Well, and you call that out on your website on the assistive technology. I mean, by the way, and this is in the show notes go check out Nancy's website. It's really, it's actually really fun. It's very cool because you have you have not only links to assistive technology but products that help not only for adults, for children, that you've experienced or that you would recommend that they access and can be helpful for ADHD and so forth. But you're right, if we can't, I'm sorry I'm going off in a tangent night, because this again is kind of the grace we ought to be affording to everybody in the workplace, no matter what this is, because we shouldn't be asking them to fit into a mold. And that's what you can help organizations do, right, Nancy? I mean you can really help them break free from that sort of command and control framework of ideas and how people think. How does an organization access? How does an organization engage you? How does it happen?

Nancy Disbrow: 30:42

Yeah, so generally it's just reaching out via my website, via email, and having a conversation, and truly, I think a lot of times people engage me and they don't know what the next step looks like. They just know that they want to do better right, like they're like. Okay, we know we're not doing this and truly I think a lot of people have diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Nancy Disbrow: 31:04

This really has to be a part of it. This is in your organization right now. It should be one of your ERG groups. It should be just one of those things that's in circular rotation of things talked about through leadership and management for all employees, and it's so interesting. Sometimes they'll actually go on site and do a building walkthrough and I'll start to see different things that come through like an operational group and how they have things set up, and that's what's helpful. With the products, too, is that I'm like, oh, if you guys added some simple wobble stools or some balance boards. Thanks for pointing out my products, because I truly I've used everything. Like everything on that website is either mine or my children, but you will find everything in my house, cause I think and it's the same for kiddos right, like it is our brains, they mature over time but they don't necessarily change right. So, so many things that work in the workplace also work for children as well in the home.

John Broer: 32:07

Sure.

Sara Best: 32:08

I have one letter of comment, too, I want to make, just in relationship to why this is important and with a value of understanding and amplifying the skills and abilities of unique people who are neurodivergent. And it goes back to, John, what you said about psychological safety In the world, in the market that we're living in, in the world we're living in today, innovation and agility and creativity are the things that have allowed us to excel and really traverse and succeed through very difficult times. So I don't want to under emphasize, I want to overemphasize the fact that you could be missing out in your organization. You could be missing out on what is right under your nose, because people have to run ideas up the flagpole and the first person who sees it knocks it down. It's that simple that we have to create spaces where people are invited and even rewarded for sharing ideas and speaking up and challenging the status quo.

Sara Best: 33:09

There's just so many unique things. I just feel like we scratch the surface. We just basically, you know a little teeny bit here. There's so much more to cover and so much more that you do and, like John said, your website is just a wealth of ideas and resources. You do training, you do speaking, you coach. Can I ask a question about that? Coaching professionals, do you coach leaders, managers, individuals? Tell us what that coaching process is like?

Nancy Disbrow: 33:38

So a little bit of everything. I love coaching and actually the majority of my clients right now are young professionals that are trying to find their footing and really trying to find that inner genius inside them and see where that kind of spark is going to go but also with leaders. So I have a client, an attorney, who is like I am frustrating the heck out of my team. So he owns a practice and he's like I'm going every which way all the time and so it's like OK, I get that and we don't want to stifle that. That is why he's successful and why he has this growing practice.

Nancy Disbrow: 34:15

But also, how do we supplement that? How do we get the right people on his team? This is exactly where Predictive Index comes in. We know where his strengths are. So how do we find people on his team that can support him and then give the psychological safety for those people to say OK, Bob, you're going off on this rabbit hole, that's fine, we can go there. Do you want me to do something about that? Or are we just in a brainstorming session and have that safety net of like I like where this is going, but do I have it to do?

John Broer: 34:50

Yes, right, right, and that's not an unfair, that's a very fair question to ask. But when you have that freedom to do it and there's no, nobody's going to get offended by it, that totally changes the workplace.

Nancy Disbrow: 35:03

If you empower that person to say hey, look, I'm counting on you to ask those hard questions. When I was in my last position, I told a lady on my team hey, I will have to have you proofread everything I do. And I think she just thought I was being nice. I guess she came to me four months later and said I am so glad you told me that, because now I understand exactly what you mean. And she said if I wouldn't have known that, I would have honestly probably judged you and thought very differently of you.

Nancy Disbrow: 35:36

And unfortunately, the workplace isn't always set up for us to be that honest about dyslexia and ADHD. So when I'm coaching people, rarely do I say you should go out and tell the world about it. Unfortunately, I just don't think we're there yet. I think we'll get there and we're closer, but most people have the negative stigmas attached to it. And very rarely, and this is what's so heartbreaking is when we're telling parents that their children are diagnosed with dyslexia, ADHD, autism, we are not talking about the positives of their brain, only the challenges. And so these children are growing up to focus on the challenges and not even knowing how powerful. I mean, half of NASA scientists are dyslexic, the majority of self-made millionaires dyslexic. This is such a gift and we're not celebrating it in the way, and honestly, I think a lot of people would love to work in corporations but they end up leaving and going and being an entrepreneur because the workplace doesn't fit them. So if we can make the workplace fit their brains a little bit better, the organizations will absolutely benefit from that as well.

Sara Best: 36:51

What a great note to end on. I hope that the leaders and the managers that listen to our podcast can appreciate and understand what they could tap into and that they might. Maybe they would overlook an opportunity to misdiagnose a performance issue as someone's laziness or their IQ. That they might be able to tap into the resources you provide and look at things a different way. Powerful.

Nancy Disbrow: 37:18

Absolutely, absolutely. I always like to encourage people. Just have a conversation, just ask them is there something else going on? You'd be surprised at what you hear.

Sara Best: 37:28

Yeah, and I do hope people reach out to you because I know they're going to have questions and wow, I never thought about that before and I fired this person because they couldn't send a good email, and what can I do differently now? So we appreciate you.

Nancy Disbrow: 37:41

I appreciate you both taking the time just to get the awareness out there and really start the conversation. I think great things will happen just from this one conversation.

John Broer: 37:51

Well, I hope so. Thanks, Nancy.

Sara Best: 37:53

Yeah, and keep up the amazing work. Friends and neighbors, we'll see you next time on the Bossh ole Chronicles.

John Broer: 38:01

We'd like to thank our guests today on the Boss Hole Chronicles and if you have a Bossh ole Chronicles story of your own, please email us at mystory@thebossholechronicles. com. Once again, mystory@thebossholechronicles. com, we'll see you again soon.