How to Create a Neuro-inclusive Culture

But obviously, you’re not on this webinar to hear from me. You’re here today to learn about how to create a neuroinclusive culture from the brilliant Danielle Cudjoe-Michalski. Danielle is founder of Thinking Light Coach and she also served as co-founder and lead of the neurodiversity network at GSK, where she worked for nearly 20 years. So I’m really excited for you to hear Danielle’s story and to learn lessons from her journey today.

 

If you’re brand-new to Skill Sessions and this is your first event then: Welcome, hello! It’s an absolute pleasure to have you joining us today. We’ve been running these free online events now for almost a year. And there’s now a community of over 1,600 of you, which is just phenomenal. In fact, I had a conversation this morning. I think we’re creeping up to 1700. So thank you so much for being a part of that journey with us.

 

The objective of these events is to bring you experts and speakers on a whole range of topics around inclusion and neurodiversity in the workplace. You can always find the latest events on the CareScribe website or by following CareScribe on LinkedIn. We’re super active on there. But we also have all of our past event recordings available for you to watch back at your own leisure and in your own time, on YouTube. We’ve covered all sorts of different topics, so just search for CareScribe on YouTube or search for CareScribe online if you want to discover more about the latest events. I think a member of the Skill Sessions team is going to pop some links into the chat for you as well.

 

So I mentioned a company called CareScribe there, and we’re the organisation which makes these events happen. We’re an award-winning software company based in Bristol. And we create assistive tech to help people who are neurodivergent or who have disabilities to be more productive and also more confident in their work or studies. So we have two products: Caption.Ed, which is a note-taking and captioning software, which is designed to help people capture and comprehend just the piles of information which gets thrown at them either at work or in education. And we also have TalkType, which is highly accurate, super-speedy dictation software which works with Mac, Windows, Chromebook, mobile devices and also in your browser as well.

 

If you want to know more about these products and the impact they could have for your workforce or for your students, and you want to get a demo from one of the team, just drop a message in the chat or reply to a Skill Sessions email.

 

Right, so a bit of housekeeping before I hand over to Danielle. Today’s session is being recorded. It’ll be shared afterwards. So if you need to dip off — I know that there can be distractions, especially if you’re working from home — if you need to dip off and you’re worried about missing something, don’t be. We’ll send you a follow-up email tomorrow with links to the slides, which Danielle is going to share, the transcript, and the recording as well, so you can refer back to it at a later date, whenever you’d like.

 

We’ve already seen and had demonstration of the fact that our wonderful Skill Sessions community love to use the chat a lot.

 

We’ve set this up so that we can create a space for like-minded people to learn from each other and to ask questions. So I do encourage you to please make use of the chat function on this call. Make sure, though, that you’re talking with everyone. There’s a couple of options. You can talk to the host and panelists or you can change your chat settings to speak to everyone. So just make sure that you’re doing that so that your messages aren’t lost.

 

And likewise, if you find the chat a bit distracting during the session, you can hide your notifications. Just hover over the chat button at the bottom of the screen and just tick “Hide chat preview” so you can reduce those distractions for you.

 

If you’re going to ask a question today, which we really, really do encourage you to do, there is a little Q&A button at the bottom of the Zoom window. Please put your questions in there. It means that I can see them, so I know that questions have been asked, but it also allows people to upvote questions. So if we get lots of questions coming in, it helps me understand which ones to prioritize and to ask our speaker. And also you can enable captions via Zoom if you would like to.

 

I’m just going to have a quick look through this chat and see if we’ve had anyone else joining us from any wonderful places. We did have Australia last time. That’s a good point, Joe. So, Swindon — hi, Kathleen. Lots and lots of familiar faces on this call as well. Worcester; Kingston. Fabulous. Lovely to have you with us, everyone. Thank you for making the time to join this call today.

 

So, I mean, you’ve heard enough from me now. That’s not why you’re here. I’m going to hand over to Danielle, who’s going to share with you some tips and advice for creating a neuroinclusive workplace. I had a conversation with Danielle last week, and she’s got so much to share. So I’m just really excited for the session. So without further ado, I’m going to hand over to Danielle.

 

[Danielle]:

Hello, everybody. And thank you so much, Claire, for the lovely introduction. So I’m going to be talking about how to create a neuroinclusive culture. I’m going to share my slides. Just bear with me.

 

OK, so hopefully everybody can see my slides. We did test it beforehand. So, welcome to this session. And I could hear from the prepare calls that we had everybody’s kind of buzzing to understand more about how we can create this neuroinclusive culture within our workforce and make sure that we’re setting ourselves up for success. So that’s what I want to talk about today.

 

So who am I? My name is Danielle Cudjoe-Michalski. I am a neurodiverse coach, TedX speaker, and consultant. I’m also, as Claire said, the founder of Thinking Light Coach, which is an organisation in which I’m able to do all these wonderful things. I’m a previous vaccine project manager and co-founded and was former co-lead of the neurodiverse Network at GSK. For transparency, I’m also dyslexic with traits of ADHD and dyspraxia. So, just want to add that in. So, again, things may show up in this session, it’s giving you a real good insight.

 

So, what you’re going to expect from today’s session. Well, what you can expect — and I wanted to really think about how I could add value. We hear about this word neurodiversity, but I want people to understand why organisations need to embrace this culture of neuroinclusivity under the word neurodiversity. What does it mean to our organisations — whether it’s large organisations or small or medium to small organisations? What do we need to consider? Why it’s important to have networks, like we had the neurodiverse network at GSK and others. How to also consider intersectionality, and are we looking at it from all different aspects? And then from a neurodiverse, neuroinclusive culture, what can you do as DE&I leads and HR leads and what do you want your organisation leaders to do?

 

And then, as Claire said, we’ve got a lovely session at the end for Q&A. Just to be mindful that if anything that I discuss at this session has an impact on you directly, please make sure that you look after yourself and get in contact with any support that you need within your organisation. And just to be also clear, the Q&A will be at the end. But if there are any parts, at the time, where I’m talking too fast or there’s something not showing up, please get in contact with either Claire or any of the people from the organisation, and they’ll be able to help you in regards to letting me know because I do speak a bit fast sometimes.

 

So what is neurodiversity? And I think you coming onto this call, you probably either Googled it, heard the word, are aware of it already — it has absolutely exploded under any conversation to do with DE&I inclusion, diversity. It’s also absolutely, profoundly more exploded on social media and on the TV. And people are starting to understand what this word means.

 

But its purest form, neurodiversity is a framework for understanding the human brain function that recognises the diversity of human cognition as a biological fact and the diversity in human is a cognitive form of your normality. We know this because this is what shows up in terms of our genetics, in regards to our neurological pathways, our experiences everything that makes up who you are and I take that into consideration. Even with twins, their experiences, their cognitive function, varies. And that makes a diversity of different ways of thinking and approaching situations.

 

However, there are specific ways that we work in our culture and society that become very, very typical — very, very normalised. And our society is set up that way and the workplace has been founded and created and involved working on those key principles. Some of those key principles are quite old and therefore have not been challenged or reflected or evolved over time. And it means that some individuals can really struggle. And those who have a neurological differences, like if people with ASD, autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, and many, many more, actually have a different way and ability of processing information which greatly differs than the norm. Which means they have real challenges with cognitive function compared to the rest of the diversity that you have in the workforce.

 

What does that mean? It means that they may need support going forward and they may need that support to help them with some of the challenges that show up for them in the workplace. That could be from having accessive technology to help them with reading out loud. Or it may be helping them with certain functionalities of the systems they’re using. It could be as simple as having coaching and spaces to look at strategies that help them with environmental impacts that are impacting them from a sensory perspective.

 

But it also means that these individuals actually come with really good ways of challenging some of the old-school ways of working that we’ve had in our organisations. They’re really good at seeing “bigger picture”, looking at problem-solving, and really innovative ways of going forward. And we know in a day in and age like now, that is so important. We’re trying to innovate, we’re trying to create even faster and even better, even quicker, and even more efficient, than we ever have. So we need these individual people in our workforce.

 

So some of these differences just to make it clear, when you Google “neurodiversity”, you will find a plethora of different types of differences as I like to call them, and conditions. They can come from including things like OCD and some mental health differences as well, conditions that can impact people. But in regards to the neurodiversity movement that was coined by Judy Singer in the end 1990s, and what we kind of look at today under the neurodiversity umbrella, I’m going to focus on some key differences.

 

I just want to go through a couple of them with you guys, just to make sure that everybody’s on the same page. So, firstly we have autism or ASD Spectrum, which is a autistic spectrum that can impact people’s ability to socialise sometimes. It can impact some of the processing speed. It can have different impacts in terms of their perspectives. And those individuals can come with amazing, amazing traits of being able to really have deep work into an item. They’re able to really go into research really well, problem-solve, and all these amazing things that they can bring. But there is a balance between the things that challenge them in the things that they can provide. And that’s across all of these differences.

 

Then with ADHD, you’ve got three different types of ADHD. So you’ve got the attentive; you’ve got the compulsive, which is the ones that most people are aware of. And then you’ve got the combination of both attentive and compulsive. And with people with ADHD, they can bring a real energy to situation, really good empathy, really sometimes good at reading other people. But there can be there can be challenges with sometimes focusing. They can have cognitive challenges. Sometimes social interaction can be quite overwhelming as well.

 

Then you’ve got the Ds, as I like to call them. So they’ve got dyslexia, which are mainly around challenges to do with reading, writing, and kind of grammar. But they are also impacted by some of the cognitive challenges that you get with autism and ADHD. Then you’ve got dyspraxia — sorry dysgraphia.

 

Dysgraphia is very different from dyslexia. This more is searching around understanding the difference. But with that, that’s more around how your motor movements are in regards to — it could impact typing, painting, writing, and there’s still do more research understand more around this piece. You’ve got dyspraxia, which generally is around spatial awareness and coordination. But it can mean so, so much more. It can impact muscle mass. It can impact sometimes your processing speed and so forth. Dyscalculia, as I like to say, dyslexia’s cousin, with numerics, numbers, but again, cognitive function could be impacted. And then you’ve got Tourette’s Syndrome, which can also be impacted by cognitive functions. There’s so many more out there.

 

And the reason why I always put “many more” is we’re starting to get data as science is advancing around neurological and positive psychology. We’re trying to understand more around how the brain works, how these individuals are challenged. What benefits these individuals are bringing to the workforce and understanding more around this complexity. But when you talk to neurodiverse individuals or neurodivergent individuals, you’ll find that they believe there is a difference in thinking, learning, and communication. And they don’t necessarily think this is a disability. And this is really important for you guys as DE&I and HR need to be aware of this.

 

And that’s because it’s important. And I’m going to share some stats. And these stats you may have heard before. So it’s a 1 in 5 individuals globally may be neurodiverse. We know there’s complexities in regards to religion, culture, in regards to accessibility to data. And we’re really trying to gather as much data to try and get some clearer understanding on the statistics. But that shows that there’s going to be an impact on — majority of organisations are going to have a member of staff that’s going to to be a part of the neurodiverse community or impacted in some capacity.

 

We say roughly in the UK, out of that 1 in 5, 50% don’t actually know they’re neurodivergent. They don’t even know they have traits that may be neurodiverse. And so that can be really challenging because if they don’t know that it’s a struggle and they perceive this to be the reality and norm, it means it’s really hard for them to ask for help. And sometimes the only way they can see that is by connecting with others. And then, of that, 40% of individuals who are neurodiverse are unemployed. And I did a talk yesterday and someone asked me, “What’s that 40% mean?” And it could include individuals from nonverbal individuals who’ve got autism all the way to individuals that are working in the workplace or used to work in the workplace and really struggling with continuous employment.

 

So it really does vary in regards to that 40%. And we know that at the moment the 40% in the UK, we know that we’re protected on the Equality Act of 2010 Under Disability part. Neurodiversity is covered under that as its seen as a way of protecting those individuals in regards to recruitment, in regards to employment, and other aspects of their life. But I want to flip it. If we say 40% of neurodiverse individuals are unemployed, it means that around 60% — and please don’t get me at my math will all these stats — are in employment, are working in your organisations, are people that you are trying to support. And that’s really important because how are we making a safe space for them to show up every day? And it’s really important we have some legal obligations and they come under the Disability Act that those individuals might not relate to but it’s really important that they get the support they need.

 

So I thought I’d share a little insight into a neurodiverse life and journey. And that one’s my own. So I was diagnosed in my final year of university after a long process of being really confused and not sure where I wanted to go and being told at primary school that I would never go to university, and that my reading and writing was just being, kind of, lazy. And my mum and family were very supportive of that. And in my final year university when I did my dissertation, I was told to go for an assessment and the assessor said, “You’re severely dyslexic and we’re not quite sure how you actually were able to get through education so far.” And that was a scary moment for me: I was young. I was working in STEM; I was working in science. I was studying to become a biochemist and then I had the privilege, through some really hard work, to join GSK as a microbiologist. That came with its own challenges.

 

It came with the Imposter Syndrome or “How did I, Danielle, the dyslexic woman manage to get into GSK of all places?” Such an honor. I’m very privileged to be able to have worked for an organization.

 

But in my role as a microbiologist, one of the things I had to do was do high-quality reports, and high-quality reports that went in front of the FDA MHRA, which you guys all know now because of Covid. You know all these acronyms. But these are the organizations that really dictate and manage and regulate our pharmaceutical industry.

 

And I used to have to write reports and give them into those organizations as a part of the audits. And that petrified me, it really did. And it got to the point where I just didn’t disclose my dyslexia. I just tried to get on with my work.

 

But fortunately for me, but unfortunately the situation was — my manager actually realized that there was something wrong — done what you don’t do now and I asked me, “Are you dyslexic?” Or “We think you’re dyslexic”. And I said “Yes.” And I was able to get some support on a team level.

 

Throughout that career at that time, there wasn’t much about neurodiversity. Occupational Health had reports and there were things being brought up in the organization, but there wasn’t really anything there. And my manager and my team who knew done the best they could to support me.

 

Which was really, really pinnacle in my career because I spent 11 years as a microbiologist. But it got to the point where I started switching my mindset from focusing on the things that really challenged me like my reading, my writing, creating these quality documents, my time management, my procrastination — all these things that were showing up and focusing more on my strengths.

 

And my mentor/coach was a lady that was quite senior in my department. And she pulled me aside and said, “You could do so much more. I think you could really deliver more.” And I started to question, how can I add more value to GSK?

 

And so she gave me opportunities to learn new skills, look at my strengths. And in 2016, I was able to move into pipeline project management, which is quite a senior project management department within the organization.

 

Here, you work across the pipeline delivering and supporting the projects that actually innovate the business. And I naively didn’t realize that. I went in and I just worked my best and hardest and things and challenges were still showing up. Doing a different role meant that the things I had to support me had to be adapted, but I was able to create a successful career.

 

And I realized that the real importance in mentorship and coaching. So I started supporting others. And I really, really enjoyed that really just expressing how my journey had been the last X amount of years in GSK, from a my bench scientist to becoming a project manager. And others would be really, really interested.

 

And then the renowned Professor Sara Rankins — she’s absolutely amazing — came to our site to talk about neurodiversity and the levels of neurodiversity in STEM organizations — that it’d be higher. And she sat there talking about it. A group of us went to the front, really eager. And she challenged us to have a conversation.

 

She just challenged us to have a coffee and talk about it. What she didn’t know, and what we didn’t know at the time, was that was the day that the neurodiverse network was formed. And it was formally formed in 2019.

 

And we started with just local talks, having conversations. And then we realized that this is really interesting. If there’s a small group of us just having little talks locally, having coffees locally, and really connecting and uniting, surely this is a bigger thing that we need to adapt.

 

Then, the pandemic hit. And that made us flex. And as neurodiverse individuals, we like to flex. So what did we do? We switched from being local to being global. We went online and became a global community. And at the end of 2023 when I left, the neurodiverse network had grown to over 900 members globally, which consists of those who identify as being neurodivergent, whether they’re diagnosed or not and fuels a part of their community.

 

Parents of neurodiverse/neurodivergent children, senior leaders who want to advocate, and managers who wanted to know. I personally left the organisation so I could expand my coaching business, to be able to really focus on supporting neurodiverse individuals not just at work, but holistically at life on a one-to-one basis and be able to deliver my experience to organisations like yourselves and help on things like today.

 

But it was really important that that journey of creating the NDN was also part of my journey. And there were other amazing co-founders who helped create this real initiative within GSK. So I want to talk a little bit about the NDN.

 

As I said, Sara Rankins came, we had a coffee. And it was that simple. The first thing we did was look at our mission. We looked at it like it was a project like we all had. We were bench scientists, quality controls, IT, project management — all different people from different experiences coming together. And it was really as simple as that. It didn’t have to be big. But the most important thing is we wanted to understand what our mission was.

 

Our mission was to bring awareness across GSK around neurodiversity because we didn’t see that. We hadn’t seen that and if we had, we would have made sure it’s more visible. We wanted to educate our leaders and teams to know what neurodiversity was so they could work better together and they could support not just only that community, but also look at how they adapt. We wanted to go back to what I said where we created an organisation on really traditional ways of working and evolve. As you […] a little bit, try and understand why we do what we do.

 

And most importantly, we want to support the neurodiverse/neurodivergent employees, whether that’s them impacting themselves, or as a parent or any other connection they have that’s impacting how they show up at work. And as I said in the pandemic, that exploded us to us to be a global team. And we started in supporting places like the US, countries over Europe, and when we left, we even started to impact our hub in India, really making sure we’re bringing that knowledge around neurodiversity.

 

So there’s one thing you need to understand about this and some of you may or may not know this. It is not formalised across every country. As I said before in the UK and the US, we’re very, very lucky to be protected under our Employment Acts and our Equality Acts. But there are different countries who don’t see neurodiversity show up in society, which means as someone neurodivergent, showing up in your true self at work can be really challenging if outside of work you can’t even get the support or even talk about it.

 

So it’s really important when you’re looking at creating these spaces, you allow people to create this space knowing that there may be some situations where employees may not show up even in their home life where they want to. And it’s how you can support them while they’re at work to help them have less stress and perform the optimum that they can to innovate your organisation.

 

Some of our successes was not just bringing awareness to the culture of individuals, but actually looking at the business benefits, the workforce benefits. Looking at the data around — or what was there — very limited at the time — around why we should be taking this into consideration. Why creating not just a neuroinclusive workplace, but a culture was really important.

 

We collaborated with the amazing initiative GSK Workplace Adjustment Service, which talked about how you can get support through — whether it’s physical disability, […] disability, through pregnancy, or anything else, we started collaborating with them around neurodiversity guidance and other management and senior people across the organisation. We didn’t just stay in STEM. We went to our procurement places. We went to our IT. We went to our legal. We tried to make sure that that was visible across the organisation.

 

And we shared from a global community, but also from a leadership. And I had the privilege of even talking to our CEO around neurodiversity and around a lived experience and why GSK needs to invest time into understanding how they can support their staff. And I’m at such a privilege to be able to know they’ve been able to do that. By that, we’ve been able to create support groups and connections, coaching and mentoring to create safe space most individuals are impacted on the ground every day. And we were able to recognise different strengths and different challenges by really showing our lived experience as an organisation.

 

I’m not going to hear someone talk about being a microbiologist somewhere else. I’m actually seeing someone on the screen who’s a scientist, who was where I was and potentially having the same challenges as I have — as I am.

 

That is powerful. That makes me realise this organization really wants to hear me and these individuals in the NDN really want to support me. So that’s great. We had the neurodiverse network. How did that change my career? So — just to kind of see how that can impact others. When I was diagnosed as being neurodiverse, I was confused. Having that support of coaching and mentoring really helped me focus. I learned to focus on not what my challenges are, but my strengths. I really started to lean into that, which means I built up my confidence, but it also meant that I was starting to be able to advocate for myself.

 

You see, when I left the microbiology role in 2016, not only did I go into project management, but I was able to get promoted and accelerate my career quite quickly just in that space of time after I left. And that’s all because I was given the support to be able to look at my strengths and get some extra support for the challenges I had. I embrace the challenges. Most neurodiverse individuals want to be able to get support around their shoulders. They want to embrace them. They don’t necessarily always and hide away from them. Sometimes they show up in our different jobs, in different projects we’re at. So it’s really important that even though we’re looking at the strengths, when we’re looking at challenges we’re like, “OK, what do you want to do about it? How do you want to go forward?”

 

A lot of times I first started NDN, people were saying, “Oh, maybe people should move into different roles if you’re challenged.” But actually, I disagree. You see I told my manager when I got diagnosed, “Give me more reports.” “I want to write more reports.” “I want my reports to sit in front of the QP quality person at the organisation, in front of the MHRA.” Regretting it. Internally, I’m dying, but I wanted to do it. I wanted to be able to prove to myself that I could develop this skill. Unfortunately, a lot of the time I write is very scientifically now, but it has really helped my confidence.

 

There was underlying need. And with a nice, soft approach and support of the people around me and the opportunities around me, I was able to not only do that, but also get involved in other projects where they were like, “Oh you could do this, but also we could put you in something else.” So I was balancing some of the things that would help with my challenges and help utilize my strengths. The most important thing of all of it was admitting I had an issue. And this doesn’t mean that you have to admit that you’re neurodiverse or a label. It’s just putting your hand up and saying, “I have a challenge.” “I have an issue. I have a concern and I need support.” And if I hadn’t agreed and said to my manager, “Yeah, I’m dyslexic,” that would not happen.

 

If you’re dealing with individuals that are from a different generation than now, a lot of us were told, “You don’t disclose.” You don’t say when you go to the workplace that you’re neurodivergent. You don’t say anything. You just get on with the work. And so the first thing for me to be able to say, “Yes, I am,” was to me the first way I was able to accept that I had a difference and that it was OK and that it was valid, and it would be able to work through it and get the support I need. One of the things I also learned when I grew up was that I wasn’t stupid. And this is one that is a bit controversial because one of the biggest issues that happen with neurodiverse individuals is this aspect or feeling like they don’t belong, that I feel like I’m stupid or worsely, if you have a late diagnosis, what does that mean for me now?

 

I’ve been doing my job for 20 years, and now this diagnosis has come up, challenging my perception about what I should be doing. And that can be really, really hard. But I can say with the support, my inner belief over time improved and I realised I wasn’t stupid and I realised the value I could bring to the organisation. That’s great because that actually brought up my resilience. And generally neurodiverse/ neurodivergent individuals have a high level of resilience. They may not see it. But over time, they are literally dealing with these challenges every single day, not just at work, but their personal life.

 

And the importance of creating that space was people felt like they were seen and heard. So in my time when I started, I had just my team and my manager. But by creating that network now, there was hundreds of people who I could have talked to knowing that I feel empowered to ask for what I need.

 

I found a space where I could share my concerns and challenges. And also as a manager — wow — understanding, this is an impact. I need to do more to understand. “I’m not the only one” — really big thing. And as a parent I can see where I can get support.

 

So it’s really important creating those spaces as small as they are to be able to support and create a community that would really help that one person, that two people, those five people, that are impacted by neurodiversity.

 

But we know that we are not just one thing. I love to bring up the lovely word of intersectionality. It’s complicated. As I always say to people is intersectionality is what you perceive, what you see, the things that you may know as on this call, you can see that I am female and I am black.

 

Now, you also know from this talk at I’m also neurodiverse. But there’s so much more underneath that people need to be aware about. For example, what you don’t see — I should have had this ready because I usually do is — I have a hidden disability.

 

This is the lanyard, the sunflower of my hidden disabilities. What you don’t know is the complexity that comes up and shows up for me that also impacts how I show up as a neurodivergent employee. And why do I bring that up? Because intersectionality needs to be considered when we’re looking at individuals.

 

We need to really make sure that when we’re looking at neurodiversity, we don’t isolate it. Yes, some people might not identify as being disabled, but they may also identify being disabled. Some people may identify as being something else. But we don’t judge. We’re trying to create a space that is inclusive.

 

And that means that we may not be the ones who have all the answers. We might need to ask our community what they need. And we need to think out the box of just race and gender. You have to think about classism. You have to think about economic situations and stages, life stages.

 

All of these things overlap and make our experience. And as DE&I and HR leads — I know you’re used to some of the others — but really take a step back of neurodiversity and make sure we’re incorporating the fabric of what DE&I is in all capacities, including how you may sharpen as a neurodivergent.

 

If you were to compare someone who got diagnosed at the age of 50 compared to someone who got diagnosed at the age of 15 and entering their career, their experience is different. So when you’re looking at initiatives, make sure you get a plethora of different types of experiences as well as different neurodivergences, so you can understand what is needed.

 

So the main talk of this is, “Danielle, great.” “What do I — what can I do?” So I want to share a few tips around what you can do. For DNI and HR leads, really it’s about aiding your leaders to proactively support neurodiverse individuals with different experiences and intersectionalities from themselves.

 

Things like reverse/diverse mentoring schemes, things about having little coffee sessions. Get the leaders to have a look and put some time in to actually engage with the community. Number one, they feel like they’ve been seen and heard, but it also means that you’re building that culture.

 

Because all the tools all the things that you can put in place in regards to accessibility is great. But if that culture is not there where they feel safe, number 1, they won’t disclose, and number 2, they won’t ask for what they need. And then you’re stuck.

 

Create a support community through coaching and mentoring. People really underestimate organisations. We underestimate the value of coaching and mentoring programs. People knowing and feeling like that they’re either sitting with someone in the same situation as them or they’re able to have insight from someone in the same department as them or talk to someone who’s been specially trained to really talk through strategies.

 

It might just be even mindset around how they can process information, how they may be talking to themselves about things that happens and shown up for in the past and how they can work forward to advocate for themselves. So these can be really, really bright, powerful tools that organisations can use — where they can share their working experience. And I say in their working experiences, not just how their lived experience is, but how it impacts them in their job — some of the things that been successful. What has been challenging? Also sharing with, maybe newer people in their career, some of the things that can be coming up for them and how it’s been tackled. All of these things can be really, really useful, particularly for neurodiverse individuals.

 

One of the things that they can struggle with is the social norms and the workplace norms where the cues are, how things work. That is even more difficult for those people who are neurodiverse. So again having people share about their experiences, call it out to some extent is really, really useful. It also makes it useful for the community to start thinking about: is this really what we’re talking about? Is this really the reality now? Or has those experiences and norms and cues changed in our organisation? What’s our culture of our organisation? How is it evolving? And biggest thing as part of intersectionality is finding crossovers of initiatives and collaborations. One of the great things that we were able to do before — we actually formally were any sort of ERG (employee resource group) or got any funding and money was just literally tagging on and collaborating with Women in Leadership Another disability group that we had, the LGBTQ+ ERG spectrum — just engaging, talking, collaborating, just getting the intersectionality out there. So that people could go and say, “Oh, I’m not just a part of the LGBTQ+ community.” “I’m also neurodiverse.” “And I’m being seen from all different aspects within my organisation.” Really embedding that deep culture — another level of belonging or feeling like they belong.

 

And then leaders, this is your hard job. I’m not going to lie. This is one of the hardest jobs is trying to get — for DNI, HR, and people that work in these initiatives, to get their leaders to really commit. So I’m going to share some pointers, knowing that this is such a hard job sometimes. It’s getting leaders to agree to show up and advocate for neurodiversity and making them commit to what capacity. Business goes on, and they’re always busy, and there’s always things going on, but really finding those leaders who really say, “This is an initiative that I feel strongly about.” “I’m going to make sure that I’m committing and showing up,” whether that is, “I’m going to open up a talk that they’re having,” or “I’m going to attend a coffee morning where the topic is around neurodiversity,” or “I’m going to do a video about what it means to me.” These things are so vital in creating that culture. It’s all well and good for people on the ground having the culture, but they need to see their senior leaders believing and understanding that this is a topic that is important to the whole organisation, Not just the people on the ground.

 

Discussing strategies to support and advocate within the neurodiverse community. So it’s really making sure that they are showing up in terms of sponsorships, mentors, coaching, working with that network. We were very lucky to work — and I had privileges to have interconnections with other sponsors of other employee resource groups and networks, who I would actually tap into in the beginning to understand, how can I build up this network? How can I support? And they gave such vital advice that was really, really useful. So again, those people that are already on DE&I sponsorships, tapping into them. What can we do about that? Maybe they can’t really support because they’re already sponsoring something else. They might know other people might want to sponsor. They might know other things that might be useful to create that environment. Ensuring that neurodiversity is discussed at leadership meetings and bringing you guys on board. I know it might be scary, being in front of your senior board, talking about DE&I and these initiatives, but it’s really important. If they don’t know, bring the people that do. Bring the people that understand how important it is to the organisation and have them at those leadership meetings. Not just, “You know, present to me, to present some…” Have them there and try and see if you can influence to be on those meetings to even if it’s 10 minutes — just be visible, just to show the impact. When I was a able to sit with our CEO, it was because we were talking about mental health. And I brought up neurodiversity because that is where I wanted to bring it. And that then open the discussion completely. I had an opportunity and I gave it and those are the things where we can bring up this topic and really make sure that it’s aware. And I think actually, by then, the organisation really understanding it, it was able to communicate and people then had that next level of support. Advocate and allocating resources to neurodiverse initiatives. As I like to call it, “bring the money”. That’s probably one of the hardest one because you have conflicts of different intersectionalities, different things that they need, profit, innovation, creativity. But it’s really important that we actually need to be able to have some funds and resources. People are resources; money is resources. Some resources are able to help say, “We are committed to make sure we create a neuroinclusive culture in our workplace.” I look at in terms of succession planning. When you’re looking at succession planning or you’re building a team or future leadership board or any kind of project — looking at other aspects like you do with other DNIs, like to have the right balance of male and female. Is there a variety in terms of genders and religion and cultures? Also, remember neurodiversity. If people have opened and disclosed, is there a difference in terms of mindset?

 

Is there anybody that’s willing to add a bit more to it? Because they might be the one who comes to that key question that could change a project and innovate it and skyrocket parts of the organisation. And make an accountable commitment is one of the things that we really need leaders to do. So as I come to the end some, key takeaways. As you all know, neurodiversity is a new term under DE&I. So it’s really important that you let your organisation know. You’re not going to have all the questions — sorry. You’re not going to have all the answers. You’re going to probably have more questions than answers. And actually if you go into my community, we still got loads of questions and answers that we need. But together, we’re on a journey. And the point that you’re on your journey, wherever you are already makes me feel seen and heard. Creating that space already means that you’re listening to me.

 

Accepting that neurodiverse individuals identify and their needs vary is really important. You haven’t just tapped me with I’ve got ADHD and this is what I need. You’ve listened and heard to what I need. Diagnosis is complicated and some of you may end up being involved or being disclosed or need to support those who are diagnosed. But also understanding it impacts their well-being. And trying to find initiatives to help support those individuals while they go through that complex time, help their well-being, but also help their management, their team support them in some capacity, as well, is really useful. I already talked about it enough, but intersectionality and how it impacts — please make sure you keep that in mind.

 

Hopefully you found some actionable steps that helped you understand things that you can implement or consider for your organisation and most of all, the power of coaching, mentoring and even sponsorship in regards to helping those individuals who are neurodiverse, but also building that culture up of inclusivity. A neuroinclusive workplace enables everybody, not just those who are diagnosed or not diagnosed neurodiverse, but everybody bring their best selves to work to drive innovation in our organisation. So just want to say a massive thank you for CareScribe for inviting me to talk and I’m going to hand it back over to Claire for Q&A.

 

[Claire]:

Thank you so much, Danielle. Yeah, thank you. What a fantastic — can you see me? I’m not sure if you can see my face? But — OK. Fantastic. Excellent. Thank you so much for that and what a fantastic professional achievement to say that you’ve created this neurodiversity network at GSK, which has now — what was it? — over 900 people when you left?

 

[Danielle]:

800 people when I left and I can’t say it’s all mine. There’s many co-founders involved and it just shows that richness of bringing people together.

 

[Claire]:

Yeah, 100%. I thoroughly enjoyed that session. Also took some notes away and just — the bits that really stuck with me when you were talking about what leaders can do to support was around the bit you said about allocating resources. It’s all well and good talking about it. And that is absolutely fantastic as a first step, but making sure that you’re allocating time and budget to really bring these things to life is so crucial.

 

And also the succession planning. If you’ve built up this legacy, and you’ve done all this wonderful work, how do you ensure that’s still — that’s still pursued at the organization when you leave? So some really good food for thought there, thank you, Danielle.

 

We have had some questions. We’ve got six questions and we’ve got a few moments to go through them. So let me just have a look at the Q&A. So the first one which came in, Danielle — where do you think your career would have gone if you didn’t have support at that time?

 

[Danielle]:

That is a really good question. And to be honest, if I didn’t have the support, I might still be in the lab as a microbiologist. I was one of those interesting people that thought I want to do more but I’ve got all the challenges so I can’t do more. And this started before I joined STEM.

 

So I joined science because I was like, I can’t do anything else, so I could do science. So that was why I did that. And I think in that capacity, what it was able for me to do was have that mind shift.

 

And throughout my career from being a microbiologist, to then working in project management, to then becoming a coach, the question I always asked myself is, “Where am I adding value?” And when I was in GSK, I wanted to add as much value to the organisation. I started […] and I had skills — people who actually enjoyed things that I did. I’d been there long enough so I could say that wasn’t a newbie.

 

But I wanted to add value. I wanted the organisation to thrive. I wanted science to thrive. And so that was the switch. And if I didn’t have that encouragement and support, I probably would still think that no one’s going to listen to me. “I’m not really good enough,” and just puddle away of those things that were my challenges and never even realise — not even focus — but not even realise that I had strengths to give.

 

[Claire]:

That was a good question. Thank you to whoever asked that one. Another question here from an anonymous attendee. They said if you work on DE&I efforts in the department where it’s global with individuals from different continents and cultures, how can you pitch any awareness you’re giving at the right level? Like you said in the UK, neurodiversity is more commonly embraced in comparison to the rest of the world. So it might seem quite an unusual concept to them. So, how did you approach that Danielle?

 

 

[Danielle]:

It depends on the organisation. So within GSK itself, they would have the local, what we called “health support” or occupational health or HR systems, depending on different countries. And so one of the things that we used to talk about when we do our talks is we used to make it very, very clear that we’d be from the UK or US. And these were our legal support, legal things that we knew about.

 

And we started to try and understand a little bit about Europe. Every country is different in Europe, which makes it — so it’s not even Europe — It’s like every country is different. So we try to gather that data as much as we could with insight. But when we’re doing a global talk it was really putting those caveats in space, saying, “Look there are countries like the UK and US and under the Equality Act, under disability, neurodiverse is seen.

 

However, we understand there were loads of countries that don’t have that privilege. And therefore if you need support in the workplace, please feel free to talk to your local HR, Occupational Health, whatever health support to find out more support you need. But please note on the complete, prime, basic, the purest form is that you can always come and join this community if you want support.

 

So even if you can’t get that support in your culture, at your family dynamics, whatever it is, that at least when you come to work we can try and give you the things that you need. And it’s even things like the workplace adjustment service, which is absolutely fantastic. They were working to make sure that that was available in every country and hub even if things like neurodiversity was really not a norm in those countries.

 

It’s challenging, but being very transparent as someone who may be a diagnose or maybe self-aware that they’re neurodiverse, just knowing that organisation has something sometimes is enough even if you do outside of work and haven’t got support.

 

[Claire]:

Yeah, nice. Thank you. Obviously, you shared lots of advice through that session, but a question we had come in is if someone wants to start their own neurodiversity network in their organisation, where to start? What’s the first step you would encourage them to do?

 

[Danielle]:

It depends on your organisation. So with ours, we just got together had a coffee and decided. We didn’t ask permission. As neurodiverse individuals were like, “Right, we need to do this. End of.” But there is challenges, sometimes, in organisations. Some of them can be quite complex when you’re setting up networks and ERGs. So the best thing would be to do is talk to the ones that are currently there. If you have networks, and ERGs currently there, talk to them about how they set it up — what things they may have gone through.

 

I think, in hindsight, I wish we had done that more. We were just enthusiastic and just wanted to get the message out and then Covid hit. So things just changed. But I would say learn from — don’t reinvent the wheel. Some organisations have disability and neurodiversity together as one network. Some have it differently. So really make sure you understand from your community, not driven by the business, not driven by someone whose DNI role — that’s their initiative for their objectives, but the community identifies that. They want that kind of connection.

 

And sometimes having those in one bracket can help you in regards to resource, if there are other ones already established. But on the purest form, it may be just putting a post out onto the intranet saying, “This is neurodiversity. We’ve got October celebration month. Come and have a coffee. Let’s have a chat. Let’s see who’s happy to help.” And that’s how we build up our team. Our team was started off as seven. A lot of those individuals left the organisation and we had new people come in. So just start the conversation.

 

[Claire]:

Nice, good tip: start the conversation. I like it.

 

We’ve got three minutes left. So I’m going to wrap up. I’m very aware that we have lots more questions in the Q&A. So what we’ll do, Danielle, we’ll catch up with you afterwards and we’ll capture the answers if that’s OK and we’ll pop them into the post-event email. Also we’ll share your contact details as well just in case anyone wants to get directly in touch with you.

 

But I’m just having a look through the chat here and we’re getting lots of really wonderful comments. So, thank you, Danielle. Really interesting session. This was incredibly fulfilling and refreshing. What a great session; amazing session. So, yes, thank you once again, Danielle, for taking the time to talk to the Skill Sessions community today. Really, really brilliant stuff.

 

For people on the call, if you enjoyed today’s session, please could you do us a massive favour and just tell people about these events. A really simple ask. Whether that’s mentioning it to a colleague or sharing it on LinkedIn. So every bit of word-of-mouth helps, and we’re really eager to grow this community to create a really valuable network for people.

 

Whether you are neurodivergent yourself or you manage a team of people in an organisation and you want to better understand how to support, please, we’d really appreciate it if you could help spread the word.

 

Next month’s event is on the realities of misdiagnosis in the workplace with Hannah Butcher. The link to register is going to be in the chat, but we’ll also send it in the follow-up email which is going out tomorrow, which will have the remaining Q&A questions, link to the recording, the transcript, and Danielle’s brilliant slides as well.

 

It will also include a link to a survey where you can request a CPD certificate for your attendance if you’d like one. And also we’d love to hear your feedback. It directly shapes the events. We look at it every month after each event, and we have actually changed and tailored Skill Sessions based on feedback. So you are listened to; you are heard. So, please give us your feedback positive or constructive. We’d love to hear it.

 

The survey will also appear on the screen when you leave the webinar as well.

 

Look at that — 1:59. Fantastic for time.

 

That’s all for today, everyone. Thank you again, Danielle, so much for sharing your story with us. It was really — I’ve — my first Skill Sessions hosting and I’ve had a really brilliant time. So thank you so much. Thank you, everyone, on this call for joining us, and we’ll see you next month. Cheers, everyone. Bye.

 

[Claire]:

Okay, Danielle. We had quite a few questions come in on that Q&A. So we’re going to go through a few of them now. Thank you so much for giving us your additional time.

 

The first one it says I did want to ask about mental health, which I know you mentioned at the very start of your session. They’ve asked, “Where do mental health conditions fit into neurodiversity?” For example, anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, PTSD, etc. So if you can if you can answer that, that would be brilliant.

 

[Danielle]:

Yeah, so if you were to go and Google neurodiversity, a lot of these differences and conditions actually fall under neurodiversity. In terms of neurodiversity movement itself — so you’ve got neurodiversity in regards to the diversity of mindset and then you’ve got neurodivergence and neurodiversity as a subgroup of those who think differently. And under that clinical aspect, yes, these mental health stuff can fall under that umbrella.

 

In regards to the neurodiversity movement, a lot of the focus in the community is really around the ones I mentioned in the talk like ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, autism. And that is really the difference in regards to how people are assessing it. To be honest, I feel like the more data we have in terms of scientific data; we do a lot of brain mapping; we’re looking at psychology. There’s a lot more research in Clinical Psychology about neurodiversity. That may shift and change.

 

But where we are now, generally, if you hear the word neurodiversity, those are usually the general ones are people are talking about, but we are aware of the mental health capacities as well. And some of the examples is that individuals, for example, who may identify as being neurodiverse, may suffer with anxiety and depression. They may have been diagnosed and have anxiety, depression, even though really their deeper diagnosis may be that they’re neurodiverse.

 

So that’s why it’s very complex around it. I hope that answered the question.

 

[Claire]:

Thank you. Quite a tangled web, I think, isn’t it?

 

The next question which has come in is what things — So you talked about succession planning as one of your tips for leaders. This question is, “What things can be put in place to support neurodiversity, specifically under succession planning? Do you have any tips, Danielle?

 

[Danielle]:

Yes. There’s succession planning in many things. So if you’re thinking about new roles, and you’re thinking about how you’re building up your teams, it’s looking at, “OK, do we have any neurodiverse individuals? Have they disclosed? Or do we have people that haven’t disclosed but they’ve got certain benefits. It’s looking at everybody’s strengths and challenges and see where they might fit in regards to leadership roles.

 

I think one of the things that is a big amber flag, is that a lot of — some senior leaders feel like if they hear that someone’s neurodiverse they cannot be leaders. They are not capable to collaborate. They can’t inspire; they’re not sociable; and that — completely wrong. And I think that’s where we need to take into consideration actually from the person if you’ve got a panel of people, where are their strengths and understanding their strengths and then looking at where they can fit in terms of succession planning when it comes to leadership roles.

 

The same thing I would say with coming with promotion. I mean, I’m very blessed that a lot of the way that we started looking at it within GSK was not just about what you were delivering, but how you were delivering it. So again, as someone neurodiverse it means I don’t have to fall for the normal way of delivering a project. I utilise my skill sets and strengths to deliver it in a way that might be different, that might be creative and innovative, but actually I’m still demonstrating delivery, and those things helped me get promoted and also move my career up and many others, so that could be another way of what I’m looking at succession planning.

 

It’s really about looking at your teams, looking at leadership panels, who you feel that is going to be able to deliver, what you need in terms of your business goals, but also who will deliver it the way that you want to be delivered and in the culture that you want your organisation to be. And that’s probably the key.

 

[Claire]:

Yeah. That’s an interesting one to navigate, I think.

 

Another question we’ve had is, “I know it can be really difficult to access a diagnosis: waiting lists, medical costs, impact on other healthcare.” Do you have any advice for managers trying to help employees who don’t have an official diagnosis or who are self-diagnosed?

 

[Danielle]:

So this is a real sensitive one. It really depends on the employee themselves. If they haven’t disclosed to you, obviously, there’s nothing you can do, which is the biggest part. We don’t go around saying, “I think you got ADHD.” “I’m your manager. I’ve known you for 15 — ” we don’t do those things despite my manager doing it to me. It was different times.

 

However, if someone in your team whether it’s a peer or a colleague or someone in your team has disclosed are there they either are going through a diagnosis or they self-diagnose, which a lot of people are starting to do at the moment, because their understanding of their having challenges showing up for them. There’s not much you can do in terms of the diagnosis piece, unless you have a mechanism in the workforce that you can go to occupational health or to someone in your HR to say, “Is there a way that we can support this person getting diagnosed?”

 

That really varies in a spectrum depending on the organisation. But the main thing you could do on the on the real simple, purest session is how can I show up as a manager to support you with the challenges? You see, I’m on the fence. And I know people are going to say to me, “Danielle, you need to get off the fence.”

 

Diagnosis is great, right? It gives us data, clinical data. We can do more research; we can get funding for research and I really embrace people getting diagnosed. Hence the reason why I’m trying to go for mine. But on the purest form as a coach and most important thing is that individual support.

 

So as a manager, how can I show up and support you? Am I the right person to support you? And what does that look like? And if the person doesn’t know, then go on a journey with them to find out how you can do them. That will make the biggest impact on a day-to-day basis than waiting for a diagnosis. And I know that because I’ve gone into organisations; I’ve coached in organisations. and some of those people are saying — organisations are saying, “We don’t want to wait for X to get their diagnosis.”

 

They need a support now and that’s more important than anything else.

 

[Claire]:

Yeah, I like what you said there around going on the journey with them because something like that, I think just showing your support and being with someone and showing up in that way as a leader makes such a big difference.

 

Another question. Do you recommend organisations having neurodiversity specific mentoring and coaching programs? And if so, what combination do you think would be most adoptable or effective: a neurodivergent person mentoring/coaching a neurotypical person; vice versa; or two neurodivergent people mentoring and coaching each other.

 

[Danielle]:

That’s a big one. That’s a big question.

 

So I have two schools of thought. First, at a basic level, get a program together where people are coaching each other. If someone discloses they’re neurodivergent, it’s a conversation about what they want to get out of it. For mentoring, it might be sharing insights for career progression or moving to a different department. Coaching, on the other hand, is about understanding where they’re at, where they want to go, and the support they need. It’s essential that coaches have training in asking the right questions to provide effective support.

 

From a neurodiverse perspective, understanding how challenges may manifest and having knowledge behind it is crucial. Many prefer to have someone neurodivergent coaching them, whereas mentoring might not require the same specificity. However, there’s no reason why a neurotypical person couldn’t effectively coach a neurodiverse individual and vice versa. Coaching dynamics can be complex, so it’s important to get the mix right.

 

You don’t necessarily need a roster of certified neurodiverse coaches before supporting your staff. Start having those conversations. Mentoring can be more flexible and about sharing experiences, different from the structured approach of coaching. Having a mix of both can be quite beneficial in your organizational framework.

 

I love that question because it explores the diverse dynamics that can enrich your organization’s support structure.

 

[Claire]:

Yeah, great. I really like your suggestion around someone who’s neurodiverse or educating more senior neurotypical leader. There’s a lot to be said for that.

 

This question here, it says, “Did you feel anxious talking to people and, if so, has this changed?”

 

[Danielle]:

Oh, yes. So what I didn’t talk about — I didn’t go way back. So I was a very quiet — well, first of all, I was a child that babbled at the age of two. Go and check out my TED Talks. I talk about that. My TEDx talk, I talk about me as a child, babbling. My mum, my parents were really concerned, so I went to education. And that’s when I saw the communication in writing being a challenge.

 

However, even though I was a babbler, I was very much introverted. I class myself as an introverted extrovert. So I’m a learned extrovert. I was very introverted. My mum used to push me quite a lot. I’d get a lot of anxiety about the — about being the first to connect with someone. Once I’m in, and I see a connection, then I can talk, and you just can’t shut me up. But getting me there was a real struggle. And it’s something — I even struggle now.

 

A lot of neurodiverse individuals — I know people don’t like networking, but a lot of neurodiverse individuals really dread networking because it’s small talk. It’s something that we don’t get; some of us don’t get it. So a lot of us don’t like it. And we know that we need sometimes to do it to kind of break the ice and then get to a point where we have a connection. It’s finding those connections.

 

And for neurodiverse individuals in a social aspect, if we don’t have a connection, to some of us, it becomes an irrelevant relationship to have. And we’ll find it very, very hard to be able to talk. So I force myself to talk to people. I love learning from people of all ages completely different to mine as well in terms of backgrounds because I learn more. I get more data points, if we’re going to be very specific, in my head.

 

But I still get anxiety going to places and that, I think, is normal and especially, if you’re neurodiverse, that is particularly quite challenging. And I’ve spent a lot of time working with clients and myself either being coached myself or self-coaching around: What am I telling myself in a situation? What is true? So I can start to be able to overcome that piece, yeah.

 

Yeah, the mindset stuff is significant, isn’t it? It’s a game-changer. Some of the things that hold back neurodiverse individuals isn’t necessarily the external stuff. It’s been impacted by the external stuff. It is embedded into our internal messaging. And that’s something that needs to be worked on.

 

[Claire]:

Yeah, nice. Danielle, we have two questions left. If you are recruiting a new member of staff and on their application they mention that they’re neurodiverse, how would you approach this with them when they start?

 

[Danielle]:

So I think that the most important question — I think it’s the red thread through my whole talk was ask them what they need. So how has this shown up for you? Because again we talked about they might have ticked it because they’re diagnosed. They may be self-diagnosed. They may have a certain challenge and their challenges will vary. Neurodiversity and neurodivergent is a spectrum. So it’s like, “How does that show up for you?”

 

“How can I how can I best support you in this recruitment process?” is probably the most two important things that they want to be asked. Now, bearing in mind, “how does it show up for you?” may be a question they might be still discovering but they can answer. “How can I best support you?” may be one that they’re challenged with and they might want to have ideas around what is available.

 

So, for example, “I would like to have the Questions before the interview.” “I would like to have a way of demonstrating how I can do this in maybe some sort of actually doing the task versus just talking about it.” Being open, having options within the framework of your workplace and looking at that is a really interesting approach.

 

We’re not quite there yet with recruitment in regards to having the flexibility, but there are a lot of organisations that are doing that and I’d recommend that HR and DNI organisations start sharing best practices across how they can embed that in different organisations and different environments.

 

But if you give those examples, within your organisation framework, it allows people to think, “OK. This is what I need.” It could just be simple as, “I might stop and have a break after you ask a question because I’m processing,” or “I might talk over you feel free to stop me and then bring me back in.” It could be as simple as that.

 

 

[Claire]:

OK, Danielle, the final question. What should you do if you’re working on DE&I initiatives in your department, but there was little buy-in from leadership? How can we get them on board in your experience?

 

[Danielle]:

This could be a very tricky one, and it can be quite common, unfortunately. I think the most important thing is getting that initiative seen by senior leaders. Because until they see the value, they just aren’t on-board.

 

So one of the things we looked at when we did the neurodiverse network, and as I said, we didn’t tap into other resource groups, which is another way of differently tapping in and seeing how they’ve done it, was we actually went from a business perspective.

 

We said, “What is the business value if we were going to create this network?” “What would it actually bring the business in terms of innovation?” “What would it help in terms of the culture?” What would it help in terms of some of the things that are showing up in our pipeline? How would it impact the people showing up? Was there any data that we had to be able to support that within the organisation?

 

And using that to leverage on this is the foundations of business, and this is what will impact the business: money, right? — talk money, innovation. That’s their big talk, right? Talking their language is number 1.

 

Then we shared the experience: what it was like if you had challenges; what was showing up for them? And trying to leverage on — and this is where you going to have to do — be a bit creative, like connect with people, go to other sponsors and say who do you think would be interested to come?

 

“Would you come to our session?” “Would you promote this session?” “We’re talking about neurodiversity.” and getting them to kind of help the advocates and building up the advocacy, even if it’s not the ones that going to end up sponsoring or be fully involved in your initiative, but at least advocates for it.

 

You may be saying, “OK, as an advocate, I want you to share this in your next team meeting.” “I want you to — ” “I’m going to put a recording and make it maybe one minute, and I would like you to present that at the next team meeting.” “We’ve got this coming on on Thursday. I want you to promote it.” “I want you guys to talk about it in your coffee.”

 

Get those advocates to actually be doing stuff, even if they’re not going to be the advocates of the whole process for the longevity of the process and the initiative get those people that are on-board to get involved and look at the benefits bringing sector-related businesses, who have started looking at this.

 

One of the things we brought in was — Roche was looking at this; AstraZeneca was looking at neurodiversity. And we leveraged on that to say, “Guys, look, other people in our sector, in pharma are looking at this.” “We need to start looking a bit more in there.”

 

“We are the one of the forefront organisations.” “We need to be able to continue that and one of the reputations is our culture.” And it’s very important to GSK. So we needed to make sure that we were showing something.

 

So visibility, so talking their talk — business, money, and how to be innovative and create, leverage on collaborations, other initiatives to get yourself seen, finding and being really, really clear around sneakily finding people that are going to be secret advocates for you.

 

And making them commit to action or bringing up your initiative is probably the things that you can do, but I understand that it’s quite challenging. There’s a lot there, but there was a lot to say.

 

That’s loads of great tips. I liked what you said about the competition and positioning your sales against your competition in the industry because it’s about attracting and retaining talent, GSK obviously want the top talent in their business and that’s an interesting way to position it.

 

Again speaking the language of the business there.

 

[Claire]:

Danielle, thank you so much for joining Skills Sessions today and also for carving out extra time to answer these Q&As — really appreciate it.

 

[Danielle]:

Thank you for the opportunity for me to share my knowledge. If there’s other further questions, they can get in contact with me directly.

 

[Claire]:

Thanks, Danielle.