S1E3
· 48:45
Dan Harris has built an entire life on recognising the importance of being part of the autistic community, be it as a person that is neurodiverse themselves or someone that is supporting people that are neurodiverse. Dan's little boy is a wonderful young man called Josh. You'll hear loads of stories about him if you just read Dan's feed on LinkedIn. And he is the most adorable human being that is being supported in most beautiful of ways by his father and his family. And the efforts that Dan is expending are amongst the most extraordinary that I have ever witnessed.
Duena Blomstrom:He has started a charity called the Neurodiverse Charity, talking about neurodiversity in business. And he is obviously championing the cause of understanding the strengths of neurodiversity. Listen to this conversation that touches on autistic families. It touches on what it is being the father of children that have a need of being understood in different ways and what it is being a genuine advocate from the heart.
Dan Harris:We have set off to uncover why is it that there is such a thing as what I call autism stigma instead of there being such a thing as what I call autism in the workplace. And we have a very special guest here today. It's one of the first episodes. We have a quite bizarre way towards the way we do things the first time in the first season. The reason we wanted Dan to join us read the Urban Base because Dan has spent the last few years and I'll let him tell you how many, finding exactly these and for these topics, if that makes sense, against the prejudice and for these topics.
Dan Harris:So, welcome then. Thank you for coming to talk to us about this. Am I right, first and foremost, let's jump right in, to say that you've been fighting autism stigma for quite a few years now?
Dan Harris:Yeah, that's right. I guess very kind of publicly over the last perhaps five years, but before then in a slower, more moderated way, kind of with our own personal battles that weren't public, yes.
Dan Harris:That's a very interesting thing and I should have started there. I've not yet arrived at the correct terminology for it, but I'm actively working on it, which I am hoping to hear out of more people's business. The question I had should have been centred around disclosure. I should have asked from the beginning, obviously we are in this context and we're having this conversation about neurodiversity, but maybe a good starting point would be for all of us, would you agree if we started by saying, are you happy to disclose your neurodiverse identity?
Dan Harris:Yeah, more than happy. I think that, you know, where we have the privilege and the comfort to do so, we should be shouting about it, because I love what you're doing and others in this space because what we need to be doing is just normalising this, right? We need to be talking about the fact that, cognitively, just as you have lovely blonde hair and I have short brown hair, you know, our physical bodies are different. Why would our brains not be different? So yes, to answer your question, I'm an autistic ADHDer, and proudly so, and you know I talk about this very best solution.
Dan Harris:You're probably the worst kind, so welcome.
Dan Harris:Look, lots of complexity and you know the contradictions are still something that I'm kind of coming to terms with and people around me, But yeah, I think that where we can do and I'm as a white male relatively well off and be well educated in a first world country I recognise I have a lot of privilege so I can shout about this. Others aren't in that position, so I hope that I can play my little part in normalizing this, yes.
Dan Harris:Right, so to backtrack even a little bit more for context of our listeners, I'm telling you, I have failed at yet another introduction, which seems to be my trademark details. Have a lot of work on them, these magnificent introductions that will show you in the best of light and unfortunately, if I know me and my ability to time manage lately, that's going to fail. I'm AUA at EHD as well, very intentional. Obviously, have a little bit of time, seems a bit wrong with execution sometimes. Could you backtrack us a little bit then and tell us kind of when have you become happy to disclose?
Dan Harris:When have you become aware you have a diagnosis and kind of what has your journey been through the business world? I suspect you have and you're not what you're with all due respect and not knowing any better, do not believe you're the only thing I have to have known all along. It has been one of those handy people who have been not happy people. I take that severely back and I realize how easily I'm going to RSD, everyone listening to this, but there is a level of support that some people have had through school that I'm oftentimes envious of, and I suspect you may not have had it. When did you first find out you're autistic and what was your journey like?
Dan Harris:Yeah, well look, it's a really interesting one and it's one that I don't think we talk about a lot and purposely I did a few YouTube videos at the time because I wanted people to see, you know, what my kind of query was, what the actual assessment was and then what the post diagnosis was like. But to answer your question, I have an amazing 10 year old little boy. He's not so little anymore. We call him the Joshie Man. He's a non speaking autistic boy and you know, he and through me, we're kind of big advocates for autism empowerment.
Dan Harris:And I say empowerment rather than understanding or acceptance because I genuinely think we as a society need to move forward. And so, you know, I kind of had these suspicions, my family did, I had some of my workmates for many years, particularly kind of growing up, but we just in those days didn't really have the language, right? It was just, you know, this guy's a little bit different, you know, processes information different, maybe socially interacts differently. But when I got round having Josh, and he fortunately got diagnosed really young, about two and a half years old, which is pretty kind of unusual. I was reading his medical report, Joanna, and you know, every third sentence I would pause and think, 'Wait, wait, wait, okay, now I understand myself a little better!' Reading through these
Dan Harris:Because we find the exact same way, and so do parents of every other autistic kid that found their office through their kid, I'm sure. That's me.
Dan Harris:And there's a big uplift, isn't there, at the moment? And you know, this is a good thing, I think, and particularly for females and girls who have been, you know, traditionally really not further, doubly marginalised because the diagnosis routes and the pathways to support are not set up to recognise and then support those people. I think that we are seeing a big uptick and unfortunately, as you know, there's a big media pushback now. I think we are being successful in the sense of society's hearing from us, but now we're getting that right wing sometimes pushback whereby, know, does ADHD even exist? Aren't we all autistic?
Dan Harris:Etc. You know these terms are just terribly damaging, but they're somewhat down to the fact that society is understanding this topic better. So just as other social movements have been through that period of rapid growth and understanding, we're now in that period I think where certain parts of society and possibly some parts of media with a narrow self interest, they're pushing back and we're in that kind of tension here and I think now.
Dan Harris:I love that perspective, think that's hopeful, in particular because, you know, it's very easy for each of us that are autistic and are in the workplace to forget that there are local contexts and there are very different lived experiences and I often say, and I know it's in the very few interactions we've always had, I always come back to that is only one specific culture or one specific part of the universe or one specific part the political spectrum. What we see at large, I think, you look across the board across industries, you know, obviously across geographies, is a hardening of society and closing in of society and a lack of the tolerance that we've worked so incredibly hard to build. And I think what you're referring to, and I sense that as well, is that despite the fact that there are structures in place and insane work from organizations like yours and local organizations that are attending such immense change, the truth remains that society at large in most places is incapable to deal with the fact that, or not in human, is not equipped to deal with the fact that number one, a large proportion of those people around us are autistic.
Dan Harris:What number that is? It's a very interesting debate and I wish we took that debate openly and not as fearfully as we do. It's a different topic. But then the second part of that is, in that case, how many of us are already in the workplace and what does that mean for your leadership in particular layer where you have, probably right now these days insane, I would say, imposter syndrome where people are definitely finding these same diagnosis that you found and others found and I found and millions of us found in the same way, we're equally sitting on that diagnosis and not disclosing because of this generalized fear of there being repercussions in the workplace. Would you say that's something you've seen?
Dan Harris:Yeah, absolutely. And look, am an eternal optimist, so I am kind of really positive about the future, but the depressing aspect of what you just said is, for example, I'm with a big global media organisation in a couple of weeks doing a live TV interview and they were desperate to get through neurodiversity in businesses, corporate membership, were desperate to get a CEO, an autistic CEO to come on with me and I can find one, you know, from all of the organised world. Wanted middle
Dan Harris:of the right line, but let me know.
Dan Harris:Much as enough you, I should have completed that sentence. They wanted a FTSE one hundred or a FTSE two fifty, you know, they wanted a CEO, he or she, who is leading an organisation that is really huge, global. Now I couldn't find I went through all of my network and the reality is, having spoken to some who I know are autistic and I know are CEOs, what they've told me is that they feel it will be damaging for their career. They don't want to give ammunition for people who don't like them or potentially would look to move them on from the ball etc. It's shocking that we're still in that place and I'll just conclude with one kind of analogy.
Dan Harris:Post Covid, post the kind of lockdown situations and people working more hybrid, it's perfectly acceptable for me to say 'Boss, on Friday at 04:30 I'm going to need to leave the office early because I have to pick my little girl up from karate'. At least in my little bubble, in the Western world, in the professional world I operate in, I can feel confident in doing that. You know what's totally unacceptable is to put my hand up in a board meeting or an SLT meeting and say, Sorry boss, I'm not sharing this. I'm not processing the information in the way that you're intending to give it out, you know. We set an agenda, we haven't done any prep work, we're not taking notes as we go along, we're not agreeing actions, we're not documenting who's, you know, we're not allowed for processing time and discussion.
Dan Harris:That is just something people don't do. How many times do you see people put their hand up and kind of call a halt for meeting? It just doesn't happen and that's what I know you and I are fighting the same battle to get to.
Dan Harris:Because indeed this is the crux of the matter. I've spent the last fifteen years in the business world creating a product that enhances the ability of people to put their hand practically. What we do is we attend to kick teens with the ability of having psychological safety, because that is the ingredient of what you're describing is you need to have enough psychological safety in that teens for your informed voices that know they are probably going to say something that's not going to be as easily typically acceptable as it would be from their peers to speak up and to say what they see, because that is where you get your diversity in the team from. That's where you get your ideas from. That's where you get your canaries in the mind from.
Dan Harris:That's where you get the people that you can drive very different points of view from that you could never get stuck out of your typical neuro typical thing, right? So we all know that instinctively. What we genuinely do or do not do in an everyday fashion to kind of help people understand that it's safe to genuinely give their opinions is what makes the difference between a culture of winning and a culture of not. So in the world that you see around, and I know that your perspective is that we say this all the time, right? And I think us, I find that as autistic people, I get to say that is, I sound bad saying it, I don't like saying it speaking for all of these people, but I feel that we've sometimes acquired a plus and that is that realistically we know that the resilience is not disputable and the resilience is not the right purpose, has word is facing, but it's not, we're not in a place where we can find resilience, option.
Dan Harris:For us it is a mandatory existential building block. If there's no resilience, we can't have possibly raised the family. We can't have possibly been functional members of society, professionals and so on. I find that kind of like this particular segment, if you wish, of white collar, digital workers, technology workers, STEM workers, teachers. There's a large, if you wish, segment of population that has arrived at their autism later, like you have then, and then the question becomes the workplace accommodation, like you well pointed out, is not that of fine, you can leave earlier because you're a special kind of person.
Dan Harris:It has got to be a little bit more. That's why we should come back and say, it is impossible for us to create those, I think, workplaces women should agree if at the top you start with the leaders that have fear for you to dispose themselves.
Dan Harris:Yeah, absolutely. So that old adage that culture eats strategy for breakfast, You can have a wonderful neurodiversity at work programme. But the reality is, unless people feel, particularly at the very junior levels, that they can talk about this topic, you're going to get nowhere. And this is why I mean I didn't give this introduction earlier, but I founded a charity called Neurodiversity in Business. We're the corporate voice for neurodiversity and we've got a thousand roughly corporate members.
Dan Harris:They're like the global big ones the Google, the Amazon, the McDonald's, JP Morgan's. This is why I'm really proud of what those organisations are because one, they're coming out with a public commitment and two, they're being quite intelligent about it. They're humble to say 'Look, we want to become a newer, inclusive employer of choice, but you know what? We're not there yet. We recognise we've got a lot of work to do.
Dan Harris:We recognise we're at the early parts of this journey, but we were at least pointed in the right direction.' I tend to say when I've got big corporates joining, yes you can join NIV, but what I'd really love is a handshake photograph with your CEO. And that's not because they're kind of incredibly vain, it's actually because there is a disproportionate impact on particularly junior members of that organisation of saying, gosh, the CEO, he or she has taken out half an hour of their time to meet with Dan and to join NOIB etc. So that tone at the top is incredibly powerful. But the other thing, know, I'll switch to being a little bit more positive here, is that I'd be interested in your views on this is that some of the younger generation that are coming through the recruitment pipeline, I'm so pleased at how open they are. What we're finding is that actually they will tell us proactively that I am dyslexic and this is what I need from you, or even better, I have dyslexic thinking.
Dan Harris:That's a lot more positive way to think about it. Or, you know, I'm autistic and these are my strengths and these are the things that you need to do in an interview process so that I can demonstrate my true value. So there is hope because we and others are talking and shouty about this and others are now saying, well look, if this is now a commonplace discussion, I want to talk about it as well.
Dan Harris:Right. I wasn't trying to catch up. Was so excited about the idea of people coming through early in the process and as their authentic self by saying this is where I fit and invaluable. I'll be honest, I don't know that having to come in this strong was either necessary for them. That looks like a failure for our generation or is going to work as well as we would like it to work.
Dan Harris:I feel like because of this, what I see is a serious discrepancy between what this diversity theatre in the corporate world and what it really means in terms of being honest and being authentic in the world. So to hear that discrepancy, we cannot wait for this new generation that comes in with boundaries and demands because some of these are, and more importantly, we cannot even discuss these boundaries and demands in a way that's making elegant sense for us as a corporate entity, as an employer, a mentor, as an anything, because what they are coming into is a broken workplace and we know that it's a broken workplace and we know that it's not elegant and we know it's not good and we know we don't value people, we know we treat them as resources, we know we have a lot of what I call remaining human debt in the workplace, we have a lot of that in society as well, but in the workplace, the new generation is going to hit that straight on, when they're not going to give you a year or two for that picture to finally make a difference. For me, you have finally taken enough sling engagements to talk about how I've been autistic or my life.
Dan Harris:They're not going to wait for that. They're going to come into the workplace and say, I am not taking the job unless you care about my readme and you offer me this. In fact, the organization cannot offer things like that back, unfortunately. So where we're, I think, living in is a world where there's so much crippling human debt in the organizations that they can't, the best they, Santa Claus, the organisation cannot offer bankers things they'd like to simply position not enough. They vary, given by own heartedness, understanding of emotions, too gears to them yet.
Dan Harris:That's right. But then I think another thing that we need to be humble and proactive in acknowledging is that you and I are again in quite a rarefied bubble here. We also need to be thinking about those people from different socioeconomic backgrounds, from different ethnicities and races and religion. You know, guess the thing to say is that when we talk about this corporate world, we're talking about those organisations who have the big budgets for D and I programmes, who can tailor their recruitment processes. The real driver of economic success, at least in The UK, is not those global multinationals, it's the small and medium sized enterprises.
Dan Harris:My vision is that at least this is why I set up NIB is that let's show society that business can lead society in creating a neuro inclusive workplaces. But the ultimate aim should be that vast majority of people who work in medium sized organisations, who may not have that privilege that you and I do, and particularly, you know, for example, the ability to self disclose when you're on a frontline retail job is significantly disparate from if you're a white male in a professional services corporate world. That's the longer term play, isn't it? And look, I set up NIB because I wanted to change the world for my little boy, the Joshy man, who reality is I don't know that he's going to get into the Amazon and the Google and etc. That's why I was so thrilled to have such a positive partnership with McDonald's, because we know how many of our younger folk start their employment cycle in McDonald's and, you if they can have a positive experience there, who knows where that potential could lead.
Dan Harris:And also, it's never necessarily been, I say this with the fact of grain insulted my first woman in Forbes of cogeneration and used to be a magistrate grandmother, she would not take offense to this, but not everyone needs to have like academic degree and it's not prerequisite that's happened is that people work an office job. On the contrary, in fact, this is worth finding out every day. So what we want as parents, I think of autistic kids, I think I speak for most of us, is that our kids are free, they're happy, they're giving their full attention to the world and they're kind of doing the same thing that every other girl does, whether autistic or not, right? So for that to happen, we need to make sure that there's provision, right? That there is adaptation, that this world can welcome them.
Dan Harris:And I think back to realizing that there's privilege, you know, maybe this is kind of what I wanted to say earlier with the refigiant and I forgot my train of thought, thank you. The privilege, the fact that we bring it up or the time is practically our nose to gratitude. We're very grateful. I know we are. We're grateful with we every second.
Dan Harris:Otherwise, we wouldn't have made it this long. Right? Mhmm.
Dan Harris:So I
Dan Harris:don't don't need to know you from Adam to know that that's a 100% something you remind yourself a few times a day looking at doors and looking at the world and going like, this is a lot better than, by far than anything else. With that said, like you've very well pointed out, if we want to move it forward and if we want our kids to do end up somewhere that's already prepared for that, we are behind the learning. My fear is, you're the algebra, you're a kid, algebra, my fear is of Amsterdam and Pine Eight Falls, when ever are we done with fixing this place for them to enter? And the fear comes from, when I look around, when I started, if you wish, talking about we are different leaders, we all have to admit that we can't disclose if we have to, that was years and years ago, if you wish, or when I started talking about being different, but the world hasn't, in my opinion, moved at this stage that it would lead me to believe that in another two or three years that my voice is now entering the world of work.
Dan Harris:I've got to find it in there. On the contrary, feels like we're moving a lot further out of like, what would you say?
Dan Harris:Yeah, look, it's a multi generational fight so this will be something that the next generation of activists will be dealing with long after you and I at DESAR, I wish you a long life! But the reality is that, you know, we are also the questionnaires in minds, aren't we? I often come back to that point as you get this right for your neurodivergent staff and you get this right across your business. Listen to us because actually where we're picking up improvements in the process you know what, we're not terribly selfish. We absolutely think that this is a way that you could interact with your staff better.
Dan Harris:The thing that I keep coming out to is rather than asking me as an employee, know, what reasonable adjustments do you need etc, I want the dialogue to have evolved and this isn't here now but it will be in the future. I want the question to be how do I get the best out of you as an employee?' And that's the question you should be asking for the neurotypical as well as the neurodivergent SOAP. Because, you know, sometimes we kind of demonise NTs, right? And sometimes we think that they're just a homogenous group of people, but they're not. They're incredibly varied themselves.
Dan Harris:So we don't know what those NTs folks are going through in their lives, etc. We don't know their differences. We don't know if they are undisclosed or undiscovered neurodivergent folks. What we're asking for is that kind of very human centric approach and good organisations are doing this already, right? The best organisers, the best managers you work for are those that know you inside out, that you're incredibly honest with.
Dan Harris:And you know what? Businesses get from those people, those employees, they get a lot happier employees. They get people who are incredibly loyal. They are resilient. They don't mind pushing for the extra mile because they think 'gosh, my boss knows me and I find valued here' and that's what we want to feel, isn't it?
Dan Harris:We want to feel valued in our organisations and appreciated for the additional strengths we can bring, but we're also respectful of the fact that we may need to be dealt with slightly differently in order to get the best out of us.
Dan Harris:I like that perspective, but I won't lean into it because I don't think we've delivered home what we need first before we will get back even more accommodation to the workplace. I'm sure you know what I mean. It's it's chiefly because we are over lost as coming to the table in the workplace. I think there's a world of debt, if you wish, and I know I come back continuously to the point of working to office work, you wish, or working in technology, but the reason I do that is because I see every day in hundreds, thousands of thieves, few loads of bug out and that is, part of it is obviously work they've created and stress level and mental health issues taken from that, but equally, and obviously, like in the time of our lives, we were finding this, I don't know when anyone's finding this podcast, but it's important that it's very long after COVID and just as we are picking up again, obviously living with an existential threat is not exactly an easy place to be. So all of these have come to be at a time where unfortunately diversity was taking a voice in most workplaces, where unfortunately we were stuck in the final year alone, there is no place in the workplace for lack of accommodation towards difference in gender as well.
Dan Harris:At least we were trying to do so. We were trying to land some landmarks of Schimmer and Viswanvi through, you know, workplace policy and through politics and through somewhat of a modesty life as well. I don't feel we've necessarily landed any of those tenants in the workplace, in the work office hybrid, which is downright scary because you are then left with multiple, like you say, parts of society that don't have the time and the funds to be doing this conversation about adaptation. So then you have an entire peer generation that, you know, comes up with TikTok understanding of, not, I don't see that disparagingly, but on the contrary, unbending of what's happening and yet speak to Mark, okay, is to structure the platform, let them move. So what I'd like to hear from you is what are the levers of this?
Dan Harris:How do we move society a lot faster? Is this ungetting critical levers or is this the bet that I'm making with our company every day? Like for instance, we are already employing neurodiverse people and I don't really care if that's positive discrimination in some places. Heard it is. We already employ people in places where that's okay.
Dan Harris:And what we do with that site can harness so much of my emergency neurodiverse team and I wish I always realize that's the thing. We get to have a very different way of working and to get to move ahead far faster, But now, cluster won't be all enterprises. So the question becomes whether it's enterprise or it's public policy, whether it's other sectors decided from by locals, whether it's people who are attending to people in the sectors happen. How do we move that understanding? Like I say, forget awareness, can we jump straight to appreciate that and how do we do that more efficient?
Dan Harris:Yeah, well look, I'll come back to public policy in a second, but my first point would be around the fact that I feel the reason why I set up NIG is I generally felt that corporate world could lose its unity and I think we're demonstrating that. The reality is that a lot of what he's done has historically been done on good intentions but conjecture. There wasn't really an academic science around it. One of the things we're really proud of within neurodiversity in business is that we've led with Birkbeck College University of London as first of its kind academic study of the supply versus the demand. So the supply what are the corporates doing in this space and the demand actually more importantly what are the neurodivergent staff and the potential employees asking for?
Dan Harris:So we've done that now for a couple of years and our academic research is free for everyone. But why we've done this is because you hit the nail on the head early which is this is a long term play and the way you influence the corporate world, particularly in the D and space, is those practitioners who are coming in at the early part of their career the occupational psychologists, the HR leaders, the D and I practitioners and you know what, as part of their training they all refer back to academic research but there hasn't been this. So that's why we've invested so much in trying to change societal understanding of neurodiversity in the workplace. The second point I'd like to refer to is around public policy. So we can all disparage politicians.
Dan Harris:It's a very kind of easy thing to do, but public policy is super important because actually there are big thematic gaps and challenges which only public policy will fill. For example, you and I know of the incredibly marginalised situation around young kids and diagnosis and lack of support, how fantastic would it be if actually universally children were screened for neurodivergency when they were very early, you know, in primary school? Now that's something that we nearly got in The UK and I was incredibly proud to support this. We've had something called the New Adversity Screening and Teacher Training Bill. It was only the early calling of an election in 2024 of the UK Parliament which pushed that bill to the side.
Dan Harris:Can other countries replicate that so that actually we understand our kids and that teachers are trained on how to support them? The reality and the depressing reality for me is in neurodiversity in business, we firmly deal with adults and we don't focus on pre-18s. But often, by the time these kids and young adults are getting into the employment world, they've already been failed for fifteen years. So, we're dealing with trying to repackage something which should have been dealt with and supported properly many years before.
Dan Harris:I can't agree anymore. I see this as actually quite a lot more negative and downright gloom than maybe you've elegantly outlined it to be. I think education is fading our kids from our point of view. I simply don't see what value it has beyond, in the sounds of my early contentious, but in the way that it is presented these days, to me, it does feel like less simple babysitting. So I wish that it moved towards actually giving people tools that they need, start very early, they're very human work related.
Dan Harris:They are very simple things that could be done year three or four. I don't remember exactly what the research says, but for us to have changed society completely, indeed, as Dan said, that's where we start that. We start with the supporting system and we start with making sure that the number one thing that people focus on is that EQ first. We don't do that in anywhere. I have seen examples of this if I'm not wrong in Australia and New Zealand.
Dan Harris:There are some societies that are pushing towards genuine curriculum around emotional intelligence. I think that's an immense piece of change that will in itself allow people to comprehend the idea of the very basic human voices we're discussing here. Because let's be honest, if we had workplaces where there was enough human vis a vis and kindness and understanding and open heartedness and communication. And you name it. If we had workplaces where people were human to each other, we would not stand here to discuss adaptation necessarily.
Dan Harris:The reason we have that is because we don't have kindness. We don't have empathy. We don't have common communication that's open and open. We don't really have, unfortunately, is if you wish on the safety net of decent Yeah,
Dan Harris:you're right. And look, I love that phrase you have around human debt and I would double down on this. Let me conclude with a brief story. So with The Joshy Man, we were for years kind of manage expectations down. We were told not to invest all of our salary in expensive private speech charity etc.
Dan Harris:We were told that, you know, don't go for technology. Look, I've got something here, which is what we call his talker. Now this actually allows him to communicate because he will put on and he will say 'I want to go home' for example. Now when I was at school recently, they did a class it was just before Christmas and they were asked to name all the vegetables coming in and they were you know, it's designed to help them. I had put on the little phrase for brussels sprouts onto his talker.
Dan Harris:So Joshy, he sat there for a minute and he looked at his talker and he thought and he wrote on there 'I see small cabbage' and for me that just blew my mind, because for many years we were told he didn't have the intellectual capability, he didn't understand what we were saying, he would never kind of communicate, and for him to problem solve and note, I don't have the words on this talker, but you know what? I can tell exactly. So there's such a big power of intelligence and understanding of tension with these non speaking autistics that we need to be investing and I call our government's health authority education authorities to be routinely funding these devices for non speaking autistic people, because you would never for a non hearing person you would never say to them, we're not going to give you the hearing aid, right? We're just going to allow you to do your best in lip reading. We need to invest in these kids and you know what?
Dan Harris:We have an incredibly short term risk view. We need to be thinking about the total cost of the public purse across someone's life cycle and all of the academic studies that we've seen are that if you invest in these kids at two, three, four, five, six years old, that is where to spend your money. You don't want be spending the money on the education prison type line. You don't want to be spending on additional benefits, health service etc. You need to be investing in these kids early.
Dan Harris:But unfortunately there are too many gatekeeping and financial considerations early on that we don't want to diagnose and we don't want put support in place and lose that ability, that window of opportunity.
Dan Harris:So is this spirit going to go back in then? Are we going to be able to know that the kids are autistic right away? Because look, let's be honest then, that's not going to help your kid. It's not going to help my kids. It's not going help either of us.
Dan Harris:We had passed that gateway, that stops sign. Unfortunately, we haven't stopped it. No one has given us the needed support when we needed it, but that doesn't mean that the biggest change that we can as a society do is not repeat. So, these times people going to pass and we, are they in England, happily saying they, these days, going to be able to screen every child for being autistic and then help them early on?
Dan Harris:No, currently there is no legislative driver, so there is no champion within our loop of parliament to take this forward. However, you can bet your bottom dollar that I'm going to be pushing for it very, very hard. I'll leave Carlin tomorrow and I'll meet him with all the new MPs, and I will be trying to identify who can actually lead us forward as a society, because you know what, if England or The UK can do this and actually show what world leading provision looks like, you know, the rest of the world can follow. And I would be delighted if other countries lead and The UK follow as well.
Dan Harris:You know, honestly, this is not at all about countries, it's about our kids, and I know that because I've had an autistic kid across two continents and then several countries. We found out that our child was autistic in Sweden. We then had him spend most of his autistic life in England, and then we now live in the South Of Spain, but everywhere. How do I put this elegantly? Life is harder than it used to be, and people are less willing to be open and understanding of the need for provision for our kids.
Dan Harris:You know, know and we aren't conscious, that an eye of the fact that different kids and different autistic families have different needs, But I think what this episode hopefully brings your awareness towards is that despite the fact that we have a day job, I make software and I write, then does consulting, this is to us parenting fights, so that we leave a better world in terms of, of being neurospicy. But I think what is interesting in this one episode that I haven't said before necessarily is that we are not thinking of ourselves as often as we should as an autistic family. And I, I'm wondering if you guys are, and I don't know why not. It's potentially because each of us and in our family, there are very few exceptions to being autistic, let me put it that way. We struggle to find the exception, but I'm just thinking we are not thinking as an entity who is autistic, us as a family, simply because we all have sexism and needs for some provision, but also because maybe to a degree we don't expect society to view us favourably if we are an autistic family.
Dan Harris:How do you feel that where you're at? Do you refer to yourself as that?
Dan Harris:Well, I don't think I would express it more eloquently than you just did. I think it's correct, is that I don't think even within the autistic community and self advocates that there is that encapsulation of a family unit being autistic. I think you're very kind of on the vanguard and being very progressive there. I think also the reality is that we know about the genetic drivers for autism and we know that there are a disproportionate amount of autistic families out there together, but they don't talk about it. Like for me and maybe for others is that you still view, society still views autistic people as being white young boys lining up trains.
Dan Harris:Or they'll view them as one of the worst things that happened far from unity. Rain Man, the film. So I'm really proud of what you're doing and other activists is actually no, there is such a breadth of autistic people out there that you can't judge us based on that media narrative. You have to judge us. We're in society.
Dan Harris:We are the one in five. One in five of our workforce is neurodivergent. We're a minority but we're a significant minority, so you're going to have to start properly engaging and supporting and empowering us.
Dan Harris:Good question if it's one in five and if it is, it's shame on us. It's so secret because we're not smart enough to bring more numbers in. I would say that the numbers are probably half and half. I would be very surprised if in the workplace and in particular in some industries cannot reverse in the other way around, but irrespective which numbers you believe, as long as you have a handful of humans that you derive value of, then you can bring value back to by doing the simple act of acting human and by doing the simple act of saying, what is your readme? How do you function?
Dan Harris:What do you need to be a full on human being that's happy at work? Ask them, most people these days, in particular those of us that are neurodiverse, have this form of word read me and if you don't and you're listening to this, consider maybe one over the summer, spend a few weeks going, what would I give my new clinic lawyer? What would I say to them that I am live? Because it's nice hearing about it, but if you don't have it yourself and I have one, but it's all three companies and no one's asked me about it over the last twenty years that I've run my own company. I do give you, we do exchange this as new people come into the team, that simple and genuine read me in the same way that kind of real programs used to have back in the day, so you understood what they were about.
Dan Harris:That's how we kind of hand each other a paper, a little longer than one page saying, this is what I'd like to see happening. If we can't grade, it's not great again.
Dan Harris:I agree and you know, the way to actually make that successful is to embed it in BAU, so it needs to be not for the neurodivergent fold. It needs to be every time you're starting a new project, you have this, we call it a manual of me, and it says this is me, this is how to work with me, this is how I like to work, this is how I like to communicate, and that manual of me, the only way we can destigmatise it is actually if everyone in the project team does it. And then, you know, the autistic person is just one person on that long spectrum of people and that person, he or she, is slightly different. But you know what? The neurotypical person is also different.
Dan Harris:Right. That's very, very true. I love that note and, you know, realistically, the people listening to us don't like to see very little things, so we're probably going to have to wrap it up soon. What I did want to hear before then, Katie, you've mentioned a couple of things. I normally ask people what happened to our three musicians, are most annoyed about hearing when it comes to autism.
Dan Harris:And you've already mentioned the horrendous Reignman situation. But I I am wondering when it comes to another thing that I do tend to ask people because I know it's it's it's personal, but it's useful as we all learn from the the shared experience of others is what is your biggest life hack as an autistic person? What is the one thing that you'd say, this is a thing that has caused me through?
Dan Harris:I think it's just self awareness. I think it's understanding, you know, how do I work best? How are you going to get the best out of me? And then playing to those strengths because the reality is that we don't need to hide away from our challenges or our differences. Everyone has them, okay?
Dan Harris:I'm not going to be a World Cup footballer, right? I can admit that. No, no, not at my age, but you know what I am good at? I'm really good at, you know, setting up a charity. I'm really good at kind of leading a group of 100 volunteers etc, so my strengths are things that I can be shouting about and I shouldn't be embarrassed to admit that I have areas of development on.
Dan Harris:That is a very good point and I think the more we can, like we started talking about this at the very beginning, the more we can overcome this negative energy towards autistic stigma and transform it into enthusiasm around autism, considering extreme value that is literally latent in enterprises these days and in the public sector these days. There are people of you who are trying to hide having special abilities is what I say. So let's get them to admit they have them. Let's get them to see that they are valued. Let's get them to potentially function in the ways that they would more find comfort.
Dan Harris:If we can't, and it is necessarily detrimental to the business, I have yet to find one autistic person that is asking for an adaptation that would hurt the business. I'm sure they might
Dan Harris:That's be with wonderful to hear. Wonderful Feel
Dan Harris:free to tell them to go left, but I've never heard of anyone autistic who didn't want something that also brought out the rest of the business. Thank you so much for coming over, Anne, and for talking about this, both as yourself, the human and yourself as the activist and as yourself as the part of this autistic family, both of humans and of your own. So for a better world for our kids, we'll just keep pushing. If you guys are listening to this and you can find Stan, obviously on LinkedIn and connect, because if we don't get more neurodiversity in business and we don't actually find ways to extract the goodness and the human goo out of it all, then the ones losing are not us, the neurodiverse people, but the business itself.
Dan Harris:Right. Absolutely. Well done.
Dan Harris:Thank you for coming over then, and we'll talk to you soon. Bye.
Dan Harris:Please take your time.
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