Neuroinclusion Redesigns Work to Drive Employee Productivity

Hiren Shukla:

The world has been built around the convergence of how we all socialize, communicate, learn, and think. But when you're sitting on the outside of this, the neurodivergent community, it is a very much of a outsider feeling. So I think neuroinclusion is a organization and societal opportunity, and it's how we bring in and capture all these great ideas from the fringes and start incorporating it into challenge how we work, how we operate, and how we connect with each other.

Karim Morgan Nehdi:

Welcome to another episode of the Whole Brain® at Work podcast. I'm Karim Morgan Nehdi. I'm a CEO, entrepreneur, investor, and management and organizational scientist. And in my work leading Herrmann and also developing Ned.ai, I've spent decades exploring how different thinking styles drive innovation and performance.

Ann Herrmann-Nehdi:

I'm Ann Herrmann-Nehdi, chair and chief thought leader at Herrmann, and have been exploring cognitive science for quite a few years as well.

Karim Morgan Nehdi:

And today's conversation explores the topic that is deeply personal for me, neurodiversity and neuroinclusion. I'm the father to two neurodivergent children. And as a result, I've really come to realize that a big part of my life's purpose is to help us all embrace and be embraced for the full spectrum of thinking that makes us really human.

And while neurodiversity, at least in a clinical sense, has not been historically a core part of Herrmann's work, I really hope that one aspect of my legacy on this business will be to dovetail our mission of creating a world enriched by diversity of thought to include the beautiful and incredibly valuable thinking of neurodivergent individuals like my children and many others.

Ann Herrmann-Nehdi:

Today, we're talking about how people think differently and why that matters more than ever. Neuroinclusion is opening doors to understanding that cognitive diversity in all of its forms is actually a competitive advantage.

Karim Morgan Nehdi:

And our guest today leads some groundbreaking work on this transformation. Hiren Shukla is EY's global neurodiversity and inclusive value leader.

His team's recent global study reveals something pretty remarkable, which is that neurodivergent professionals report higher proficiency in many of today's fastest-growing skills around things like AI, cybersecurity, leadership, and resilience.

They're 55% more likely to adopt AI than their neurotypical peers, and yet only 25% feel truly included at work. So this isn't just an inclusion problem. It's a strategic blind spot. Hiren, welcome to Whole Brain® at Work.

Hiren Shukla:

Thank you, Karim. Thank you, Ann, for having me today. And I couldn't tell you how excited I am that we are bringing this topic of neurodiversity and intersecting it with Whole Brain Thinking. And frankly, how we reach the diverse minds and thinking styles of people that are out there, hopefully to activate and unlock new value and capacity in the world.

Karim Morgan Nehdi:

Amazing. Well, let's start with the strategic frame. Your research positions neuroinclusion as really a catalyst for business transformation, not just in HR or kind of accommodation program. What does neuroinclusion mean to you? And what does that shift actually mean in terms of how organizations operate and the strategies that they pursue?

Hiren Shukla:

Yeah. Karim, this is a really important question, which I think touches on the why. Why is this relevant today? And we're seeing a couple of things that are shifting in the world. No surprise, AI, data, technology is shifting the way that we work. Globalization versus nationalization. So we're seeing a lot of things happening in border these days. We're also seeing five generations and how we all work together.

In the midst of all of this, the thinking differently paradigm has probably not been more important than it is today because we know that innovation comes from thinking differently. And Karim, to your specific question about neuroinclusion, when we deconstruct the problem statement here, right, what is this untapped capacity and capability that the world has that seems to be compressed, seems to be almost hidden in plain sight?

And I think that the opportunities is in how can we unlock and activate this power of thinking differently through transformational leadership.

So it's how our leaders lead. It's language. It's process. I think it's organizational structure and policy. And this is no surprise, Karim and Ann. The world has been built around the convergence of how we all socialize, communicate, learn, and think. But when you're sitting on the outside of this, the neurodivergent community, it is a very much of a outsider feeling.

And you've got all of these great ideas that you keep raising your hand on in hopes that you can articulate it enough to get through.

And no surprise in the realm that Karim you and Ann deal with and the entrepreneurship world, it's no surprise that most entrepreneurs have a neurodivergent bent to them because that's where new great ideas come from.

So I think neuroinclusion is a organization and societal opportunity, and it's how we bring in and capture all these great ideas from the fringes and start incorporating it into challenge how we work, how we operate, and how we connect with each other.

Ann Herrmann-Nehdi:

Hiren, I love that. For so long, neuroinclusion has lived in HR, where the focus has been on accommodation and compliance. So what you're talking about is so much more strategic, this notion of transformation. When it becomes strategy, what changes?

What are the new conversations that are happening at the top of the organization and the C-suite? How is that actually changing today?

Hiren Shukla:

Yeah. Ann, this is a question that I think as the 10-year journey that I've had sitting in the front row, sometimes in the driver's seat, sometimes in the passenger seat, but sitting in the front, watching the evolution of what started as a clinical or a medical concept to a social construct, which many folks as you may know, 53% of Gen Z identify as being neurodivergent, but that social construct has now moved into the transformation phase.

Ann and Karim, you both know that companies and organizations, governments going through transformation used to be a choice.

Do we want to go through transformation? Are we ready? What does that look like? Today, transformation is not a choice anymore. It is basically now a tsunami that's hitting us, for which the speed of technology like AI is so much faster than the speed of human change. We're not very good at that.

But Ann, I think your question on transformation comes back to some key data points. We know that the World Economic Forum said that the single largest inhibitor to transformation is an employee skills gap. In fact, 63% of transformations fail because of an employee skills gap.

This is shocking. This is more so than getting access to capital.

So, Ann, I think that the conversations at C-suite now is really touching upon the speed, innovation, the level of engagement and change management, all of those levers that they need that touches upon, Karim, what you were referencing, the global research that we just put out three months ago, that effectively is showing a higher expert or specialist level skills proficiency in AI, in data, in cyber and resiliency and curiosity, all the human components that will allow us to thrive and lead in the age of AI.

And so, Ann, we're finding that this conversation has now busted out of the seams of an HR accommodations conversation to business strategy leaders, transformation leaders.

And we're looking not only at the top line and the bottom line, we're looking at the societal line and the obligation that I think all of us have and the organizations we work with to society to create value for all.

And in today's age of TikTok and Instagram, making sure you have authentic brand value, I think, is more critical than ever.

Karim Morgan Nehdi:

Yeah, I completely agree with that. And also the point that you made about such a high percentage of people identifying as neurodivergent, and I've read some estimates of up to 20% of the global population identifying that way, which is more than a billion people worldwide. This isn't a niche topic, right. It's a fundamental dimension of human cognitive variation.

And we recently had a podcast guest who said that innovation happens at the far ends of the bell curve, right. It's innovation in and of itself is not a normative activity. It is a divergent activity, right.

And so, as we think about this more strategic approach to neuroinclusion, I love it because it reframes the question from how do we fix people to be more innovative or more productive to how do we redesign systems to ultimately make the most of the cognitive diversity that we have?

It kind of positions cognitive diversity as infrastructure for innovation in this AI era and not an accommodation for individuals, right.

What do you see as some of the key costs, let's call them the strategic costs, of this inclusion gap for organizations? What happens if organizations don't act to become more neuroinclusive?

Hiren Shukla:

Yeah. Karim, it's interesting that you asked the question, what if they don't... what if they do nothing about this? What if we just ignore this?

Well, we came up with a very interesting flip side of the... with the proverbial return on investment or ROI, which we know leaders and organizations, both public and private, always think about, "Hey, what's the ROI here?" You know the flip side of this is what we call the COI, the cost of inaction.

And it's very interesting, Karim and Ann, because when we think about the 20% of the existing population, 53% of Gen Z, and if we continue that trajectory, Gen Alpha, the generation after this, we are probably looking at around 70%.

In fact, what is happening in front of us is the neuro majority in the world is changing. It's going to challenge our standardized tests and our standardized systems, and it's going to require much more flexibility.

So Karim, we began to look at this through the lens of workforce, leaders, executive boards, investors, and consumers, five personas that we know are globally interesting and target audiences.

And if we think just on the consumer side, Karim, companies do nothing. They are probably going to leave trillions of dollars of value on the table. And in fact, those more agile, progressive organizations that do lean into this, the neuroinclusion side, they're going to start seeing innovation at an exponential rate.

And we think that in today's world of, my goodness, when the next version of GenAI comes out, it kind of leaves the old version so far behind, and this is now happening every three to six months, if we're lucky, Karim, we see that cost of inaction is only going to get greater across those five personas.

You'll have a sub-optimized workforce. You will have not represented boards or leaders. You will find investors who are now making decisions based on more of your broader impact, and so those investors are going to shift their money elsewhere.

And last but not least, as we work with a pharmaceutical or a cosmetics organization or consumer products, today there's about $18 trillion of spending power that is coming from the broader disabilities' community.

By the way, non-apparent disabilities is about 70% of that. $18 trillion today, that is not being attracted deliberately. It's just kind of leaking through.

So Karim, we see now a massive organizational capability and financial cost at the end of the day.

Not to mention, as we look to empower constituents and citizens within the borders of any country around the world, that capacity will then end up probably suboptimized and, in some cases, probably on public assistance or some underutilized capacity.

And this is, I think, the aha moment, Karim and Ann, that this capacity that we're looking for to accelerate AI adoption is literally sitting under our noses today.

Ann Herrmann-Nehdi:

I love that your research shows that neurodivergent professionals can adopt AI at dramatically higher rates.

Hiren Shukla:

Yeah.

Ann Herrmann-Nehdi:

You're like AI power users. So, as organizations are trying to make this happen, what lessons should they extract from how these individuals are using these tools?

What might this tell us about some of the barriers to AI adoption more broadly, and how we can overcome them?

Hiren Shukla:

Yeah. Ann, it's interesting. As you know, what I... I may not get this saying right, but it's something like, "Necessity is the mother of invention," something like this. Okay.

Ann Herrmann-Nehdi:

Yes.

Hiren Shukla:

I think I've got it right.

Ann Herrmann-Nehdi:

I think so.

Hiren Shukla:

Ann, we looked at those individuals and groups that are using AI more, and we said, "What are you using it for? Why are you using this?" And they say, "Wow, I struggle with communication. I can bounce my communication off of AI and get coaching. I struggle sometimes with not just articulating what I want to say, but almost having the flow of when do I say something."

And how many of our meetings today are virtual. So I can now effectively raise my hand if I want to.

But in a meeting, if I'm struggling with, I'm not a verbal or a visual learner. I'm a hands-on learner. Well, I can have AI running in the background, effectively summarizing things for me and then giving me the question to ask because it knows me very well.

So we found these power users were selfishly already playing around and maximizing the use of these AI tools to improve their communication, their quality, their speed of work, their connectivity, and connection to their team members. And so this was the necessities about that.

These folks were already there at the table, and they found AI, generative AI, to be a very safe space where I'm not being judged. I can say whatever I want to and I can see what kind of reaction it gives me and I can get coached and I can get feedback that is not having to come with maybe facial expression that either I may not understand or on the other extreme, I may look at that facial expression and misinterpret it and have, they call it rejection sensitivity this morning, right.

I feel rejected so many... so much of the time.

So, Ann, when we looked at why these folks are using it, what we began prompting them on to say, "You use it for yourself. What if we were to basically unlock your role and have you think about anything in the organization?"

We did this, funny enough, with our own Neuro-Diverse Center of Excellence team at EY, and we said, "What if we just said, think about anything you want to?"

And Ann and Karim, was very interesting. The first two weeks, there was hesitation on, "This is my role. I don't really know a lot about that other pieces."

But with a little bit of prompting, in the next four weeks, we came up with over 160 ideas of process improvement.

Ann, what we saw is that it wasn't just the AI that was helping individuals in workforce that feel left out, but that workforce was now maximizing and pushing the level of AI usage and the use cases.

So, innovation and inclusion became a flywheel, and AI became the engine that was spinning it over and over.

And I think, Ann, this is what excited us a lot about sometimes it's the quietest voices in the room that have the most powerful ideas.

And as a talker, ADHD and just found out that I'm dyslexic, I sometimes have to remind myself, Ann and Karim, that sometimes I need to be quiet so that other voices can be there. It's a good thing we're in a podcast here where I'm supposed to talk.

Ann Herrmann-Nehdi:

Oh, that's great. Just curious a little bit about so implications as you think about for the rest of the world there, and those of who are beginning to try to adopt.

Obviously, "Necessity is the mother of invention," and I think people are using AI sort of, but what was it? Was it giving permission? Was it the nudge? What was it that you feel took it to that next transformative piece in terms of the lesson learned that we could learn from that experience?

Hiren Shukla:

Yeah. Ann, it was very interesting. It was the psychological safety created by a leader who took the time to understand that there are different thinking styles here, and people's motivation comes from different places.

And because it came from a trusted source, someone who had taken the time to understand where these different perspectives were coming from, that leader didn't use one tool.

That leader used a variety of tools to enable each person to show up in their best way.

But Ann, I think that psychological safety component really translated into something very tangible of, "How do I earn your trust because I know you now and I've taken the time for you to know me."

And that exchange, I think, is a catalyst that not only drove those 160 ideas but creates long-lasting kind of engagement.

And funny enough, agility and speed because, Ann and Karim, we know when we trust each other, we're willing to take greater risks, we're willing to go outside of our zone, our quadrant, and we're willing to lean on each other in different ways, in a way that could feel very vulnerable today.

But I will tell you, at the end of the day, we see this also having a positive effect on mental wealth... mental health and well-being. And I think that's a critical piece that we need today in the world so that people show up at their highest capacity.

Ann Herrmann-Nehdi:

Absolutely.

Karim Morgan Nehdi:

I want to stick with the topic of psychological safety, because I think that's a really interesting one, but we'll certainly come back to AI. I'm very curious to hear, you mentioned that psychological safety is a really important piece, and I saw that really come through clearly as a major driver of success within your research.

And what we've seen is that in this AI era, organizations need people to experiment, to fail fast and adapt quickly.

How does creating psychological safety for neurodivergent talent work? And maybe you can speak a little bit to how that ultimately builds sort of that capacity to experiment, to adapt quickly for everyone, not just neurodivergent talent.

Hiren Shukla:

Yeah. Karim, this is a great question. And frankly, when we started out 10 years ago, deconstructing the problem statement to unlock the power of thinking differently, this is exactly where we started. We said, "What does this look like?"

And interesting enough, it came across probably four to five different pillars.

So we said, number one, it's the language we're using. So leaders using language that is inclusive and communicating... adapting their communication to meet the other person where they're at. So language, both verbal and written, became either a barrier or an accelerator.

So language is one. Process was number two.

We said, "What are the processes in these organizations from how do I look for a role and apply for it?" So let's say I'm a candidate all the way to, "I'm actually going through a recruiting process."

Traditional interviews, Karim and Ann, are frankly not highly inducing on psychological safety. They often seem to trigger people because, "You're going to ask me random questions and I have to impress you and think on my feet," and this is anxiety-causing, Ann and Karim, for anybody.

So we say, let's shift to a more performance-based process. Let's put all the cards on the table. Let's actually simulate the work environment, and let's say, "Hey, how would you operate under this environment? Albeit, there will be things that don't work, there'll be information that comes late, there'll be team members who get sick."

So, simulating those processes, Karim, gave us the ability to start adapting processes.

Physical environment became a third one.

We know in offices today, they're much greater... they're much better set up, I would say, for whether it's a quiet space, whether you want to need to adjust lighting, whether you need to be in a collaborative, open environment, whether you just want to...

Sometimes that's when I get a migraine. I like to go into the room that is I think kind of it's a room with no windows, and you can close the door, and you just kind of decompress for five minutes.

And Karim, to your point before, nursing mothers go in that room, and others do this too.

So we're seeing the fungibility of space.

I'll also then add, we also have now seen the use of assistive technology, and in a research that we did with our friends at Microsoft on generative AI that was released in... about a year ago, 91% of individuals found generative AI to be assistive technology.

It was actually helping them, and this was not what generative AI was created for.

We do know that there's a great portion. In fact, I think one of the top use cases for generative AI in the world is mental health and mental wellness.

So the combination of these process, policy, language, behaviors, assistive technology, Karim, these began to be the core fundamentals that we began to create and said, "Let's now try these out individually. Let's try them out together."

And by the way, Karim, as you and Ann know, what you can do in the US is very different than what you do in India, for example, or Australia, or Latin America.

So we began to see how do we adapt a little bit for culture and context and language and all that, but that's a bit of what's happened.

Karim Morgan Nehdi:

Well, Hiren, it's interesting that you point out that AI can provide accommodation and augmentation almost invisibly and at scale, right. And I'm curious how you think about that changing the strategic value of neuroinclusion, right. Does AI make diversity of thought easier to leverage?

Hiren Shukla:

Yeah. Karim, it's interesting. It is a two-sided coin. Okay. We know that the data that these large models are built on, the large language models, the data that they're built on can either be very inclusive.

So if I type in, show me a picture of a person with disabilities playing soccer or football. Well, depending on what I use and the data that's underneath it, I can get a very disturbing picture, or I can get one that is affirming to me.

So we see that there's one side of the data that it's built on and including the experience.

Karim, we had a number of our team members work on new AI stacks that some of our large technology companies were coming out with, and they were looking at where notifications show up on the screen.

Sometimes, if you type something in the wrong spot, you get a little blank, or if you miss something. Well, it was very interesting where notifications show up, and the variety of places show up could be very disturbing actually to you.

So we find that there is an opportunity. Now this is the other side of the coin. There's an opportunity to really design, deploy, leverage AI to be that inclusion accelerator.

And I think where we find this, it creates higher levels of trust.

We know AI is also not perfect. Will you get hallucinations half the time? Do you, as a human, need to review everything that comes out of it? Yes, you do. You're responsible for it.

And I think Karim, that's where we're starting to see when we include more people in the design, the build, the deployment of AI, there's a much higher level of trust because they feel that the AI is representative of who they are and it's not just mirroring the biases, which we all have, but it's not just mirroring the biases of the people that designed it to do so.

So I think there's a two-sided coin here, but a great opportunity, Karim, as we pointed out before, how AI can very safely create this zone of comfort and trust.

And frankly, for entrepreneurs and those that are entrepreneurial within companies, when they think about an idea, they can simulate this in AI now in a very safe space.

So I think there's amazing opportunity these days with AI. And this is where the yin and yang, convergence, power of AI and the divergent power of human creativity, and the ways humans think differently. Those two coming together, I think, maximize how the world gets better.

Karim Morgan Nehdi:

You've talked about the importance of leadership in neuroinclusion and given us some great concrete advice for leaders who want to be more neuroinclusive.

I'm curious, Hiren, what concrete advice do you have for neurodivergent individuals who may be at an earlier stage of their career, are still in school, and are trying to think about how to thrive in a world that is in many ways still designed for neurotypical norms?

Hiren Shukla :

Yeah, this is a great question. And we get this question a lot.

As you know, as I mentioned, 53% of Gen Z, the 13 to 28 year olds, somewhere in that range, we are going to see for the next 10 years, individuals entering the workforce.

And so, Karim, part of what the advice that I would give, one is know yourself, know your strengths, experiment, use AI, use AI for your ideas, and start to understand what you need to thrive in environments and places where you don't.

Because what has happened to date is there's so many individuals that have to mask, and they use this term masking in the neurodivergent community and others, where, as you could imagine, just as the word evokes, it is pretending to show up and pretending to be and pretending to understand what other people are saying and pretending to act like everybody else.

And that masking, Karim and Ann, comes at a massive personal cost.

It's costing you your health and your mental health and well-being. And frankly, this is the challenge because we try so much to fit in that sometimes what we carry home at the end of the day.

I don't know if that overnight sleep is rejuvenating enough to allow us sometimes to go back the next day.

So I would say to young people, know yourself, use AI, understand where you thrive and don't. Have the audacity, have the courage to be forthright on this because there are great organizations and people and support systems around the world.

And then there's those that don't yet understand this. They don't yet get it. But I think you showing up in the most authentic way that you can displays an aspect of what we know, Karim and Ann, is what we want leaders to do is to have vulnerability.

And I think we would ask this younger generation, "You're leading by example, but you're leading yourself right now, which is the most important leadership position you will ever have."

Ann Herrmann-Nehdi:

I love that.

Karim Morgan Nehdi:

Yeah, I love that advice too. And maybe as a contribution, a small contribution to that, to help with that age-old advice that Hiren just shared, know thyself, I'd like to offer to anyone in our audience who may be neurodivergent or know someone in their family who's neurodivergent, if you'd like to understand the way that you think, reach out to Herrmann and we'll be glad to provide you with an HBDI® profile to help begin that process of understanding and that ability to embrace your own unique thinking, to show up as your true, authentic self and hopefully contribute all of the many skills that may otherwise go untapped that we've discussed today.

For years, we've been asking how do we help neurodivergent people fit into our organization. And this great research, Hiren, that you and your team have done now shows us that we should really be asking, how do we redesign our organizations and our systems to leverage cognitive intelligence as a competitive advantage with a billion neurodivergent people globally?

This isn't a niche, right. It's a fundamental dimension of huge cognition. And in an economy where AI adoption separates more than ever leaders from laggards, organizations can't afford to ignore it any longer.

So Hiren, a huge thank you for all of your incredible insights that you've shared today and that you and your team are doing every day to really bring more attention to this important topic.

Will certainly include some notes in the show notes. But Hiren, where can people find you, and where can few people find out more about your research?

Hiren Shukla:

Yeah. So LinkedIn is probably the best place to find me as I travel around, and that usually this is where folks can catch me.

Karim and Ann will make sure that the link for the research that we've referenced many times, it is on ey.com. Folks can go there, and they can download.

I will caution you, the entire research has 52,000 data points. We clearly could not put all of that into the research.

So, as you all read it and have questions, please reach out to us.

And Karim and Ann, I couldn't thank you enough because this connection from, again, neurodivergence to neuroinclusion and the way Whole Brain Thinking kind of connects to encapsulate all of us in the ways we think differently, I could not be more grateful to partner up and to be with you all today. So thank you.

Karim Morgan Nehdi:

Thank you. The gratitude is very much mutual. And to our listeners, watch this space because there will be more research to come between the great minds at EY and our team at Herrmann on all things neuroinclusion and cognitive diversity.

Thanks, everybody, and stay tuned for our next episode of Whole Brain® at Work.