From autistic to ad-tastic - why neurodiversity is the superpower that advertising needs.

At Cannes 2023, there was the usual flurry of activity and panels around diversity and inclusion, a slightly odd thing, I must admit watching from afar on LinkedIn and supported by some outstanding work to this effect, not least from the likes of Dove from whom we have come to expect such work.

However, this year there was an interloper into the mix in the form of Reckitt and a fantastic piece of work for their Vanish brand.

You can see this work here: https://tinyurl.com/2s3ffsa9 (or search for Reckitt's autism ad), and it deservedly won a gold lion.

But for me, that was where the good news sort of stopped.

Because this work was the only work, at least which I could find, that celebrated and addressed the topic of neurodiversity, which as a now proudly aware neurodiverse individual, is a topic very close to my heart.

There were some glimpses of light with the odd panel and piece on the topic in evidence. But, compared to what our industry currently focuses upon when we say DE&I, it was depressingly thin on the ground and given that 20% of the world is estimated to be neurodiverse in one form or another, to me a little shocking.

But neurodiversity is NOT and should NOT be another tick on the diversity list, nor the latest WOKE cause, which it is fashionable to attach oneself to in the pursuit of fashion or career progression.

The simple fact is that neurodiversity is a superpower that our industry needs, but one which is, to date, largely ignored or misrepresented and understood.

To name but three, Richard Branson, Elon Musk, and Billie Eilish are names we all know and respect. Along with that recognition, the other thing they have in common is the superpower of neurodiversity or autism, as it is often termed.

And that is a superpower I share on two fronts, having both ADHD and Asperger's.

As the actress Andrea Suarez Paz said, "Though autism can be frightening and terribly demanding, it also comes with its vast share of superpowers unknown to the typical human."

And it is a superpower that, if recognised, can power achievement, to quote Chris Morgan, the Olympic Rower who said, "If I had a neurotypical brain, I wouldn't have achieved what I have. My way of thinking and my approach to things is fundamentally one of my success factors."

And that is hopefully true for me too.

Probably the nicest thing anyone ever said about me was when Robert Horler, my co-founder of Diffiniti (now iprospect), when asked about who the most inspiring person in his working life was, replied, "James Harris, the co-founder of Diffiniti, a true ideas person who, in the years that I worked with him, he was able to solve every problem a client threw at us."

And I now fully recognise that were it not for my neurodiverse brain – many of those seemingly impossible challenges would never have been solved, nor the resultant ideas come into being.

However, there is a huge downside to the superpower of neurodiversity: the not-small challenge of existing in a world designed and delivered for the neurotypical individual.

What this meant was that at school, I was that clever kid but also that one who was also lazy, naughty disruptive, difficult, non-conformist, could not concentrate and would never achieve anything of note in life.

And with that came the bullying and almost daily beatings for being seen as different but not knowing why.

Then came working life.

Again, super clever, but not corporate, non-conformist, too challenging, too creative even, and certainly not to be considered CEO material.

And in response to all this, I did what every neurodiverse person worldwide does. I became a master at what is called masking.

Masking is concealing or suppressing aspects of one's neuro-divergent traits or conditions to fit in with the norms of the workplace or society.

And master it, I certainly did.

At work. At home. I became a student of the world and the people around me in detail so that I could go-undetected as being different in how I felt and thought to those around me.?

And it was working for me, and probably would have continued to do so were it not for a little thing called COVID.

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Like a lot of people, COVID was beyond hard on many fronts, but for me, it had an unforeseen impact.

It removed almost all my masking and coping mechanisms I had spent nearly fifty years learning, full stop.

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And I had become so good at them that, to begin, I didn't realise that myself.

Robbed of the ability to read people in 3D and confined to 2D video – I lost the skill I had developed of emotional empathy and extra-understanding.

Forced to do the same thing, day in and day out, my already dopamine-starved brain started to shut down.

And forced into 8-9 hours of video daily, the overload of eye contact and social interaction with no downtime sent my neurodiverse brain into a meltdown and clinical depression.

However, and this time it is a good however, I was fortunate enough to be able to get help and have people around me who pushed me to seek it.

As a result, I realised that all of this was down to my neurodiversity.

At this stage, it is helpful to pause and outline what neurodiversity is and is not.

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So let's start with what it is NOT.?

Neurodiversity is not just one thing.

By design, it is incredibly diverse in how it manifests itself in many different and sometimes conflicting ways.

For me, that means ADHD and Asperger's. Still, for others, it can be Dyslexia or manifesto in non-verbal communication, to name a few.

And those different designations, whilst helpful, are also unhelpful because they set neurodiversity up as a condition to be treated, medicated or cured, which it really is NOT.

And worse still, we see it as a disability, with many large institutions currently classifying it as a disability.

For a neurodiverse person, it is not a condition or a disability.

It is just real life, and whilst for me, at least medication can help in certain scenarios, there is no magic pill or medicine to turn you into a neurotypical thinker, and why would that be a good idea anyway?

And that also means it is not about mental health.

Yes, neurodiversity can impact your mental health, as it did with me, but it is NOT a mental health condition.

So then, what IS neurodiversity.

Well, to start with, it is widespread.

AT least 20% of the world's population is estimated to have at least one form of neurodiversity by the World Health Organisation.

As awareness rises, this figure will likely jump even higher too.

Yet surprisingly, given this figure, it is also largely invisible and misunderstood by most neuro-typical people.

And that is an issue because the other thing neurodiversity is is an amazing superpower, as I have already alluded to.

And often, that superpower manifests in four ways, all of which greatly benefit business and especially the world of advertising within which I work.

First up is creativity in thought and function is a superpower that many neurodiverse people possess, me included.

When you don't see the world in a typical way, it is super easy to think outside the box and in diverse ways. In the book Rebel Ideas, Matthew Syed celebrates the critical importance of diversity in thinking and ideas for success, and having a neurodiverse person help steer an organisation all but guarantees this will happen.

And given this, it is no surprise that neurodiverse individuals make great entrepreneurs. From Elon Musk to Richard Branson, transformational thinking in business has often been led by neurodiverse individuals who can see the world differently and help change it.

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And another second benefit of neurodiversity is also found in these individuals: the ability to embrace complexity and big challenges.

Many neurodiverse people, me included, have photographic memories and are super-comfortable, in fact actively seeking, difficult complex and sometimes seeming impossible challenges and tasks to pit themselves against.?

As part of our relentless struggle to understand and translate the alien world around us, we become very good at simplifying and asking so what and why, as well as being able to play back complexity in its simplest form. These business skills are of immense value but also increasingly rare.

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And thirdly, many neurodiverse individuals, especially those with ADHD like me, thrive on compression, pressure and seemingly impossible deadlines that would send most neurotypical folks into a blind panic.

And again, this is a skill or superpower of immense value in business, especially in the industry in which I work, advertising.

A good way to describe this power is like Bradley Cooper in the film Relentless, when a magic pill enhances his neurological skills, allowing him to write a book in a day and learn things at super speed.

For Neurodiverse individuals, that it, to a large degree, just normal.

Learn to code a new language in a day. No problem.

Write a book in a week. Why not?

And the fourth and final superpower I wish to highlight here is compassion and caring.

It is one of the greatest myths surrounding neurodiversity that many with it cannot understand nor feel emotions normally.

And whilst a normal understanding of human emotion and social interactions may be a challenge that many neurodiverse are born with, me included, the reality is that this makes neurodiverse individuals often better at this in the long term as they over-index on learning this skill and trying to read those around them.

The actor Anthony Hopkins, who, like me, was diagnosed with Asperger’s later in life, states, "I don't go to parties, I don't have many friends…But I do like people. I do like to get inside their heads."

This means that in business, neurodiverse individuals can be amazing with clients and colleagues alike. They possess an emotional intelligence skill that can be of high value and are also immense allies to those around them.

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Now whilst there are more superpowers I could share here, the four outlined thus far are, I would venture, four things that advertising, and for that matter the wider world of business, would benefit from, those being creativity, complexity and challenge, compression and the ability to work under pressure along with compassion and emotional skills and intelligence.

But as Superman taught us, when you have superpowers, there is always kryptonite, and for neurodiverse individuals, or at least me, here are four examples of this.

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First up is confidence, or rather the lack of it.

Put simply, neurodiverse individuals have none.?

A lifetime of feeling like you are excluded, don't fit in, feeling different, but not sure why means you have zero confidence and generally an extreme case of imposter syndrome.

Self-doubt is a daily battle for me and one where an unkind word can kill.

A throwaway comment like, sorry, I don't get it, or that's a bit Kitsch (as I once heard from my boss) can cause a neurodiverse person to shut down and add someone to their never engage list and force big, painful, life choices and changes.

This does not mean neurodiverse people cannot take feedback or criticism, admit they are wrong and take advice from others. Of course, they can, but how it is delivered is important, given their lack of self-worth and confidence.

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The second form of kryptonite to a neurodiverse individual is comfort or, rather, the lack of it.

Many neurodiverse individuals, me included, have enhanced sensitivity to things like noise, and the world around us, so much so that it can overload us.

That conversation across the office to a neurodiverse person can be the loudest thing they hear, whilst the crowded sandwich or tube train are no-go zones.

Again, that doesn't mean we don't, but it does explain who open-plan offices hell can be, airports can be hard, and supermarkets, for many like me, are a no-go.

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Simple things like a quiet space or noise-cancelling headphones can be amazing godsends, and it does not mean neurodiverse people are not social or shun human contact, again, something often misunderstood.

The third form of kryptonite is clarity or, once again, a lack of clarity.

For many neurodiverse individuals, their native tongue is a foreign one.

In the real world, this means that a typo may be obvious to you, but to a neurodiverse individual, it will always be missed.?

Whilst complexity and things like computer code are often easy to navigate and memorise, language can be challenging.

Over the years I have, I have become extremely articulate in the use of language, not least as it is core to my job, but to do so has taken a lot of effort. Still, to this day, I will spend time ensuring I understand what is written before me.

And in recent months, I have discovered the joy of bionic text, which this article is written in. I don't know how it works, but it really works regardless.

And Grammarly. My favourite AI tool ever!

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And the final form of kryptonite to many neurodiverse individuals is challenge, or again a lack of it.

I now understand that my low threshold for tasks like expenses and admin is down to my neurodiverse brain, whilst conversely, the new exciting challenge, that new business pitch, turns it up to eleven!??

Again, it does not mean we cannot do it, however constant repetition and lack of challenge for some, not all, neurodiverse individuals can be a source of real kryptonite, but that means also you will never employ a lazy neurodiverse individual, which I would venture is a big plus!.

And again, these things matter because, in the current world of work, all these things are on display.

A crowded commute, the open plan office, sitting through Horrible PowerPoints, and even one unkind word can, as I have hopefully illustrated, do immense harm and lose the opportunity to tap into these superpowers.

Let's get to what can be done to help better tap into this superpower of neurodiversity in work (and advertising) moving forwards.

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First, start with the ME.

And it begins with understanding and learning.

A great place to start is a wonderful two-part series called 'inside our autistic minds', which recently aired on the BBC iplayer. It uses creativity and films to play back the neurodiverse experience to a neurotypical audience. It is the best entry to the topic I have seen so far.

And many articles and books can be read too. Even things like TikTok provide great insight into neurodiversity and why it matters and is a real superpower.

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Secondly, once you understand better, empathise and engage.

Say hello first. Trust me, the neurodiverse person wants to speak but is often terrified of the response or reaction. As such, the silent, seemingly unfriendly mask is just that, a mask, we so want to speak to you but are just too frightened so please speak to us first, or even just smile and say hello, but ignore us and walk past and we spend days wondering what we did wrong.

Eye contact, too, can be tough.

?Yes, we can do it, but if we look away, it is not through lack of interest but rather to quickly cool down our neurooverload.

And if we talk too much, take that as a compliment. It means we are engaged, like you, and want to learn more.

And alongside this, assume the best intentions.

I have never met a neurodiverse person whose actions were intended as anything else. In fact, I argue our neurological makeup makes it impossible for a neurodiverse individual to assume anything else.

So even if you feel offended by the words used or that rude email, it's not our intention but rather just the language challenge I outlined earlier.

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And finally, but most importantly also, please reply and acknowledge.

If we schedule a meeting, please don't leave us waiting on a call, then when we ask if you're joining say, sorry over-running or a bit busy can we reschedule.

Of course we say fine, no problem, totally understand, but our self-worth yet again takes another hit and trust me you have just caused an autistic melt-down even if you didn't realise you had.

If we send you an email and you don't, our neurodiverse brains will spend hours and days analysing what we did wrong and why we didn't get that reply.

It sounds simple, but I waste time daily doing this because someone is too busy to reply.

And moving on to the WE, what can companies and organisations do to help?

First, it is about change and challenge that starts with recognition.

Where neurodiversity is still considered a disability in their policy, it is time to change and challenge that policy and recognise it as a superpower.

And this means it must not become the new WOKE cause or another addition to the diversity quota or playbook, but something recognised in the everyday.

And in that everyday small things can make a big difference.

Allow people to commute in quiet times.

Provide some quiet spaces in the open-plan hell.

And most companies have a cycle-to-work scheme, so why not plan to provide noise-cancelling headphones in a similar way?

And finally, be proud and partner.

As WPP, we have partnered with the Effie’s to make their Judging experience Neurodiverse friendly.

A little thing, but hopefully, to bring a big change and something I am immensely proud of us for.

And if not sure where to start, then reach out to the amazing folks at https://neurodiversityinbusiness.org - they can with any doubt be of a great help.

And don't celebrate a neurodiversity day or week, but rather celebrate it every day.

Celebrate thinking diversity as a superpower and turn autistic into something truly fantastic, and for my industry of advertising, also ad-tastic.

And ultimately that means that for future generations, their success, not just in advertising but any chosen career, will be down in part to their neurodiversity not in-spite of it which has sadly all too often been the case for me.

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