Why breaking down the ignorance to dyslexia will change the world

Dyslexia, as you may already know, is a difficulty in processing language in the same way that the majority of people do. It involves difficulties in dealing with the sounds of words, which makes it especially hard to learn to use phonics to read words and so can affect a person’s ability to learn to read and spell. It is believed that approximately 1 in 10 people are dyslexic, with around 6.4 million people affected in the UK. We now know that dyslexia has nothing to do with intelligence and that it’s caused by a neurological difference in the brain but acceptance of this fact has not always been commonplace.

During past decades, the ’70s, ’80s or even the ’90s, dyslexia was often interpreted as ‘lesser intelligence’. Any of you who grew up in these decades will probably have had a similar experience to myself. Having dyslexia during these years would, more often than not, place you at the well-framed bottom groups in school. If your school was like mine, then you had one chance to apply your answers or write your story with the compulsory ink pens. You would always be able to spot the ‘stupid ones’ – the words of my head teacher – as their book would be full of crossed out words or pages torn out. These decades were challenging and tough for people like myself. If you couldn’t spell, you were going to struggle.

And once you left the education system, things didn’t get easier. ‘Please enclose your CV and cover letter’. A statement that makes many dyslexics tremble and in itself I’m sure will have stopped thousands of gifted individuals from bothering to apply. When you’re being told that the first thing in the hiring process is to review a CV and cover letter, it’s easy to lose hope. Especially if, like me, you often look down to find your paper empty after 2 hours. All key skills for businesses during these times were based on paperwork, organisation and writing. For some dyslexics, myself included, even writing a simple sentence can cause anxiety.

These times were hard for myself and many others who had to endure those situations. This negative picture is amplified by some compelling facts that blew my mind when I first found them: for example, in the UK more than 50% of the offenders in prison have literacy difficulties, with almost a third reporting a learning difficulty or disability.

Anybody on entrepreneurship journey during the above mentioned decades would have had an eye on something called ‘the internet’, the evolution of an object that would change everyone’s life. And no more so than someone with dyslexia. The arrival of the computer and the adoption of the cloud have been nothing less than a miracle for the dyslexic brain. Social media, in particular, has changed business forever, the combination of web and mobile has dramatically altered people’s way of communicating, which has led to a drastic shift in the needs of businesses, almost overnight. Some content has been reduced to 140 characters instead of long story telling. Many websites have switched from written content to visual. Users’ attention spans have narrowed, making creativity in marketing a key skill.

And creativity, in the modern working environment, has never been more desired. You only have to look at tech giants like Google or Apple to see how new ideas have become a core part of their business DNA. If I reflect back to the time when I first moved to London, the young business person would be dressed in a 3 piece suit, briefcase in hand, trying to look like a City trader. Now, the same demographic has a branded hoodie on, a mac pro in hand and speaking about what app they are going to build next.

So, why is this relevant to dyslexia you may ask? People with dyslexia have been the centre of studies lately. Dyslexic brains have been identified not as worse or less intelligent, but as different, with different characteristics and capabilities. People with dyslexia may have a learning ‘disability’ when it comes to the traditional way of education. If success is based on spreadsheets and 30 page long documents, then yes, I have a disability. But people with dyslexia can have a different way to approach and process information and often find that they can be very skilled in other areas such as creative and spatial fields with abilities to engage a bigger picture approach. They can often see a problem from various angles at the same time, and sometimes their unique way of viewing the world gives those with dyslexia the advantage of creativity, ideas and imagination. And as technology advances, traditional business goals like productivity can very well become automated. Spreadsheets and documents can very well find and correct grammatical and spelling mistakes. Miraculous software like https://www.grammarly.com take this even further, giving anyone the possibility to write on the web with no grammatical or spelling mistakes, just by having it as an add-on on your browser, balancing thus the scales between dyslexic and non-dyslexic individuals when it comes to writing and changing the lives of people like myself in the workplace.

At the same time, what becomes the most desired skill, ideas and creativity, in particular, cannot become automated. And so that’s where people with dyslexia come in. The people that come up with new ideas, with ways of tackling problems before they appear and creativity are becoming the most sought after in this new business environment. My personal experience in life is very characteristic of that. From early on, my inability to tackle normal educational tasks led me into other ways to complete them. I had to learn how to get support with things that I couldn’t naturally do, like dissertations in university. I learned to think innovatively. I had to become a great communicator, so I could find people to delegate tasks to. The need to control the environment around me led me to start my own business, a conductor in my own personal orchestra. I created Supply Clouds, the three-way communication tool that connects schools, agencies and supply teachers together. I knew from experience that I couldn’t do it all by myself. I focused on what I was good at, and I overcame what becomes a halting factor for many new businesses by communicating my vision to people with skill sets different to mine, bringing them in to support the vision.

Before Supply Clouds, I had tried many times again in the world of business. Learning how to fail from your early years in school makes you more willing to take risks. Being dyslexic in the decades I spoke about earlier meant that I was not afraid to try and fail because I was used to it. These are characteristics that can be common in those with dyslexia, built up through their life experiences that give a key skill set for becoming successful business people.

This is evident in the US, where many of the new ideas come to life in this new technological era. It was widespread, and still obvious here, that what was more important in the implementation of business is action, actually doing what needed to be done. But the US has set the tone with the idea of a start-up community. What is important now is the idea, not the action. There are numerous technological solutions and experts that can take care of the action of the business plan, through automated procedures, made simple by technological advancement. What can really set you apart now is the idea, the creative process behind the business.

With this in mind, those with dyslexia can embrace and excel in the current technology climate, where the playing fields appear to have levelled and success is measured in innovative thinking. This is an environment where those with dyslexia could find themselves naturally at the top of the pile and included in determining the future direction of the technology industry itself.

 I’m a proud ambassador for Dyslexia Action a national charity with 40 years’ experience in providing support with literacy and numeracy, dyslexia and other specific learning difficulties. We provide support, assessments and tuition through our national Learning Centres, through online distance learning and in schools across the country, alongside supporting educators and employers through the provision of resources and training. We also undertake research and campaigning to improve the lives of those affected by dyslexia. www.dyslexiaaction.org.uk 0300 303 8840

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