Different Brains Built The World We Live In

Bren: Hello and welcome back to This Is Not A Data podcast. As ever, I'm joined by my good friend Leno, but we actually have an extra seat at the table today because we're joined by Peter Laughlin. Peter is a chief data officer who spent the summer talking to neurodivergent data and AI leaders about what it actually takes to do great work with a brain that doesn't... Peter's research led him to the idea that neurodivergent brains have helped us not only survive, but to evolve. Which leads us to the question, if everyone's brain did all work the same, would we actually get anywhere new? Let's get into it. Hello and welcome back to another episode of This is Not a Data Podcast. Now, as ever, I will be joined by my co-host, Leno. Hey, Leno.

 

Lenno: Good morning. Thank you very much for for this layup again. That's today today extra exciting.

 

Bren: Well, is, mean, we've been getting good at this for long time. We're so good at this now. But today's special because there's not just two of us. For anybody that's been listening, we spent a little bit of time over the last week or so in Crete at a CXO Data Conference. Siobhan and Andrew, big shout out to you as well. And I'd like to say that I convinced... I guess to come on the podcast, I think with starting one as well, I don't think it took too much hassle, but Peter, Peter Leflin, lovely to see you and thank you for being a part of this is not a data podcast.

 

Peter: Well, thanks for having me on. think when I saw you launch this podcast, I made it by mission to find a way to get an invite. you know, thanks for opportunity.

 

Bren: Well, at least you didn't have me banging on about saying this is not the world according to Leno. That was the one that I wanted to start with, but that it was definitely not not so fair with that. For everybody listening, you know, Peter, I guess a couple of times now it's given some great talks and really held the room in the conference. And I thought we both thought that it would be great to just dive into some of the topics that we discussed. I don't really want to do you a huge disservice, maybe just intro yourself just briefly, Peter.

 

Peter: Yeah, so I'm Peter. And, you know, again, thanks for having me on this, this podcast. I'm a chief data officer. I've been in the world of data for a very, very long time. And as I've got more into leadership, I've become fascinated by building high performing teams. How do we create the right environments for people to do their best work? And increasingly in our industry, that's around helping people who are neurodivergent, be able to show up and bring their, their full authentic selves to work to be able to do great work for our organizations and for our customers and for them themselves. And so, I've been lucky enough to spend the summer speaking to a number of neurodivergent leaders. We're doing some research into how we can make work a more inclusive place for neurodivergent individuals. And so it's great to get a platform just to continue the conversation. help raise bit of awareness on this really important topic.

 

Lenno: Wow. Just just

 

Bren: It's cool, hey?

 

Lenno: yeah, just just wow indeed. it's it's it's already how you're framing it with enthusiasm. And how how how did you actually get about to specify in the neurodivergent area and making the linkage towards towards the data community?

 

Peter: Well. I found myself supporting a number of neurodivergent individuals at work. I then went through a process of my daughter is autistic and we spent a number of years working through her diagnosis. so I went from not knowing anything at all about autism or ADHD or dyslexia about five years ago to suddenly realizing that actually these are not necessarily problems. me wrong, know, people who are neurodivergent do encounter significant challenges in their everyday life, but it doesn't have to mean that that makes work impossible. And I think in a way I was sort of looking forward to my daughter's life and thinking how can I help her realise that there is a future, you know, as an autistic individual in the world. I wanted to make sure that her horizons weren't reduced in any way and I think that that sort of led me down a number of fascinating conversations, research projects, discussions with a whole range of people and groups. And the more I get into it, the more I realize that within the data and AI space, there is a significant number of people who are neurodivergent. And that's no surprise. I think one of the things we talked about a lot at the conference last week was how data and AI, the skill sets that we need to be successful in in these industries and these careers, people who are autistic or have ADHD or are dyslexic, they bring a whole range of different ways of thinking into an industry where that is really needed. yeah, I could talk for hours on some of this. yeah, it's such a rich seam of a topic really.

 

Bren: It's it's in fairness, but I mean, I have to keep Leno short and sweet. You know, he will talk for hours as well. So you're in good company here. I think it's I mean, I don't want to give away kind of the talks that you gave because they were fascinating. I'm sure you'll you'll touch on them in the future. But there was topic I'm thinking of the four box quadrant around the skills that people would have based on the neurodivergency. I hope I'm getting the terminology right, because I guess there's a little part of me that's like, I'm so scared of saying the wrong thing, which I guess might be one of the things that comes out of the work that you're doing. we could all, well, I certainly found myself saying, well, hmm, I can identify with a bit of that. And there's a bit of this.

 

Lenno: I recognize that. Yeah.

 

Bren: if you, has that kind of come out in some of the sort of reading and research that you've done?

 

Peter: The language thing is definitely a concern of some. I've spoken to a number of leaders recently and they share similar concerns to you, Brendan, in terms of people don't want to seem... ignorant, I'm not saying you are ignorant, but it can be difficult sometimes picking up a new language or a new set of terminology to make sure you're using it in the right way. And I still know myself, I have to almost actively think about the right language to use so that it is, you know, it's done in a positive way rather than a negative way. Just to, you know, just pick up on the question you asked, you know, we talk about neurodiversity, is a, that refers to the fact that everybody's brain is slightly different. you know, we might be in a room with a hundred people, no one brain is going to be exactly the same. And that often falls under a bell curve of, you know, things that people can do, things that people find difficult. So neurodiversity is the spectrum. People who are, you know, diverge from the mean, so are further

 

Lenno: Mm-hmm.

 

Peter: away from that sort of norm, the middle of the bell curve. are considered neurodivergent. And that might be somebody with autism, it might be somebody with ADHD. We've also got dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, dysgraphia, Tourette.

 

Bren: all part of the same spectrum.

 

Peter: And it's all about people's brains working differently to the norm.

 

Bren: Okay.

 

Peter: It's about people whose brains might be brilliant at one thing, but not so good at another. So typically you find that people who are autistic, for example, they're brilliant at spotting patterns. They're brilliant

 

Bren: Mm.

 

Peter: at system thinking. They're brilliant at dealing with ambiguity. They might be less good at making eye contact or feeling really comfortable in social situations. And I think that was one of the key things we talked about last week, wasn't it? Where actually the point I was making to the group was actually this difference in how people's brains work. It's been around for millions of years. It's arguably why as humans we've evolved to be able to make good use of our environment and develop things like AI.

 

Bren: Hmm.

 

Peter: So, you know, the fact that we all think differently shouldn't be seen as a threat. It should be seen as an enabler to a better future.

 

Lenno: So so many questions on on on on on this on on everything that you're saying Peter. A coup a coup a couple to highlight. You've just touched upon this brain wiring is existing for millions of years. This was also something that is stuck in my brain on the basis of the the the the event That you hosted in Crete. Can you can give us a little bit, and especially for the listeners, a little bit of reflection to that? Where where where did this come about millions of years ago?

 

Peter: So as we sit here today, the National Autistic Society in the UK, and I hope I've got their name perfectly correct there, they actually published an article yesterday saying that they are now comfortable that autism is genetic. And that's really interesting because actually that was very much the body of the discussion we had last week, which was, know, humans have evolved over millions of years with small changes. Everybody is born slightly different. differently to the next person. And that leads to people who are tall and short and people who have blue eyes and brown eyes and a whole range of characteristics which over millions of years have proved to be beneficial. The whole point about evolution is that things that help the species survive will carry on and be passed down to the next generation. And one of the things that I've been fascinated by is this idea of autistic brains and people with ADHD. Clearly evolution has seen a reason that these characteristics have persisted through many, many, many generations. I became fascinated in why this is and what does that tell us? Actually, when you go right back two million years ago to the point that humans were becoming social creatures, it was super important that humans stuck together in a social group. without getting into the whole talk we did last week, because we'd be here for a while. Being a social species is really good for stopping tigers eating you, but it's not quite so good for coming up with new ideas because if everybody's agreeing with everybody else, everybody's really cohesive in this group, you get lots and lots of benefits from that. But one of the things that struggles is new ideas being propagated because the argument is, well, we've always done it this way and let's not, know, Brian over there might be a bit upset if we did something differently. So let's not upset Brian. So over time our brains, some people's brains evolved to be less worried about the social dynamic and actually sort of evolved in such a way that they were able to spot patterns more quickly or to come up with ways to make better tools. And there's this idea that over time the autistic brain seems to have sort of evolved to make a trade-off, the trade-off between social cohesion and thinking differently and being able to almost be a supercomputer in some parts of the brain.

 

Bren: it

 

Peter: So yeah, it's really interesting. I think that the reason for looking at it that way is to say, know, autism, ADHD, know, dyslexia, these are things that have been around for literally millions of years. They've evolved

 

Bren: Hmm.

 

Peter: over that time in order to convey some advantages, not only to the individual, but to the groups that those people were part of. And so, you know, I think we can get a little bit lost in the last sort of 100 years as well. it's not quite 100 years, it's probably the last 70 years, where the medical community have started to diagnose these things as deficits, rather than recognizing that these are differences and they create problems, but they're not so much problems to be fixed, they're problems to be accommodated.

 

Lenno: It is what sorry, go ahead, Sebran. Go, go.

 

Bren: Do you think that switch is where the positivity comes from? I think we may have had a conversation, the way that your mind works is you're able to think two or three steps down the line and say, I can think about how that works, yet it might take me a little bit longer to get there. Do you think, and I'm going to say within the data community, because that's the world of which we know, do you think that's now become more of a positive thing rather than it being looked at being different?

 

Peter: I can only speak from my own experience, but yeah, I have an ability to look at a problem and see a solution quite quickly. Now

 

Bren: Yeah.

 

Peter: I thought for years in work that everyone could do that. And I never thought too much about whether or not how I saw the world was unique to me.

 

Bren: Hmm.

 

Peter: I think wisdom has told me that actually the way I look at things is a bit different to some people. I tend to think in how things are connected, not in things themselves. And I can sort of almost roll forward lots of what if scenarios. So rather than it being right, my next step is going to be this. I'm already thinking about two, three, four, five steps down the line. If we do this, then this, then this, then this. And almost playing it back through my brain to say, well, if this changed, that would also Now I used to think that was because I was trained as a mathematician, but I actually just think it's the way my brain works. And I think it drives some people in my family a bit wild actually at times because I can almost see

 

Lenno: Yeah.

 

Peter: a bit too far past the mistake that's going to come shortly. And I've learned actually that I have to allow those things to happen because it's really quite annoying if somebody's going,

 

Bren: Yeah.

 

Peter: no, don't do that

 

Lenno: No, no.

 

Peter: because that might happen. But I think in the world of work, certainly, you know, in the world of complex systems, architectures and building pipelines, and thinking about how you're going to get the best value from your data for your customers. I've realized that actually I can think quite a long way ahead very quickly, but I've also realized that... And I've got to be very careful saying this because I don't want this to sound arrogant or patronizing, but it's really important that you bring your teams with you. And I used to assume that everybody could see the same solution, but I

 

Lenno: Mm-hmm.

 

Peter: now realize that it's not that they can't, it's just that we've got to go step by step. We've got to make sure everybody is sort of moving so that they understand A leads to B leads to C leads to D leads to E. And the fact that I was already F before we even started, I've got to learn how to to kind of make sure that doesn't become a derailer for my team. It should be a positive and it is a positive if it's handled in the right way. this is, know, thinking about it like that got me very much more interested in the side performance culture. because actually it's how do we tell the right stories, how do we communicate, how do we bring our audiences with us so that we're not asking people to make massive conceptual jumps. And do you know what, there's been plenty of times in my life where I've been really surprised that not everybody thinks the same way I do, but that's a beautiful thing, that's fantastic. thing to realize that if you've got a team of 10 people, embrace the fact that those 10 people are all going to be thinking differently. How do you bring all those different thought processes together to actually make something that is a multiplier rather than just getting stuck going round the roundabout?

 

Lenno: It's a really, really nice phrasing that that that that that you're using. It's inspiring to say the least. And a couple of things that are sticking in my brain is where you've mentioned the supercomputer. So I'm already like connecting like you should be probably working in the semiconductor area, and then forming the blueprint of the new NVIDIA chip or whatever that that that we wanna get out there. You know it's it's fascinating how you have been how you have managed to translate your A to F process into adoptable steps also for your surroundings. That's that that's behaviour that somehow you have grown into your method of leading teams as well.

 

Peter: It's really important because I mean, can vividly remember a conversation with a colleague where I was coaching this individual to do something similar. The individual I'm thinking about has ADHD. again, we would often find ourselves leaving meetings going, it's just obvious. And I remember having a conversation with her where we both realized that, well, it isn't obvious because if it was, everybody would be coming with us on that journey. And so actually, as much as we, you I'm sure you've had people on this podcast talk about, know, insights are only as good as the story you can tell the board that brings it to life. The same is true across, you know, lots of other areas of data and AI is that even though you could see a solution, the solution is only as good as how much buy in the team bring to get it from where you are to where you need it to go. And how many projects have failed? How many transformations have failed? Not because actually the plan wasn't good. It was, you know, maybe really visionary, but actually you weren't able to connect to the individual bits of the jigsaw in order to then actually give you a coherent body of work that would ultimately lead to that amazing big picture in the end.

 

Bren: I mean, yeah, it's mind blowing and fascinating because the way you articulate it feels really obvious now we're talking about it that we're all wonderfully different and we think different ways. But it's taken a bit of time to get that to become, I was going to say, just a normal conversation. Is that fair?

 

Peter: I think, yes, it is. I've spoken to a number of other leaders recently where we both recognize that maybe in our careers we became reasonably senior quite quickly, that

 

Bren: Yeah.

 

Peter: gave us a platform to advocate for our own needs, but also to advocate for other people in our team. And so I think where we see great practice and psychological safety and great teams being built, It's because the leaders are comfortable either because they've got lived experience or because they are able to show great empathy and really understand what teams need. But I think it takes a bravery as a leader to be able to manage as an individual or manage the individual, There's

 

Lenno: Mm-hmm.

 

Peter: a lot of... There's a lot of thought gone in, I think, over the years to what does work mean? We come together, we work nine to five or eight to six, or in some cases, seven till 10 in the evening, it depends on the industry that you work. But this idea of you just bring people together and work gets done. I think actually we're maturing our thinking now on some of this that says actually it's less about just working a block of time, it's about getting people to show up and work in the way that they find best. know, some of the best team members I've had over the years haven't done their best work at three in the afternoon. You know, it's needed to be 2 a.m. for them to do their best work, or ironically it needed to be 6 a.m. because actually this is a sort of vague, it's probably a bit too vague this to be a research finding, but I do get the sense that some people with autism tend to prefer working slightly earlier in the day, people with ADHD tend to prefer working slightly later. in the day. There's a lot of evidence actually to say that the ADHD brain evolved with a different sleep pattern because it was beneficial to the hunter gatherer groups that those ADHD brains were within because it meant that you had a built-in security guard, know, somebody who naturally

 

Lenno: Yeah.

 

Peter: wants to go to sleep later and wake up a bit later is going to do the night shift protecting your berries from the, you know, the pack of tigers that's trying to come and eat you or the berries. We've got to understand that actually as humans, we're all, you know, not only do our brains different, but our bodies are built differently. I'm sure, Brendan, I know you're very much into your fitness and your personal workouts and things like that. I'm sure you've come across this idea that not everybody will benefit from working out at the same time of day. It's very much the same when it comes to our teams, is that we've got to find how individuals are going to perform best. I often think a lot about high performance sports teams, where actually the job of a football manager, for example, is to try and get the best out of that group of individuals. It's hard work, isn't it? But ultimately that's what pays dividends in the end.

 

Bren: And just thinking on that thread of the sports teams, if you're leading a team, what's the best way or what have you seen work well in terms of understanding or starting that conversation? Because as leaders, want to invest in your people. Certainly, I think we do. You want to invest in your people. You want to give them the best environment to do their best work. Is there anything that you've seen work well as to start that conversation?

 

Peter: One thing I would say, it's maybe going off in a tundra, but I'll bring it back to answer your question in a second, is none of this should be about trying to label people. It shouldn't be about setting out to say, I've now identified you're autistic, or you've got ADHD, or you're an introvert, you're an extrovert. Labels can actually be quite unhelpful. But they can be very helpful, but it's not about labeling people.

 

Lenno: Mm-hmm.

 

Peter: It's about understanding how somebody does their best work and recognizing that an individual in your team may not necessarily work in the same way that you do. I think it's very easy as leaders, go back to my point about things being obvious, you know, it's very easy as a leader to assume everybody sees the world in the same way you do. And I think sometimes we can build teams in the image of ourselves so that we end up with a group of people who are all very similar to each other. I'd argue in some sectors and certainly, you know, data tech, AI, definitely a sector where this is important, it's important to have a group of people who are not all the same because you're not going to solve the really tricky problems for the future. If everybody is thinking the same, this goes right back to the two million years ago point when

 

Lenno: Right.

 

Peter: the reason that our brains start to evolve this way was to stop the groupthink. Is that you only get into really innovative ways of thinking and working if you can break down the groupthink a little bit. So it's really important to either build a team or to recognize that your team doesn't think the same way as you in order that you can bring that heterogeneity of thought process into the melting pot so that you can genuinely get the best answer you possibly can. But it takes a lot of courage for leaders to do that. And it's not that people can't, it's not that people don't want to. I think actually it's just the next sort of frontier in terms of people management and leadership style, leadership skills is being comfortable that that is something that is an effective way of building that high performing team.

 

Bren: It's I mean, I'm sure your mind is going like the clappers as well. There's a little part of it that says, you know, we started the podcast because we believe the world is all around people. And this is a wonderful way of actually articulating that is that we're all we're all wonderful in our own different ways. I think from a leadership perspective. Being able to provide the environment allows others to do their best should should be a given, as you say, the label part. It's something I've become more cognizant of and I guess I find myself being really careful around not saying the wrong thing, but also wanting to help do the right

 

Lenno: Mm-hmm.

 

Bren: thing. But I don't want to shy away from I need to learn about I want to learn about this. want to learn about how to help people do their best. I like seeing people succeed. But it's I guess what you're saying Peter is like just start the conversation. See what how somebody works best. It might be. early in the morning it might be late in the evening and go from there is that is that right?

 

Peter: I'm... Yeah, I think so. there's little tips and tricks you can use. one thing that's come out of the research is people who are neurotypical. these are people who have, there's no such thing as an average brain, but who have a brain that works sort of typically like a lot of other people. So neurotypicals

 

Lenno: Mm-hmm.

 

Peter: tend to prioritise importance. So we've all been on those sort of, you know, productivity sessions and leadership coaching sessions where, you know, we might talk about urgency and importance. try and make sure that we're doing all of the important but non-urgent work because that's where we're going to be, you know, do our best work. We'll do the big rocks and the gravel can all kind of follow later. When it comes to neurodiversity, it seems to me, and by no means is this a finished framework, there's a lot more work to do, but it's an interesting point of reference. It seems to me that autistic individuals, have very much a bottom up architecture in their brain. It's almost like autistic individuals want to prove everything from first principles every time they ever do something. Now that can be quite frustrating to neurotypicals, but it can also be a brilliant way of sort of finding the holes in the argument or finding the one row of day-tree millions that's a problem.

 

Lenno: Mm-hmm.

 

Peter: so autistic individuals tend to have bottom up processing, but they tend to be very driven by logic. they really get excited by work that's very logical, very predictable, very repeatable. Whereas individuals with ADHD tend to be driven by something completely different. It tends to be interest. So novelty, excitement, maybe a bit of risk taking. And so rather than labeling, know, our job and certainly my job at work is not to go into a room of people and go, sorry, I think you might be autistic. Have you ever thought about getting diagnosed? That is not my job and that's not my intention. But it doesn't mean that we can't help people realize that, you know, they do prefer logic or they do prefer interest based work. And I go back to what I was saying earlier about neurotypicals, they tend to prioritize importance. So actually, you can use that sort of spectrum, you know, this sort of three by three grid, if you want to think as a data scientist for a second, and think about where you sit on that, you know, do you prefer prioritizing based on importance, logic or interest? And everybody that you ever talk to will put themselves on a different point of that three-dimensional grid. But that can tell us a lot about not necessarily how their brain works, and it's not about labeling, it's not about diagnosing, as I say, but it is about recognizing that if I've got all this work to do, who would I rather give the documentation work to? Well, somebody who prioritizes logic and structure. Who am I going to give the job of systemizing and building a new architecture? probably going to give it to the person that likes logic and order and pattern.

 

Lenno: Mm.

 

Peter: who am I going to give a really high stakes pitch to? The person that likes novelty and interest and excitement and a bit of risk taking. And so actually over time, you can start to do is start to give out the work to your team and make sure people are in the right roles based on their preference for, do you have somebody here who's just going to absolutely smash out a project plan because they absolutely know the most important thing to do next. Or are you going to prioritise it because actually you're really excited about this project because you get to write down this really detailed documentation that is going to be the thing that we feed into the next large language model for X, Y and Z. Or are you the person that we need someone to go away and think really big, have bold ideas, but have crazy ideas that are going to really push the envelope. Let's try and get the right people with the right skills, the right experience, the right neurotype. onto those tasks because that's where high performance is going to come from. You're also going to get really happy teams if you do that.

 

Lenno: And if if if I capture this correctly, then you're you're even touching upon a a deeper level of task oriented supply and and and and demand almost. Because I think nowadays in in a lot of the roles that we have within a organization, there's always the combination of the the analysis and the delivery and a piece of communication and then translating that into a nice story that is compelling and recognizable by the mean of the organization. If I try to listen to you very carefully, then there are certain aspects of that that can be positioned better with a certain individual because that is where the interest lies more or the natural connection lies more. But then concatenating all of these activities, all of these tasks together might re result in a in in a much less functional method of collaboration. Is that

 

Peter: Bye.

 

Lenno: something you recognise?

 

Peter: I think there is a danger that you end up, you know, go back to the sports teams. know, some of the most successful sports teams have also been the most difficult to manage or have only needed a couple of bad results to for them to completely fall apart. Because when you've got a group of real specialists who have almost been optimized to do the particular role that you're asking them to do. There's sort of day to day 60 or 70 % of a job that is, I have to be careful with my language here. It's not boring, but it's every day. It's business as usual. It is, you you've got to fill out your status report. You've got to do the, you know, the paperwork that you maybe not choose to, but it's super important for somebody else in the business. Sometimes that sort of connective glue that you just need in jobs. I think sometimes those hyper-specialised individuals can find that quite hard. And so I think it's an interesting point. think, you know, just reflecting it back to you quickly there, I think what you're saying is, is there a risk of having hyper-specialised individuals that then can't work together? Is that kind of what you were

 

Lenno: Yeah.

 

Peter: you were touching on?

 

Lenno: Yeah, and and and especially what we're asking certain individuals or people around us to to to to perform in combination with that. So in in roles there may be an element of analysing. There may also be an element of based on that analysis, driving the conclusions, but then subsequently turn that around into a marketing type Level presentation in whatever shape or form, so that then a different layer within the organization can be taken with you. And from what you're telling, Peter, I more or less get the idea that certain aspects of that totality sit better with a certain individual. Sounds fake, though. But the combination more more than once in in organizations I found that people are reflected individually on that last communication or presentation bit that quote unquote malfunctions. However, the content that was generated, the analysis is spot on. The arguments are spot on, etcetera. And this is where the strength of that certain individual is sitting. So have I been allocating the the totality of the task maybe wrongly?

 

Peter: I think there's a couple of really interesting points you raised there. The first is in any team. you need a mix of people, mix of skills, whether neurodivergent or neurotypical. You know, in teams that I've run in the past, I've always been quite keen to have an individual, it's not their primary job, but who I knew would just look after people. You know, especially when you've got, you know, graduates and younger people. Have we got somebody in the team that can act as the, you know, as the glue that brings them together, just make sure they're okay, he's doing all the check-ins. You know, if they're checking in a bit more one-to-one with people, that's okay, because actually, Whilst it's not necessarily why they're in the team, it means the team is going to benefit. I think there's another point though, which says that if I think of some of the best architects I've ever worked with, I don't know whether it was fair to judge them on their presentations to the board. Because the thing that makes them brilliant at architecting is the one thing that means that they're not going to get the balance right when talking to the chief exec or the CFO or whoever.

 

Lenno: Mm-hmm.

 

Peter: about the investment that we need or the risk. And so again, I'm very much of the opinion that says people need to do the jobs that they're good at, but then bring it back to your team. your team design, you've got to recognise that somebody in the team, and it shouldn't be the leader all the time, somebody in the team, their job needs to be to then tell a story or to bring people and bring people with you do the stakeholder engagement or, you know, so I think in a way, I think the whole strength-based leadership thing is having a menu of things you need in your team. So I need a great pattern thinker. need a great systemiser. I need somebody who's prepared to take risks. Somebody who's going to tell stories. I need somebody who's going to just be really embedded in other teams and do brilliant stakeholder management. What you're looking for is a minimum spanning set to bring it back to some mathematics is you want the smallest team who bring you the most skills across all those things. And there is an overhead in leading that team because it's not easy to do it that way. You've

 

Lenno: Mm.

 

Peter: got to actually think about what you've got and what you don't have. But it needs the bravery to go. From what I've seen through my career is when you get it right, it is incredibly powerful and enables you to do far more than you might expect with the team size that you've got.

 

Bren: How about that? I mean, Peter, first off, I want to say thank you for being part of our conversation. To say that half an hour has flown by in the blink of an eye bodes very well for your podcast, that and when you bring it to the world. But I think we're, and thank you on behalf of everybody that was in the room over the last couple of conferences, because I think it's... Certainly a conversation needs to be had more, also one I think is actually quite exciting to be able to, know, how do we, how do we move the conversation forwards? And at the end of the day, this is a not a data podcast. It's effectively about the people and the people is what makes life great. And, you know, there's all different, different flavors and that's what makes us unique. But it's, it's a conversation that I was probably a little bit naive to at the beginning, but feel much, much better informed. certainly to help move things forward than I was in the past. no, it's been great. Without giving away what you're doing next, is there a bit of a sneak peek as to what's coming next for your research and for your endeavours?

 

Peter: I think we're trying to build a framework of sorts that says, I go back to what I said before, it's not about labels. This is not about trying to diagnose people who are undiagnosed, but it is about trying to give managers, leaders, a set of thought processes that they could go through that identify how to get the best out of neurodivergent individuals. It'd be great if we could get that. would also, I think there's a lot of content out there about what it's like to live life as an autistic individual or with ADHD or with this I

 

Lenno: Mm-hmm.

 

Peter: don't see a huge amount of content around leadership in that space. So how can you lead teams? How can you be a neurodivergent leader? And I think without giving all of the podcast away, that's what we want to be focusing on. So as a group of neurodivergent leaders, we're going to do some, you know, going to sort of explore a few themes. in order that we can create a little bit more safety in neurodivergent leaders being confident enough to lead the teams in the way that they hope they would have been led from earlier on in their career.

 

Lenno: Please share the the moment that you are launching, please let us know. we use I'm subscribing to to that directly.

 

Peter: Wow.

 

Bren: tell you what, you're getting good at this because that is a lovely segue into the favorite part of the podcast that I know you like. So to everybody listening, I mean, you've made it to the end of another, this is not a day to podcast episode. One of my favorites, I'm going to throw it out there. I think this has been brilliant, but we've only half done the job because the likes and the subscribes are what make it. We could dearly love a five-star review. We just want the five stars. I mean, that's what really helps the algorithm. but please do pass the pod and send us any questions that you have. But to say, I think this is probably going to be the first of a number of conversations with Peter and around this topic, I hope at least, without being on the spot.

 

Lenno: I hope so too. Yeah.

 

Bren: But Peter, thank you again for being part of it. Absolutely mega. Yeah, brilliant.

 

Peter: Thanks for having me. Good luck for future episodes.

 

Bren: Well, and with that, we will see you all next time.