June 19, 2019– It was in the Harvard Business Review magazine where I read that employers are starting to (finally) hire people who are of different abilities. The publication called it Neuro-Diversity and the article featured a young man named John who is on the autism spectrum. Many people with ASD are of higher than average intelligence and possess special skills that relate to exceptional memory and pattern recognition among many other things. (https://hbr.org/2017/05/neurodiversity-as-a-competitive-advantage)
I recently had the pleasure of meeting with a gentleman who is on the Autism Spectrum. During our meeting, he was witty and super intelligent; his knowledge of a specific topic was staggering. He told me that he had written a book and he wanted me to take a look at it. I happily agreed and now we are working on the publication of his work. His suggestions will change the way that we format books going forward! I was in awe of his attention to detail and his ability to remember stats and facts; he was a more skilled writer than many I have come across (including myself) with his technique and I admired his ability to write with such flow and ease. He taught me so many things in a matter of minutes and has forever changed the way that my company will create books in the future.
The point is, we need more neuro-diversity in our lines of work. There are gifted people out there who are not given a fair chance to display and use their gifts because perhaps they lack social skills or they don’t make eye contact or they have what some people would call obsessive behaviours. Those with different cognitive abilities have amazing work ethics, they are laser-focused and extremely creative and innovative. They see the world in a different way, in a way that we may not be able to see. But, if we give them a chance to join us in our line of work and at our workplaces, we’ll have a new perspective on creativity, friendship, abilities, and Neuro-Diversity.
X LLB
Pandamonium Publishing House 