The Future of Work Is Neurodivergent – Are You Ready?

Today we're talking about one of the most overlooked skills in leadership, understanding how different people think, work and communicate. My guest, Laura Anthony has spent decades helping leaders strengthen connections with their teams through the lens of neurodiversity and brain science. In this conversation, we explore the skills needed to communicate effectively with people who think differently. Recognizing that not all brains work the same way, we'll talk about how to approach these conversations with respect and curiosity, the risks of making assumptions or getting it wrong, and how thoughtful communication can become a powerful tool for conflict resolution, trust, and ultimately unlocking innovation within your team. Whether you're leading a company, managing a team, or just trying to connect better with the people in your life, this conversation will give you practical ways to build trust and create an environment where, where everyone can thrive. Let's jump in.

I would be interested to know when it comes to especially what you talk about with neurodiversity, how does that translate across cultures?

It's really interesting because there are different expectations, there's different acceptance levels in different countries. There was a really interesting study about masking. Do you know what that is? Masking is the concept of when I'm in a space, I'm going to try to mask the fact that I need a particular support or I need a particular accommodation. I'm going to try to look like I don't have that need. And there was a interesting cross cultural study about the level of masking in the UK and the relationship between your own mental health between UK and in Japan. So in the uk, the idea is I want to be myself, be my authentic self. And so when I'm masking, I'm not being my authentic self. So my mental health is going to suffer. But in Japan, where the expectation is you are going to fit into this particular norm, less masking is seen as a decrease of your mental health. So there's the inverse. So just some interesting things that I had to think about as I'm training a global team.

Yeah, fascinating, fascinating. So when it comes to neurodiversity, just awareness or acceptance, I know it's becoming more and more prevalent to discuss this in the workplace in the us which is great to see. What about other countries? Are we seeing the same types of pattern?

I think that study represents that. It represents that there are differences. And that's one of the things that I talk about, is that you can't make assumptions across the board about what is the level of acceptance, what is the level of disclosure. And thinking about that in the workplace means that you have to kind of be a chameleon and think about the community and the culture and the level of engagement and those individual factors when you're trying to train teams.

Yeah. Neurodiversity is such an interesting topic to discuss because we have communication, we have conflict resolution. And then when you throw in neurodiversity, it makes it a lot more complex. And also, especially because it's obvious. It's not always obvious whether or not neurodiversity is at issue in these interactions. And I've been seeing more and more often there are negative labels being put on people and the label is inappropriate. And a lot of times it comes from their diagnosis.

That's right.

Right. And so when we think about this as it relates to neurodiversity and communication, where, where should we even start?

Wow, that's that. There is a many, many different questions in that. You know, I'll start with this. Kwame, you had this, this story that you posted and it was about your conversation with Kai. And it was a conversation about his love language. And you talked about, you know, that you asked him two, two questions. How do you know that I love you? And then, well, do you know that I love you? That was the first question. And then, how do you know that? And so this is about love languages, communication. How do people understand that they're valued? How they understand that they are loved in that situation. That was a beautiful story. And when I heard that, I was like, that's very much like communicating with somebody. Hoops brain, think, thinks in a different way, who communicates in a different way, who feels valued in a different way. And so I guess the, the easiest thing is to ask. And everybody needs somewhat of a love language, I don't know, Persona within the workplace. So people talk about. I'm going to give you my personal user manual, right. I'm going to say, how, how do you receive feedback? How do you. What is the best way that you receive instructions? How would I know that you need supports? Or how do you feel valued within the organization? How do you know that you feel valued? So asking questions and not making assumptions is I think, what the key is for neurodiversity. Because number one, you don't know if somebody identifies as neurodivergent and you could be delivering feedback. I'll give you an example. One of the folks on my team is autistic. She schools me all the time. And I've learned to not make assumptions. Remember in law school when they said assumption of the risk? Remember that concept? Assumption Is the risk in neurodiversity, we it is very risky to make assumptions about the way that somebody might feel valued. I mean, the story that you told is, now I know exactly how my son feels loved. And with neurodiversity, you need to know exactly how somebody performs their best. In what environment do they perform, perform their vest. How do they receive feedback in a way that resonates with them? How do they want to receive communication or professional development, coaching, whatever it is. But just asking is really, I'd say nine tenths of the battle.

So let's talk about asking, because I know I've worked with some companies where there was one where they had a lot of psychological safety, a lot of trust. And so they decided, yeah, we're going to make it very. We're going to eliminate the taboo. We want people to feel comfortable sharing where they're coming from, what their experiences are and things like that. And then there was another company that I was working for where there was a severe trust deficit and so neurodiversity was at issue. But then the people who were neurodiverse didn't feel comfortable sharing that. And then the other people didn't feel comfortable asking because just of due to other issues within the organization. So when it comes to asking, what are some of the, the things that we should keep in mind to make sure that we're approaching this in a sensitive type of way that's both effective and respectful?

Well, I think the point that you're making, you're making is that the environment, that feeling of safety allows people to come bring their most authentic self. And so if there isn't that feeling of safety, they might not ask. I mean, that is. It is key to make sure that there's open lines of communication so people can show up in their best and most authentic self. Because in business we talk a lot about innovation. We talk about growth and AI and being innovative thinkers and being creative thinkers. But we rarely talk about where those innovative ideas actually come from. And they often come from the people who don't think the way that everybody does or communicate in the ways that we might expect or process information in the same way. And so if those are things that people aren't able to bring to the table, those authentic ways of communicating and think and processing and thinking, then you might not have as innovative of a team. But what do you need to do to create that safety to come forward is asking questions.

Yes. Oh, this is so good. Because especially with the tech companies that we've worked for there's, there's, there's so much that comes from the innovation portion of the company, right? When it comes to research, development, implementation, and everything like that, the part that is often overlooked is the communication challenges. Right? We have the UX team, we have the engineer team, we have the sales team, and they all have to collaborate in some kind of way, but then they all communicate very, very differently. And so you're right, it will inhibit our ability to be creative if we cannot communicate respectfully and understand these differences. And, and I want to take this to the simplest level possible, too, because I know there's somebody out here listening who's asking this question. When you're saying that we need to ask, whose responsibility is it to ask? And how do we know when it's inappropriate not to ask?

So I think the responsibility is on leaders. I think the leaders have the responsibility to create that psychological safety, create that environment in which people can bring their most authentic self. And so as a leader, I lead a neurodiverse team. I have individuals on my team who have autism. I have individuals on my team who have adhd. I have individuals on my team who have hearing impairments. So there are the things that I do as a leader is there because I want to kind of be a leader, have a leadership mindset for all of the minds on my team. So I feel that's on us. And the reason I feel that that's on us is because you're trying to set the standard for, for what is acceptable, for what is valued, for what is creating those growth opportunities for people on your team. And so how do you ask? I think you can ask those questions not about disclosing a disability. You can ask the question of in what type of environment do you feel like you're most productive? That's not about a disability. That's about how can I be most productive? How can I advance on the goals that are on my performance checklist? You can ask, how do you best receive feedback? Some people receive feedback better if it's this kind of conversation. Some people are like, no, no, I want to read it. I want to digest it. I want to have time to process it. So having. And I actually did this with my, with my team. We did. I have. I lead a couple different teams, but one of the teams we sat down, we did our own personal user manual. So nothing to do with neurodiversity. It was. And, and one of the questions was, how am I misunderstood? How might my behavior be misunderstood? And for some folks who identify as Neurodivergent. They might be doing some behaviors that somebody might say, well, that shows you're not credible, or that shows you're not engaged, or that shows that you are not taking this seriously. And so some of those behaviors, some of their demeanor might be misunderstood. And so training on that for leaders, so they don't make assumptions. Remember, assumption is the risk. Yeah. And making those assumptions. Now, you know, there are lots of people out there that train about body language. They train about, how do you. How can you tell that somebody's being deceptive? And I tr. I've. I've done training with a global tech company couple. And when you talked about. In. In tech, you have people who have different levels of. And preferences of communication. And if maybe there's a workplace misconduct issue and you have to go in and do an investigation, somebody on that, in that process, a witness, a party might be neurodivergent. So how am I determining whether somebody's credible? Well, they might be not making eye contact. You know, I'm just looking around. Or they, you know, they might be tapping or they might be doing something that you might say, I'm seeing that behavior. And that's obviously deception. It actually might be discomfort. Wow. So they might be uncomfortable with. And I'll just pick something in the environment they might be uncomfortable with. The lights. They might be uncomfortable. Just spoiler, we have a fan going here. So they might be hearing the fan. And all they could think about is this fan, this. This white noise. And so that discomfort is. Is kind of making them do this. They might be telling you the truth.

Wow.

But what they're showing you is discomfort, not about suppressing a lie. It might be discomfort about the sensory space. And for those who are neurodivergent, that can be really distracting. Wow.

This is. It's humbling, really, because a lot of times learn. Yeah, you really do. And if we zoom in on the skill of negotiation, we can recognize how fluid negotiations can be. And they're based on the reads that we make in the moment. And now we're realizing how far off we can be in those reads. If we don't understand the psychology and then zooming back out to the more everyday scenario where we're in the workplace, it makes so much sense for it to be on the leader because it could be awkward for a peer to find themselves in this type of situation. And then they don't want to create any awkwardness or violate HIPAA or anything like that. With. With any types of disclosures or requests for information. So it makes a lot of sense for this to come down from the top, from the leader. And I think with the way that you approach this, feel like this should be just good leadership hygiene in general going forward. Because even if we're not talking about an issue that amounts or a challenge that amounts to, like, neurodiverse, neurodiversity or something like that, people like to work differently.

That's right.

And if we can just be a little bit more accepting and inclusive in that regard, then I feel like the workplace would flow more efficiently anyway.

Yeah, there's a. There's a line that I love it. It's the ramp that you build for one becomes the pathway for many. And so if you think about this, have you heard of the curb cut effect? So the curb cut effect is this, you know, when you go from the sidewalk to the street, right? And there's a curb cut. There's a cut in the curb that allows folks to maneuver that safely. Well, that was built because individuals who use wheelchairs need a safe way to go from the street to the sidewalk. And the curb cut effect is this just because that was built for individuals who use wheelchairs mean it doesn't mean that people who are pushing strollers and travelers who are wheeling rolling bags aren't going to use that or individuals who are on skateboards or folks who are using, you know, riding bicycles. That curb cut benefits everybody else. So if you take closed captioning closed captioning Back in the day, in my era, they would have this thing on the line, says close closed captioning for the hearing impaired provided by. And then there would be a sponsor. Well, now everybody can just flip on the closed captioning and, you know, folks who without hearing needs are using it. You might be watching a show in the airport and you don't want to bother everybody. So you put the closed captioning you might be using scrolling on social media. So it's not just for individuals with hearing impairments who are benefiting from those supports, and that's neurodiversity as well. So if I'm somebody who maybe doesn't identify as neurodivergent, but I like time to process my feet, my performance feedback before I'm sitting in a meeting that would be beneficial to me. Now, I might not. I might be somebody who doesn't have sensory issues, but paying attention to the environment is always good so that there's no distractions or I'm not just focusing on something and not focusing on the engagement. So you can take that. You know, rising tide lifts all boats. All of those supports are helpful for others. And so that curb cut effect also applies to neurodiversity. Because it doesn't matter if you're the leader, it doesn't matter if you're the community volunteer or somebody in your family. Being open minded and willing to meet people where they are is what creates better relationships. And it creates better get better responses.

When you do that makes so much sense. Makes a lot of sense. And when we think about what we actually should do when it comes to interactions and communications and our relationships in general. Because now I am realizing that even in interpersonal relationships, these types of differences can cause problems because we're making those same reads. I was on a podcast a couple weeks ago, it was the Women of Impact podcast and we were talking about gaslighting, manipulation, some dismissive behavior that occurs in toxic relationships. Of the comments said, well, this might not be toxicity, it might be neurodiversity too. We didn't consider that. And I said, wow, okay, noted. Because that could manifest itself in relationships too. So let's talk about people who are interacting with others who are neurodiverse. What are some things that we could keep in mind to make sure that we're not making inappropriate reads and also interacting in a way that's effective and respectful?

Well, when I train on this, there's one of the core concepts is that great minds don't think alike. So that's something that we should all remember. And one of the things that I usually say, and a lot of people say this is when you've met one neurodiverse person, one neurodivergent person, you've met only one. Now, what does that mean? It means that although I have somebody on my team who has autism and although I'm a disability lawyer who's worked for almost three decades and, and handled many cases, in fact, my first hearing was about a student with autism. Not everybody with autism presents in the same way. It is a spectrum for a reason. So if you've met one neurodivergent person, you've met only one. So that means that you cannot predict the next time you interface with somebody who has autism or has another characteristic that is commonly identified with neurodivergence. So you can't prepare or predict. I'm sorry, you can't predict, but you can be prepared. You can be prepared to have an open mind. You can be prepared to ask those questions. How do you like this? What is your preference here? You're not asking them about any type of diagnosis or any type of disability. But it broadens your lens to not make those assumptions about well, this person will be doing this or I will, I'll have this response when I'm interface interfacing with somebody. So I think it's just that broadening of the lens, that being that openness and then making space for maybe you're wrong. Like, because some of these, these beliefs about demeanor and capacity, they're strongly held beliefs, but they're wrong sometimes and just being willing to say, okay, maybe this isn't the situation where that fits that particular rule. Because neurodiversity, like the word, sets the expectations. It's right, it's different. And so it's not just a one size fits all.

So I know you're correct in this response and I also know, so here's some pushback. No, there's no pushback. I know. I think there's going to be resistance in a lot of people's minds because it's not the answer that they want to hear. I think people would want, okay, if somebody has adhd, we do this. If somebody has autism spectrum disorder, we do this right? Like, like a recipe book or a script or something like that. But the reality is it seems like the solution is to become a more generous and flexible communicator in these types of interactions too. Because if we, it's almost like if we are hyper aware of it as well, that could be problematic because we start to say, we start to lump people into these big boxes and make assumptions that are inappropriate too.

Right. Assumption is the risk. Yeah, well, I think I love certainty that. I mean, come on, we're both lawyers. We, we, we want to have some certainty. And I have had experiences since childhood which tells me the brain is not a certain thing.

Right?

The brain is just not. There isn't a certainty. And so we have to have that flexibility. We have to have that flexibility and understanding that different people approach how they contribute, how they interact, how they think, how they communicate in a different way. And this is becoming a business imperative because right now statistics suggest that almost 20% of the workforce has, you know, is neurodivergent. But if you think about that moving forward In Gen Z, 53% of Gen Z identify as neurodivergent. And if you think about what is the future of our workforce, we have to get better at this. And I think there's a lot of organizations and communities and leaders who are thinking, looking down the road of having to be More aware and be more flexible with individuals who are going to expect maybe a more. Well, I'm going to use the word again, Flexible approach.

Yeah. And I feel like in the future it's going to be a competitive advantage if you're able to do that.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's so interesting. And also, let's get terminology down too, because I. I noticed matters. Yes. Because I noticed I have been saying neurodiverse. And you've been intentional about saying neurodivergence.

Correct.

Can you help us to understand the distinction?

Absolutely. So language matters. Neurodiverse would be the workforce. So a community might be neurodiverse. Lots of different diverse individuals within that workforce. A person would be neurodivergent. Now, that is what. That's the way to refer to folks in some respects. And I'm going to say language matters and I have to be flexible about this because there's a lot of different preferences. For example, my colleague with autism, in the disability world, and actually in most different worlds, there's identity first language and person first language. So you might be an individual with a disability or you might be a disabled person. And so there's preferences along the way. And the thought is that you use person first language. However, my. My colleague, she's like, I am an autistic person. That is who I am. That is part of my identity. I'm not an individual with autism. I'm an autistic person. And so when I refer to her, I refer to her as an autistic. My autistic friend, my autistic colleague. And because that is really important to her and that I found in the neurodiverse world with neurodiversity, it's very person specific. So language is really important. And that could be tying back to what you asked about earlier. You could ask, how would you want. If somebody makes that disclosure, how would you want me to refer to that? What's your preference on that? Now, I also have a little bit of a. I don't know, it just feels weird or wrong or I shouldn't use that word, but it just feels. I have a certain feeling about the word divergent. Because divergent feels. I don't know, what do you think when you hear the word divergent?

I feel like it's a lawyer thing. It might be because as you said it, I said, hmm, well, what does that mean? Because I. We like precedent, we like things that are on the straight and narrow. The. The what we're expecting. Right. And so divergent, if something diverges from what we're expecting, that's often described as something that is not good there. Right.

It's value laid. And you, like, you're, you're far away from norm or, and if. What if there is no norm? I don't know. There's. That's a good question. So for me, and this is just one person's opinion distinction, for me, I'd rather be distinctive than divergent. You have a different way of approaching things or thinking about things or generating ideas or seeing patterns. I have a distinctive way of. About that that feels, feels a little bit better to me. But I'm not going to control who's, you know, everybody's personal preferences about that. But, but language does matter. And for many people, talking about that in an open way just, you know, cuts down on the assumptions.

Right.

That people make.

And to me, this just sounds like, okay, we're going to treat everybody as an individual and then give them the respect that they deserve and. Right, that's it. And when it comes to respect, it's the, the person has to determine whether or not it was respectful, right? What, what works for you? And so just being able to be flexible there.

And then when you're respectful, that's the curb cut effect, then you broaden that to everybody and they, Everybody can have that space. Now that's not to say I, you know, this person's going to have this system in place for them and this person's going to have this system. But having some flexibility of your process, of your language can help the entire, your entire team.

And so what I'm thinking, I, I know that I remember this quote, I think, I think it was from the Incredibles movie. Oh, yeah. They said, when you say everybody's special, that's a, that's just a nice way of saying that nobody's special. And so there I, I want to catch myself because earlier I said, oh, well, I think this makes sense for everybody. If we understand how everybody works in their unique type of way, then we can be more respectful, more effective, et cetera. But, but is there a potential when we talk about neurodiversity where we start to realize just how many different types of people there are in the world? And then we say, well, isn't everybody kind of special? Does that kind of take away from the importance of the concept as a whole?

I think there is some resistance to say there is no norm to say that, to say that everybody is a little bit neurodivergent. Like, I think that that somewhat negates how much, how many obstacles, Individuals who think and process in ways that we don't expect.

Right.

What challenge that that is for them. And so I, I'm not, I, I don't have this. Everybody's a little bit neurodivergent, so we should just be all nice, you know, or we should all be accommodating or flexible. It's more that we have to understand that everybody thinks and can think in a different way. And so for some people for whom that thinking or that, how much time it takes for them to process or what their distractions are about sensory issues or how do they take feedback and constructive feedback, how those things manifest with them can create real challenges. And just to say that everybody's a little bit neurodiverse really doesn't honor that.

Right, right. Oh, this is helpful. And now because oftentimes when we have these conversations, we speak from the perspective of how do you improve your ability to communicate with somebody who is neurodivergent? Is there much on the flip side? If you are neurodivergent, how do you adjust or adapt in order to communicate your needs or communicate more effectively?

So there definitely are people out there. And a lot of times I work with schools, so I work with K12 institutions, I've worked with colleges and universities. And what they're doing is they are training students to be workforce ready. Right. They're training individuals to understand what it will be to negotiate with a job offer or negotiate with a boss or how to have more flexible thinking. What I do and the things that I'm working on is training the environment, training the leaders. Because there are certainly folks out there who are coaches to individuals with, you know, adhd. They're coaches for individuals who have dyslexia or you know, other, other neurodivergent classifications that, that create obstacles. But that's puts that on them, it puts the burden on them. I do think it's a two way street. So all of the systems right now are in place to help individuals become better at finding a job and keeping a job and succeeding at a job, but they're not allowed out there. Training the leaders and training the people to create those that psychological safety, that environment in which people can bring their most authentic self makes sense.

And when you think about the future, what does the future look like if we start to get this right and we do better and, and then the flip side, what, what does it look like if we keep on getting it wrong?

Well, we're seeing how much we need to think about the future with AI. And so what? So and there's a lot of people out there talking about this. One of the things that we think about with respect to neurodivergence is some, some of the strengths that are out there for those individuals who identify as neurodivergent. So you know, deep thinking and pattern recognition and really good attention to detail and some of the things that can't be replicated by AI creativity. And so as we think about the future and what the workforce will look like, it is likely that some of those most, those most innovative ideas are going to come from folks who aren't fitting the mold of the way that our systems expect us to show up to work. So if we think about being a forward thinking company or organization or community, those forward thinking entities are going to really want to harness the power of that neurodiverse workforce. Yeah, especially since we have this talent that's coming up the pikes. If Gen z is what, 30% of our workforce now in a couple years, if they number one, 53% of them identify as neurodivergent as I mentioned before, but in one study that I read, 80% of them want to work for a company that is supportive of neurodivergence. So not only are you going to be competing for talent who may self identify as neurodivergent, but they also may be expecting the workforce to be accommodating in that way.

Wow, that's interesting. Is there any, are there any hypotheses as to why it's in the rate is increasing?

There are some hypotheses are about diagnosis and late later term diagnosis. So one statistic I read was that women who are identified as neurodivergent, they're doing so in adulthood, not necessarily childhood. And for boys there, sometimes you have two boys, you know, sometimes they're identified within the school system. There is a lot of study right now about estrogen, not to get too, too technical but about estrogen masking the effects. And so when women who are women of a certain age, you can see by the video that I have gray hair. But women of a certain age, as their estrogen levels drop, a lot of them are going what is going on with my brain? And so a lot of them are becoming late diagnosed ADHD have late ADHD diagnoses. And so if you think about women of a certain age might be very high up or in very significant roles within the organization. And so there's a lot of awareness that is growing about either an under diagnosed population or a late diagnosed population that might be shooting up those statistics. Plus the awareness, right there's. You can't see anything on social media without somebody talking about ADHD hacks or, you know, how do you. How do you hack your ADHD brain? But even with all of that, there's still a significant amount of masking, a significant amount of people in the workforce who don't want to disclose that they have particular needs.

Wow, this is amazing. And hold on one second, because I want to get Simone in here too, because Simon, he always listens. He's very humble. He'd never tell you, but he has an incredible podcast in Spanish on negotiation. So brilliant mind. So I always give him an opportunity to jump in and ask an additional question. So, Simon, what do you think? Anything coming to mind for you?

Yes. Thank you so much for the opportunity. For instance, I am an immigrant. I struggle with the language. So when I started to work with kwame, it was 2020. I had to say, hey, Kwame, I don't need you to say please or anything. Just say what I have to do. Otherwise I don't understand that this is an instruction. So I had to talk about that because in my culture, we're different, so we are less more direct. And Kwame, he lived in Ecuador, so he knew exactly what I was asking.

I didn't know that. Yeah.

So for him, it was very easy. Right. But I struggle, like, to open that taboo to any other people because it's very difficult to say to someone, hey, I don't need you to say, hey, do me a favor, just tell me what to do or just be clear. Don't say, hey, would you be able to? Or anything like that. But it's like a T taboo. And I face it. I didn't face that with Kwame because he's a negotiator, so he can face difficult, difficult conversations. But with anyone else, I've been struggling to communicate that because I might sound like a. A bit rough. So how can I communicate or open that taboo? And maybe many people, in my case, it's just the culture and the language, but many people have different difficulties, right? To open and say, hey, this is what I need. So how can we start not only on the other side, but in the side of the person who needs it to open ourselves and stop masking.

I think that goes back to what Kwame and I were talking about, about the burden being on the leader. So even though Kwame had that experience and you felt like you could talk to him about that, because he lived in Ecuador. Had Kwame said to you, this is how I'd like to communicate. Does that work with you? I think that if there's one takeaway, then the burden is on us to create those spaces, to enter into those conversations, to open the door for somebody like you, Simone, to say, this is how I. We're going to start working together. This is how I like to deliver instructions or how I like to get feedback. How is it for you? And so that we can have an alignment and make sure that there's a connection. Because neurodiversity, you talk. We talked about tech. Neurodiversity could be thought about different operating systems and whether the operating system is native language. Maybe it's Apple and Android, like the phones. Like, you need to have a way to build that bridge and that connection, and I'll give you an example of that. So one of the reasons why I. I do what I do at this point, one of the reasons why I became a disability lawyer is because my mom had a traumatic brain injury when I was in elementary school. And so, Simone, to your point, my mom was a French teacher. Okay. And so her. Her native language is English, but she spoke French. And when she came out of her coma after the. The brain injury, she only spoke French. Really? She did not. Yeah, lovely.

Whoa.

She'd. And as a kid in elementary school, I did not speak French. So this, the idea about your brain and about different operating systems and needing to build bridges of connection, that. That from a very early age, I learned about how the brain doesn't always work in ways that we expect. And so she had to learn how to do fine motor skills. And, you know, she never drove again and she never taught again. But, boy, her French, she loved that. And so it was the thing that came back the quickest. And so when you. You're thinking about your different operating system with your language, it really is incumbent upon us, whether it's language, whether it's cultural differences, whether it's differences in thinking and how much time you might need to process something. We should be open to have those conversations because nobody would have known that my mom couldn't, you know, couldn't do all the things. She didn't look disabled, but she had different ways of processing things that created some real obstacles for her.

Wow. Whoa. I bet you didn't see that coming, Simone.

No, not at all.

That was incredible.

That was an incredible story. Thank you for sharing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it's one of the reasons that, that I got into the field of, you Know, being a disability lawyer, that's incredible.

Yeah. And it's. There's so much wrapped into that story, too, because we can't always anticipate what the brain is going to do. But then I really love that we're taking the responsibility for ourselves. Just saying, hey, this is how I like to communicate. What works best for you? Because essentially we're negotiating how we communicate. Right. And that's a beautiful thing. And I think about so, so many conflicts in general that have occurred that would have been completely avoided had that one conversation just happened.

Right. Because we assume. We assume intent or we assume what's going on behind the words or the behavior, the demeanor.

For sure. And yeah, let's go into body language again, because we. That's something that people love talking about. And I. The now, now, as a negotiation expert, I feel like, completely thrown off sometimes.

You say the rule is sometimes. Sometimes that is the case.

Yes. Got it.

That the lack of eye contact. Because in some situations, and in fact, some of the litigation that I've done with, you know, how to teach students with autism, one of the techniques is to have eye contact. Okay, you guys can't see, but I am staring right now into Kwame's eyes. And that could be uncomfortable. Okay. So somebody might avoid eye contact. Totally. Okay. Which is what I'm doing. Or have sustained eye contact that is uncomfortable. Because sometimes in those. The ways that individuals are educated, they're like, you have to make eye contact. Well, that could be really uncomfortable for the person. And so they might be doing something else while they're making eye contact, because that is what they've been taught. So you. And so Kwame might think, why is Laura making that. That weird eye contact? She must be trying to suppress that. She's not telling me the truth, or she's not engaged, or she doesn't really want this job or something. And if it's an. If it's an investigative interview, if it's a job interview, if it's a performance evaluation, you're going to be think. You might be thinking this is the reason why the eye contact is being avoided. It might be something else. So it's like this is an option that. That option might be telling you that they're trying to be deceptive. But as I said earlier, it's also an option that they might be just having some discomfort.

Right.

Not about suppressing a lie, but about something going on in the environment.

This is so helpful because essentially what we can do is we can just treat it as a data point.

Correct.

We saw something and now we will hold that. We'll, we'll consider it, but we'll consider it in accordance to the totality of circumstances.

And getting more data is important.

Yes.

So making a decision about somebody's performance based on how they actually perform or if they're right for a job based on performance metrics versus based on did they make eye contact during the interview? Because unless eye contact is required for the job, you want to make sure that you have other data points to determine do they have the capacity, do they have the engagement, do they have the ability to advance in their career by other data points.

So good. So I could talk to you about this forever, but I have to go on a flight to Italy and I have a lot of cinnamon toast crunch to eat.

Oh yes, you got the diversity of cinnamon toast Crunch.

We'll put, Simone, we'll put in like the video of the, the goodie bag of cinnamon toast. I didn't know the cinnamon toast crunch universe was, was so big.

So you have expanded your brain on different things. Body language, reading people and your favorite snack. Yes.

This is great, Laura. So for those of you, for those who are listening and they want to learn more about you and work with you and, and maybe get you on stage for an event, what's the best way to get in touch?

So you can go to my website, It's Laura G. Anthony.com I also have a bio at Incompliance Consulting. So it's Incompliance Consulting and there you can get information about me, my keynote addresses, the how I work with, I work with companies, I work with communities on how to advance their neurodiverse workforce and how to recognize them, how to accept, and not just accept, but also expect that the community is neurodiverse. And so there's information there about my trainings for leaders and my trainings for investigators because reading body language and doing workplace investigations, that's a lot of the work. And then training on conflict resolution, you know, something that is very near and dear to your heart and how to be more neuro inclusive in all of those avenues.

So amazing. This is so important. So thank you so much for taking the time with us.

It's been great. Yes.