Sarah (00:08)
Welcome to unDUBBED where we're unscripted, uncensored, and undeniably data. I'm Sarah Burnett.
Fiona (00:15)
And I'm Fi Crocker. And today we're diving into neurodiversity in a business topic that's incredibly relevant to our data community, where so many of us navigate our careers with different ways of thinking and processing information.
Sarah (00:29)
Today we're joined by Brian Tancock partner at Neurodiverse You, who brings a fascinating perspective from his journey from international banking across London, Singapore and Hong Kong to supporting mental health professionals. What makes Brian's story particularly compelling is his personal experience with ADHD and how that shaped his understanding of workplace dynamics.
Fiona (00:54)
we've put the call out to our Data Fam community for questions and the response has been fantastic. We'll be weaving those throughout our conversation. So this is really a community driven discussion about neurodiversity in business.
Sarah (01:08)
Before we dive in, a quick reminder that this conversation contains personal experience and workplace insights. Everyone's journey with neurodiversity is unique and what we discussed today reflects Brian's personal experience and observations.
Brian, welcome to unDUBBED We're absolutely delighted to have you here with us today.
Brian Tancock (01:31)
It's a pleasure to be with you and spanning the globe as well.
Fiona (01:35)
I know all the way from the UK. I'm super excited about this session. When Sarah told me that she had found you through LinkedIn, I was so keen to have you on the poddy And we always love starting with the person behind the professional. so could you tell us and our listeners a bit about yourself and your journey, where you've come from and where you are today?
Brian Tancock (01:59)
It's a long story. I keep thinking I should be writing the book and actually I have the skeleton of one. Every time I do one of these sorts of things, I write another chapter heading and think, yeah, that's three books now when I get around to it, but that's not so easy with ADHD My story. Like many people who grew up in the sort of 70s and early 80s, I went into work without much...
prospects to be honest our teachers said yeah, there's no jobs. Margaret Thatcher's run in the country. Everyone's unemployed. I'm a one in ten was the song by UB 40 at the time and I didn't have any real qualifications beyond my you know basic O levels didn't do a degree didn't even know what a college was. There was no pathway into anything like that. So I started working just like most people did whatever job I could find. I kind of liked computers and I kind of like geography. So I started working from an oil exploration company.
seemed to fit. And about a year into that I realised the pay wasn't so good and I heard the pay in banking was better and I thought well there's there's a savior.
Sarah (03:03)
Do you know, I was
similar. I was like, oh, banking, more money, off I went.
Brian Tancock (03:08)
Yeah, great. How wrong we were. Plenty of money, but not lot else. And I come from a pretty working class background as well. My dad was a police officer. My granddad used to drive trains. There wasn't a lot of what people would call real success, role model type success that people would of characteristically say. ⁓
And I went into banking and I basically was a computer operator. was in those days, it was paper and printers and tapes on tape decks, you very old style on digital faxes, if anyone can remember those. And I taught myself to code and it was a bit of a disagreement at work, here's their afternoon, we'll probably discuss many. And I ended up supporting the whole system based on my own knowledge of what I taught myself to code. Whilst they put the new one in, I was running the legacy and I...
stumbled around that for a while and I wanted to expand and I saw the neon signs that said Credit Suisse First Boston, which was back in those days, it was the place to be. It was the flaming Lamborghini's, it was the glamour of international banking, it was everything. You see the romantic side of it when you're looking at those things, but you don't see the hard work and the culture that goes with those sorts of things.
many great things, many not so great things. And I'd always wanted to work overseas to the point where my mum had said, we'll either do it or shut up because she was getting bored. And I put out some feelers. Back in those days, there was freelance Informer and there was an article in there and I managed to get an interview. But whilst the interview was happening, I ended up actually getting a project to go out to Singapore and run a project on disaster recovery for them for two months.
One thing led to another and I stayed. And I continued through projects, mainly around credit risks. So that's, know, for those that don't know, it's very much around the numbers, around predicting what we possibly could lose on derivatives and fixed income. And I proceeded quite fast through those jobs. I probably went a little bit beyond
I'm not saying my capability, but where I was comfortable with. Probably I shouldn't have taken the sort of leadership roles where I was getting all the pressure and stress and anxiety. And I ended up burning and crashing quite spectacularly. Some examples, which I'll include in the book, where I actually did it very publicly. Relationship failures, know, acting out, trying to cover up, trying to mask, lots of things, and I fell out of banking.
hit rock bottom. Actually, I think I went beyond rock bottom. You know, it really felt like I saw the underside of it. Not knowing where I was going to go. And I'd said to my psychiatrist at the time, I've done everything, but it still doesn't feel good. And he said, well, you need to get away from your job. That's toxic to you. It's not supporting you. It's not supporting what you need. And I said, well, if I do that,
I'll be out on the streets because living in Singapore without a banking job would be impossible. Absolutely impossible. And he still said to me, yeah, but what's the worst that can happen? He's saying my job is probably worse than living on the streets. You know, was, it was that bad. And, many of us go that way and we don't realise what's actually happened to us. I was lucky. I had some good people around me.
some people that supported me, guided me. I'd remarried. My wife was very supportive, very strong, very loyal, put up with a lot is probably the better way to say it. And I had space and I used that space to recover and moved into a very cathartic work of working in psychology. And that's grown and grown and here I am today.
Sarah (06:48)
Yeah, wow, what a powerful story. And thanks for sharing that with us. I can really sense the emotion on it kind of makes me quite emotional as well. Because I think in banking, you know, people do really bottom out, it can really, you know, burn people. And you've made such a huge transition, from banking, to being in this neurodiversity space
What were some of the transition periods that helped you think, yeah, I am on the right track with this?
Brian Tancock (07:19)
am I on the right track? know, even today I have doubts, that comes with who I am, that comes with my makeup, you know, the way I'm wired. I don't think I'll ever be at a point where I think, I found my place. What I do know is where I am feels much, much more comfortable now. What I do know is I work with people who show empathy, who get it, who get that we're different.
The type of work I do is very cathartic. I won't hide, I'm 59, I'm 60 next year. Career-wise I think of myself as if I'm in my 20s. I can be very successful at whatever age I am. I can reinvent at whatever age I am.
Now I've my train of thought, which is an ADHD symptom, which if you want to leave it in an edit, I don't mind because it's going to happen quite a lot. I wish I could roll back 20 seconds and think why was I saying what I was saying?
Sarah (08:07)
you
Fiona (08:09)
Ha.
Brian Tancock (08:12)
⁓ I really have forgotten what I was saying.
Fiona (08:14)
That's
So we were talking about the transition period from banking, and then coming into supporting neurodiverse individuals and companies that I suppose, is that right? Is that where you're at right now? Do you want to describe to us a little bit about what you do in your day to day job?
Brian Tancock (08:19)
That was it, yeah.
Yep. Yep.
So, you know, having hit rock bottom, I was kind of left. What do I do now? How do I survive? when I left banking, my son, my youngest son was about five years old. I've got twins who are 20. One of them's in the army now. And my psychiatrist that actually, when he encouraged me to leave banking, he actually offered me a job and I went and worked for him.
He had the biggest private practice in Singapore. He's a fellow at Johns Hopkins in the US, an addiction specialist. And he said, well, I've got some things you can do around here, which is, you know, that was like a hand that reached out to me. And I started doing some work around, you know, basic business things. And what you find is what I did in banking and what I do now, there's a lot of overlap, huge amount of overlap.
You know, things are never 100 % different than normally 90 % the same with a little bit of difference. And I started working with him and he said to me, I think you have an aptitude for this, you get it. You know, it wasn't from reading, it wasn't from proper learning as traditional learning, it was from personal experience and investigating and reflecting. So I started working for him and I also started working for a few other
psychiatrists and psychologists. Often people that had worked for their country's health service or worked for big companies but were wanting to branch out and go their own route, have their own little business, see 10, 15 clients a week. And I started helping those people grow their businesses. And I went through a point where I thought, shall I become a counselor?
because I've always been told I'm good with people, I can counsel people, people come to me for advice. And a few things didn't sit right with me. And one of them is, and it's actually a symptom that I now understand as part of my ADHD, is that I'm not very good at taking exams. I can't read a long piece of text and then recover it, rote and write it in an exam, which is a memory test.
They're testing your memory rather than your knowledge of a subject or intelligence In fact even doing something like this is a memory test because you asked me a question And what was it a minute two minutes ago? I'm now having to remember the question It's interesting when we interview people for neurodiverse you we Actually put the questions on the screen, which is very unheard of when you do interviews We actually give them the question and allow them to refer back to the question
Fiona (11:00)
Mmm.
Brian Tancock (11:06)
So I couldn't take the exams, didn't feel comfortable with that. And I thought, how can I have an influence? How can I help people? How can I prevent people from going where I did? Or if they do go where I did, from not doing it in such a catastrophic, destructive, self-sabotaging way. And I thought, well, I can learn and go and get the qualifications, but I don't really want to do that.
or I can work with people that do have the qualifications. So I work with psychologists and psychiatrists, the founder of Neurodiverse U, Dr. Miriam Mavia-Zajac. She's a chartered psychologist, as qualified as they come, multiple qualifications. I take someone like that and I amplify them. I help other people see them. I help them reach other people.
Whether I'm amplifying or I'm a bridge, you know, can use any of those sort of terms. And I've realized I can reach more people.
Fiona (12:08)
It's really interesting.
There's a lot that you've spoken about. There's really interesting weaving through that conversation. So one of the things, about our podcast is we don't offer guests the questions beforehand But I realize how that may impact you with your ADHD as well. So maybe one of the things that we can do, Sarah, as we're going through this is
copy and paste the questions into the chat window for Brian so that they're there and available if you want to refer back to them.
Brian Tancock (12:42)
And I love, you've picked up, I said something, I prompted it, but you've reflected on that and reflected that back into the conversation. And actually I don't have any problem whether, you know, other people hear that conversation because I think it's so important that we recognize that people are different. We function differently, we work differently, we hear differently, we see differently.
Fiona (12:51)
Yes.
Okay.
Brian Tancock (13:07)
It's not a one size fits all as we used to think.
Fiona (13:11)
Mmm.
Sarah (13:12)
Yeah,
for sure. And I think one part that I picked up on as well as around, you know, that rote memory learning for exams, that's something that I've always struggled with. And I can see my son now going through his education, struggling with that as well. And it really disappoints me that even today for, you know, a 12 year old child who is neurodiverse, this is part of his reality.
when we've struggled with it in the past.
Brian Tancock (13:43)
Yeah,
the reality is that a significant percentage of people and the statistics would say it's about 15 % of people are neurodivergent. Majority of people are neuro typical, in that their brains function in roughly the same sort of way, even though they're all unique. And then you've got your neurodivergent population, which let's just say on average, it's 15%.
groups of people have more or less, know certain industries attract certain types of people, certain types of behavior. But we're living in a world that was created for a certain group of people. And within that, you probably had your alphas and they had more opportunity to sort of spin the world to the way that worked for them. As happens in every workplace, tends to be the workplace works for the boss rather than all the employees.
or it works for a majority, which, you know, we apply 80-20 rules and if 80 % people are fine with it, that's the way it's going to be. And it's probably like that 80-20 when we talk neurodivergence, but they're different and they're all different with each other. There is no one size fits all. So when we come to this subject and we're thinking about someone's son in education, okay, well, if we do ABC, then everyone's fine.
because they, that ABC might not be what they need. Their needs may be very specific. they might be sensitive to certain things. I've been having a lot of conversations off some articles we published around how neurodivergent people are affected by heat and how they feel and how their internal thermostat might be maybe not even at a physical level, but the way their brain translates it. So their brain kind of interprets hot, even if they're not actually hot.
or they find their sheets itchy and they don't sleep as well as other people because every little ridge in the sheets affects them. We're in a world that's set up for the majority and particularly our children in education. It's very, very difficult. We all get frustrated with the teachers. There's always complaints about the school not taking it seriously, but the reality is how there's that one teacher with, let's say, 30 people in the class.
cater for all 30 people, you know, they all have different needs. Some of them have more needs than others. There's no prescribed list that if you do that, it will work. It's difficult for everybody. And that's why companies like Neurodiverse You exists because they bring the specialist expert information. They can bring tools and techniques, not just to say, do these five things and you'll make your
Sarah (15:55)
Mm.
Brian Tancock (16:20)
environment, neuroaffirmative, positive for neurodivergent people, because it might not be those five those people need. It's a way of thinking. It's an approach. You know, it's the open mindedness that you bring to things. Do you look at people and look and say, well, they have a backstory? You know, everyone, when we see someone getting angry, we don't know what they went through. We don't know what's happening in their family. We don't know that if they got a diagnosis for something quite dreadful yesterday.
but we get upset that, you got angry, you know, you shouldn't do that, it's not right. Maybe you would have got angry in that situation, maybe everyone would have done it. Everyone has a backstory, we're different, and that's the number one thing that we have to bring to any of these conversations and say to people, learn how to listen to them, learn how to talk to them, learn how to speak to them, learn how to...
respect the boundaries that people have, physical or otherwise.
I apologize for my scream of consciousness.
Fiona (17:23)
It's our typical norm, you're welcome. You're here, you don't need to apologize. You're fitting in well with us.
Brian Tancock (17:24)
Ha
Fiona (17:29)
⁓ Okay, I'm gonna move us along into, we've got a lot of great questions from our community and I wanna make sure that we do spend some time sitting in them and getting advice for you. I wanted to start out with one that really resonates for me, which is, what's the best way to approach my manager when I need specific support?
Brian Tancock (17:54)
When you need support, firstly, I always think, well, it's gonna be different depending on who your manager is and what your relationship with them is. But I think the number one thing I would say to people is you must ask, you must speak up. If you keep it quiet, if you keep your needs quiet, don't vocalize them at all. You will never ever get a good outcome. If you have the conversation,
At least you can start it, you can progress it. And I know how fearful it is for people to have those questions. All the time I look and hear things and...
people were saying, I can't talk to my manager. If you can't talk to your manager, you find someone else that you have confidence in. Maybe another manager, maybe your ex manager, maybe your HR person. Although I'm cautious that sometimes the HR person, your HR person has a relationship with your boss, which is stronger than the one they have or an obligation to the boss stronger than the one they have for you. So, you know, I...
to sort of caveat that people have to think about what their relationship with the different people are. For the boss you trust and you're comfortable with just be you, I think. I think you have to put your cards on the table if you try and give them an alternate version of who you are or try and script it in a way that you think they want to hear it. It's not going to work. I think the biggest thing I did was not speak up. I didn't have those conversations.
to say in advance and say to my boss, I'm not being lazy here. It's just not working for me the way we're doing it. I need it to be a different way. Or I don't even know the way it needs to be, but I'd like us to think about it. Or I'd like you to help me get some help from people. I never had those conversations. I was afraid to have those conversations. I only actually said to anyone at work about my mental health when I'd already resigned and instantly.
Almost hundreds of people came and spoke to me about their own. People are just craving. But the number one thing, and I've learned this during the crisis counselling, is during the crisis counselling that I've done, I've encouraged people and I know it works. Just try it and test it. Go and talk to somebody. Your boss, if you can, another person of influence within your organisation. If not your colleague, even ask a colleague to go and have the conversation for you. There are different ways of skinning a cat.
as I used to say, if that's even correct to say these days. But have that conversation, don't be put off one way or another, have the conversation and least share how you're feeling.
Fiona (20:22)
Hmm. It's, think it's really important. The reason why it resonated with me so much was I had someone who was ADHD in one of my teams and she did share with me in confidence that she was diagnosed and there were also problems with medication in terms of the availability because there's been shortages globally.
Brian Tancock (20:45)
and globally.
Fiona (20:47)
And you know, there's all of these things that had she not told me about them, it would be incredibly difficult not to performance manage even at some stages. But in all my years of management, I didn't know that it was possible to get accommodations for individuals. It's not something that's widely spoken about.
Brian Tancock (21:12)
And
it's a newer thing. It's actually, know, in UK, we have the Equality Act and we have requirements that companies make reasonable adaptions. And what's tricky sometimes is you don't know what you want, nor does your employer. So, you know, how are you going to get those adaptations or if you even find them, but to start having that conversation?
And the problem is a lot of the time people don't know that they're, undiagnosed. They're feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, that the system's not working for them. They can't function. At a time of day, they're being asked to function, like typically in banking, you'll know, and in a lot of jobs, you know.
If you couldn't, if you weren't thinking about working at 7 a.m. in the morning, there was something wrong with you, you know, my boss would go, hey, we're having a Goldman Sachs day today, we're all turning up at five o'clock and we're gonna sleep under desks. Sorry, that doesn't work for me. I don't function particularly well in the mornings. I'm in a UK morning here. Some things do motivate me and I function well, this is one of them. But at times I need to work slightly differently. for me, I didn't know I was.
neurodivergent, I found out I had anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder and depression. But I didn't understand it, I didn't know where to turn. And I was actually lucky myself, a friend said, I think you need to go and see someone and actually recommended the psychiatrist to me because they were a friend. It's just someone else who was mental health trained, recognized the symptoms in me. And I think
That's where companies have to make the difference because often their employees aren't able to determine that they even need help. You know, they just kind of feel like a failure or things are not working for them or they're depressed. They don't really know what's going on. They're overwhelmed. They feel that, you know, maybe I just can't do this job. Maybe I just can't have these conversations. Maybe I'm not a good person. They don't know what's triggering those thoughts and responses in them. And
when we work with employers, part of the work is to help people understand, to triage, you know, when you get that employee come to you and say, well, I'm struggling or this or that, a line manager has a sort of standard toolbox they go through, but it doesn't include things like neurodivergence or mental health generally. For them to actually sort of, you know, run it.
through their triage process and go, could it be this? Would it be worth exploring something in a certain direction? Early signposting, obviously you don't want to label someone and go, well, you must be this, therefore you're going down this pathway. So it's quite sensitive. But to consider that people might need things to be slightly different is revolutionary to be honest in most workplaces. It's either my way or the highway.
That's such a common expression because that's generally how businesses work or line managers work.
Sarah (24:09)
you touched on a few things there just around, know, a lot of people are undiagnosed. And then you've got this, this piece where, you know, not one fit for everybody. And we're all kind of on our own journey. So it's quite a conundrum, really, isn't it? Of what we're trying to support and solve for and, you know,
Where am I trying to go with this? script.
Brian Tancock (24:34)
a
⁓ really, really complicated subject and things are overlapping. The symptoms, the conditions that we have are overlapping, there are physical health, there's mental health, they overlap. I've been in hospitals several times with ECGs and things on, with hospitals checking whether I was having a heart attack. It was actually anxiety every single time.
Heart's always been, I got a slight heart problem, but it's not the heart. The symptoms are very similar, very, very similar. And then we have overlapping of different things. ADHD shows up later on. It could show up when you're under pressure. It can show up when you're perimenopausal, menopausal. Is that your menopause or is that ADHD that's never been diagnosed? Could be both.
could be ADHD alongside autism, which is AUDHD, A-U-D-H-D, when you've got it combined. It's quite hard, it's very hard, and that's why it takes real specialists that use very, very comprehensive tools, gold standard tools like we do to actually get the diagnosis correct. So those people that are undiagnosed in England, there are waitlists of 10 years.
to try and get an ADHD test, to get it through the government service, the NHS, can be almost impossible. In some areas, they're not even referring people anymore. So unless you can pay quite an amount of money, you won't even have access to a wait list. And then the wait lists can even private on averages around a year to get an assessment. Thankfully, we're only a couple of weeks.
is something we're trying to retain. for the average person in England, they just can't even get access to a diagnosis.
Fiona (26:22)
So does Neurodiverse You help the individual who's neurodiverse or do they help the organization who has neurodiverse people or is it a combination of both?
Brian Tancock (26:34)
It's certainly a combination of both and you know, our foundations, our engine room as I call it, I'm always a banker, I'm always a project person, so I think about pillars and where the engine room is and things like that. The core business, fundamentally, we are a specialist company that diagnose ADHD and autism using gold standard tools in a timely manner with the best, know, best and smartest, brightest.
people doing those assessments and we have you know, they all work with their peers to make sure we have a quality assessment rather than something that's done by an individual. But that's only gonna sort of solve part of the problem, know, those that you know getting a diagnosis, you know, it's it's often quite a binary thing, you know, it's either a one or zero, you know, now how do I live with that? That's often what people are left with they get a diagnosis. Yes, you've got it.
What do I do with that now? And actually getting a diagnosis can actually leave you in a, sometimes a worse position because you've got confusion. Sometimes you have grief for your old life that you you realize is now not what you thought it was or what it's gonna be in the future. There's all kinds of emotions that come in. So assessment and we do coaching work and we do, and we're building communities. We're about to launch one for parents. ⁓
with ADHD or autism in the family, either in the children or in themselves or even in grandparents, because there's such a need. So support is there, but I always think when I come from a business perspective of how do you reach people, or you reach people in the communities that they live, where do most people live? They cluster in these communities called workplaces.
Not everyone does, know, and obviously there's a percentage of people that don't work and there's other ways we can get to them. But actually, if you can go to some of the biggest workplaces and influence how they work, and I used to, the biggest one I ever worked with was BMP Paribas and I think that was 300,000 something employees. If you can make a cultural shift in a company like that, or add another question that they ask when people are underperforming, you've got the ability to change 300,000 lives potentially. You've got
They're family members. You've got the friends, the loved ones. You've got access through one company to maybe two million people, two million lives you could possibly influence positively. So our work, our primary place is therefore the workplace. And actually that's where a lot of the symptoms show up because that's where we get put under the most pressure. And when we get pressure, symptoms show that we otherwise might have been able to cope with or mask.
mask even to ourselves as well as other people. And workplaces and universities and colleges, one of the most horrific things for a young person, one of the most destabilising things is to, you have this dream of going to university but you're getting close to the day you're going, you've got accommodation to sort out, you've got a new way of life, you're moving to new people. It's intense, even immense pressure upon people.
and that transition can show up things that weren't diagnosed previously or not understood or tip someone over. And to be able to get to these communities, whether it's a workplace or a college or a university, and actually to work with them to help them understand people, understand the needs, understand that people need adaptations or even a hand of friendship or of comfort, or even some space, even some flexibility. That's where you...
can quite literally save lives by just asking a few other questions, offering that hand. If we look at, I've done work similar to Samaritans and I can tell you that most of the people calling up there have got school-related, college-related, work-related pressures. So these are the communities with access to people. They've got structure, they've got process procedures that you can work with to...
get things consistently applied. They've got data even to tap into your core subjects. Interesting listening to, I think it was your episode 19 with Serena Fisk, Dr. Serena Fisk. And what struck me was the, about data, KPIs, and it was very clear that she was advocating for also don't forget the humanity.
Don't forget the human dimension. Don't forget that we are different. And I thought, actually thought that was quite a lovely conversation blending into this one. And it has acted as a perfect bridge into this subject because too often we do just look at, companies do look at KPIs or numbers and act upon that rather than, oh, maybe this person's got a backstory. Maybe they need help. That doesn't equate to ones and zeros quite as easily.
Sarah (31:27)
I really love that, like just putting in those extra questions that can, you know, just help cater for a more broader variety of people's needs. And then I guess the important part then is also having the culture that listens to the answers of those questions as well. ⁓
Brian Tancock (31:43)
Yeah, and it's interesting
that we will build that into a business process, but we don't tend to think about our employees in the same way. In our business process, we've got zillions of data points, we've so much information. But when we come to our people, it's often...
Are they performing against some crude measure, which might be in a sales or intacted thing. will be a number, you know, if they made 15 % more than last year or something, you know, it could be as binary as that. we, we need a zillion data points, thousand, you know, even three would probably be an improvement, you know, compared to where we are today. how well, you know, the manager is great. His departments make 20 % more than last year. Well, how many.
How well did he make that money? Often we get employees or departments that actually go opposite the company's brand and its identity to make the profit and they still get paid the bonus. They might have destroyed their people and still got paid the bonus because no one brings it all together and say, well, actually we had to rehire half the company, cost of so many thousand each employee plus retraining them on average, let's say it's $200,000 per employee that's cost us.
They don't actually bring the two sides together. So even if you look at it purely from a business perspective, it's worth asking these extra questions.
Sarah (33:07)
For sure, for sure. Just staying in the workspace, yeah, I've got another question from the data family around the recruitment process. And they've mentioned things like personality tests with questions where they don't like any of the answers and kind of having to come back six or seven times to meet different team members. And that kind of real...
detailed process that just doesn't seem to fit for people with neurodiversity? And what's your take on how hiring process could be more inclusive?
Brian Tancock (33:44)
Yeah, the hiring process, I've done a huge amount of hiring. I've been hired several times, thankfully not a huge amount of times. I did have one job where I actually got offered the job and I turned it down afterwards and I'm glad I did, but I had 14 interviews globally, all the way up to the CIO, COO, and this was a major, major international bank.
Fiona (34:02)
Thanks
Sarah (34:02)
Wow,
14.
Brian Tancock (34:07)
Thankfully I turned the job down because I actually said I think it's three people's jobs, not one. I was obviously well aware of my capabilities and later on they come back and talk to me again and said, would you like one of the jobs? You were right, it was three jobs. Would you still be open to doing this one? Which was still way above probably what I wanted to be doing pressure wise. Yeah, the system is geared to again, the majority are traditional.
Fiona (34:21)
you
Brian Tancock (34:33)
group of people, we see it right from the inflexibility of even doing the interview, setting the interview up. It's gonna be at six o'clock on a Thursday, there's no other way we're doing it. If you wanna work for us, you will accommodate us. But that doesn't always work, we work in different ways. Some people can't do a video call, it just doesn't work for them. Some people can't talk on the phone, it doesn't work for them. Now the sort of naysayers will say, well,
then we don't want those people. But actually you're missing out on so much because some of the most brilliant people are neurodivergent. We know it, I think around data, around banking, around engineering, some of the, let's say the guys that do the pricing or the maths, they're more likely to be neurodivergent for the numbers will be higher.
And they're going to be a little bit quirky sometimes, you know, don't expect them to put a tie on, don't expect them to put a suit on. So we destabilise people, having the flexibility, giving people options to be themselves, express themselves. And actually you're going to see the real person in that interview rather than a version that I think you want to see. You know, I can wear a mask when I go to an interview. Do you want me to wear that mask or would you like me to take it off? If you make me work your way, you'll see the mask.
If you want to see the real me that you're actually going to have to live with as an employer, let's kind of meet in a slightly more friendly environment. You know, I've hired people that had really strong stammers and were stuttering a lot. Turned out to be one of the best hires one of the best friends I ever hired. But it would have been so easy to write them off. I've got a friend who's gone on to be CIO of several global banks,
And to this day, I'm sorry for not having hired her. That's how I met her, doing an interview. And I bought some preconceived judgments, stereotypical views to that interview process. I didn't give her a chance. I can now think of other people I didn't give a chance. There was one example this week. I was talking with Dr. Miriam about...
people's resumes and I said that I would notice when someone hadn't formatted right, if a bullet was you know five pixels over from where it should have been or something was trailing or there was a slightly different font or spacing.
Sarah (36:51)
Put your hands up if you're exactly the same.
Fiona (36:54)
You
Brian Tancock (36:54)
Yeah,
I noticed those things and I said at the time and I dismissed many candidates because of those things and...
Well, my view, I was so, so sure I was right, was that your resume, your CV is the most important report you're ever gonna write. If you can't get that report right, how can you do one of mine for your work? If you can't get your own right, you're never gonna do mine right. How wrong I was, because, so what, you know?
get someone else to do the formatting. If that person could do the brilliant analysis better than anyone else, pay someone to do. And this is where the accommodations and adaptations come. So now, certainly under UK law, you can in certain circumstances have a double that will do that. And the government will fund some of that so that you can be partnered because...
We weren't supposed to do everything ourselves. We never were. Companies recognise that. They have teams, yet certain things, we have this notion that people should all work a certain way. Used to have assistants, used to have even secretaries, I'm not advocating for going back there, but, you know, we're not all going to be able to type properly. If you're dyslexic,
You know, that's a great example. had a very, very good colleague who very senior. He couldn't write. just couldn't write. And he would be writing emails and you say, Brian, could you come and look over my shoulder and just check this? it make sense? You know, he told us about that. But what if he hadn't told us about that? He probably wouldn't have got as far as he had in his career. know, dyslexia is a very obvious one. You know, they aren't going to make spelling mistakes. They are going to jumble their words up.
provide them with support. It's not expensive. Yet you might be untapping, unlocking brilliance. So don't dismiss them just because of formatting error, spelling mistake. Yet typically we do, we say, well, how am going to turn that pile of resume, 100 resumes into five I want to interview? We use those crude measures and unfortunately, time and time again, they're going to exclude certain groups of people. And it could be for neurodivergence, it could be culturally.
or they got a funny name, yeah, we might have communication difficulties, you know, it's, so the sort of things I'm talking about apply to neurodivergent people, but actually they, if you look to, if you adopted a lens that, worked for neurodivergent people, when you're dealing with your staff, you'd actually find that lens because it had empathy and it had more consideration for people's needs and asked questions and was prepared to adapt.
that lens would benefit all of your staff and actually get more productivity from all your staff. It would unlock another 10 % profit or reduce costs by 10%. And to be honest, that's the way we have to incentivize companies, actually show them the bottom line and benefits and show them where in the accounts looking after neurodivergent people is what lines in the accounts are going to benefit from it. Sad but true.
Fiona (40:07)
As a leader,
in some of the more senior roles that I've been in, in particular, where there's over, 100 people in the team. So we're talking about big teams. As organizations, we have strategies that we need to deliver to. And there are some boundaries around those strategies as well, which can sometimes...
infuriate the teams and I would say not just neurodiverse people but neurotypical people as well but I think that some of the things neurodiverse people really struggle with. As a leader what can I do in my communication to help people to understand why there are these boundaries in place?
Brian Tancock (40:52)
Yeah, it's a very good point because you can't infinitely adapt things. You can't infinitely accommodate things. are, an organization will have its objectives. I've talked a lot about finance and you have very strong, strict regulatory frameworks around that. can't, for instance, if I said that
For instance, if I said that one of my accommodations I needed was I needed to take my mobile phone with me everywhere I went. There are certain environments where you can't take your mobile phone. Now I worked in one. It was a trading floor. We were banned from mobile phones on the training floor and certainly was in those days because every conversation from that room had to go through the recorded telephone lines. Simple things like that. So I couldn't take my comfort mobile with me into that room.
But then, there are rules like that, but as a company, you would say, well, is there a way can I accommodate that? You know, I want my comfort pet to go to work with me. You know, these are things that, you know, are quite practical, actually, you know, we'll see people saying, I need my dog to come to work with me. Well, you we have a policy of no dogs in the office. Well, we know already we make an accommodation for blind people. Maybe there are other categories, but there are always going to be certain things that can't be done.
If I have a problem with loud noises, can I be on a battlefield, for instance? There might be accommodations we can make with earplugs and we can do certain things, or we can help that person go into a different job that's same but different. But there are some things you just can't get over. But what we want to be is adapting as far as we can.
flexible as far as we can. And I think a lot of, or most companies can go a lot further than they have already.
Fiona (42:38)
Mm.
Brian Tancock (42:38)
there
is always opportunity to at least ask the question again, there anything I can do for these people?
And often people don't want a lot. You know, they just want maybe a quieter environment to work in. Some people, you know, I need the lights down a little bit lower or I need a corner where, you know, there's less air con or something like that. You know, there are things you can do. They're not huge things. Or in the old days, it was, well, I prefer to work from home rather than work in the office. And there's a bit more flexibility around that now, although it's sort of flipping back the other way.
There are always things that you can't do, but so often there are things you can do if you just put your mind to it. And that's what we're asking companies is to put your mind to it. Consider are there things, consider does this person need to have a conversation? Do we provide a provision for people to have the conversation? I believe there is still a long way could go.
And we're not talking complicated stuff most of the time.
Sarah (43:37)
Yeah. And when you said working from home, kind of my mind went back to before those days way before and you know, when I was doing a lot of coding, I'd want to put headphones on and sit down and do it so I could just block everything else out around me. And in some environments, culturally, that was unaccepted. And that was really tough, because then it was like, well, where can I there's no I have a desk, I have to sit at this desk, I need to code.
Brian Tancock (43:53)
Indeed.
Sarah (44:06)
But I can't. Does that mean I have to stay late at night now because no one else is around? And I think you're right. It's not always the big things that need to happen. It's the small things and embedding those in the culture to recognize that people need different ways of working.
Brian Tancock (44:23)
And for some people, might be, you know, these are the basics they need to work or in your case, you described there just that little accommodation would have allowed you to reach your flow state, which we now recognize, you know, we want people to get into their zone. We want people to, I know exactly, you know, I coded, wasn't very good at it, but I know how I could disappear into my screen for hours on end.
And if that's to the benefit of the organization, why wouldn't we want that? And why wouldn't we do small things like allow them to put a little bit of plastic in their ears? Oh, but they can't talk to other people. Well, we can, we've got technology that deals with that now, you we transparency and things, it wasn't difficult if someone wanted to get someone's attention and you just walked over or you waved or, you know, spoke a little bit louder and they would hear you.
Fiona (44:56)
you
Brian Tancock (45:12)
Yeah, simple things. You the world has moved a little bit. It's slightly more flexible, but it's not really. There's still a long, long way to go. And back to the earlier point, you know, the question you had was how can I talk to my manager, my leader, and talk about something like that? Leaders have to, they're far better leaders if they have trust with their team, when their team feel they can talk to them about it.
Or if you don't have that, organisations can provide alternative people that... That's why we have the concept of mental health first aiders. You have champions that advertise themselves as being open to having conversations. We had it in...
Fiona (45:50)
We don't have that here.
Sarah (45:51)
No, I want to know more.
Brian Tancock (45:54)
Yeah, it's an organisation, it's a UK based organisation. I was actually involved in some training recently where we trained two people based in the Philippines, which we think are the first ever people in Asia that were ever trained. It's the same as you have first aid, you know, it's people that recognise, well, that person looks a bit off, that person said they need help. People that are kind of a...
We'll talk about these things and people know that they can go and talk to these people. We have fire marshals, go and talk to them. If you're concerned about anything fire-wise or a fire hazard or something, why don't we have it? So often it's a difficult relationship with your boss. It's got many parameters and factors involved in it. Sometimes they're not the right person. And as I said earlier, sometimes the HR person's not the right person. But mental health first aiders are champions or a neurodiversity champion.
within an organization or in a bigger organization in departments or even teams. Or as I was, once I'd resigned, people suddenly started coming to me. Once they see one person start talking about their mental health, other people will come and talk to them. Like if I was still working in my old organization and I did this and it became known, know, Brian had done this or it went on the company's intranet or something, I would get people coming out that would work because so many people want to talk and just...
facilitating those conversations. And it's why, you know, Samaritans exist. I work for Shout, which is interesting because Shout actually has a lot of its staff in New Zealand. So they use psychologists from New Zealand to talk to people in the UK in the middle of the night so that they span the 24 hour period. And people who want to talk about their mental health or in a crisis, particularly a crisis situation.
have someone they can message and they do it by text messaging. So easy, no one even knows you're doing it. But the ability to reach out when you're feeling unsupported or you have needs or you're in crisis is absolutely vital for companies to provide these options. So a mental health champion concept is brilliant because at least it opens a door that people know that they're gonna feel safe and respected if they walk through it.
And we want to, it doesn't really touch on neurodivergence. we will, you know, my idea is to, to boost that concept within organizations so that you have people that are trained, that can triage, that can signpost, can say, perhaps it'll be better that we diverted people along this pathway. Now we have a lot of the time in employee assistance programs, but they're quite generalized because they'll deal with your debt or your relationship issues or...
you know, not just all your health or, you know, mental health is just one part of it. So it's quite generalized to start with and won't have any sort of special, you know, think specialized for neurodivergent people, but companies just to show that they're willing to talk or provide access to trusted people. I think that that's a really huge thing as an employee that you know that you can talk if you need to.
Sarah (48:57)
And I think like when you shared your story, you know, internally in the organization about hitting rock bottom and, know, having, having people like this embedded in the organization, it just helps to start to normalize that there is, you know, mental health, is neurodiversity and let's have the conversations within the organization. Cause like you said, you had hundreds of people reach out. So obviously there's so many people that are
that are feeling this and once they understood your story, wanted to engage and talk and discuss about it, which I think is a crucial part that I feel, I spent the last 10 years in Asia, was really missing. It just didn't feel normalized at all.
Brian Tancock (49:43)
To be honest, it's not really normalised in most of the world still yet, but having worked in Asia, it's probably, there are some pockets of really good work going on. I know psychologists and people in the workplace that are doing absolutely brilliant work in Asia. And we've also, we do some work in Africa as well. And there are cultural differences in terms of acceptance of these things.
It will be different in different countries amongst different communities within those countries. There is still more stigma attached to certain things amongst certain cultures. Certain cultures, particularly I saw in Hong Kong and Singapore that people just didn't want to talk. It brought shame on the family if you talked about having a problem or talked about being different.
Neurodivergence is a disability. I was going to say, if you had a disability, you would be hidden. Neurodivergence is classified as that, certainly in the UK, which is how we can get the government support. And some of the work we do is culturally sensitive. So people present differently. So I could train you to recognize certain symptoms or certain ways people talk or certain...
ways they respond or certain movements or facial expressions, but actually they're different across cultures. So most of the sort of psychology that comes into the workplace, and we'll see it in lots of places, classic one was the strength finder, where it said, came back with, these five or four or five attributes, that's who you are. Well, that was probably developed on an American middle-aged white male.
the data set isn't very broad. to borrow a term that, know, that I heard in one of your other podcasts, you know, the data is very noisy and we've tended to classify probably 50 % of the data or even 70 % of it as noisy and focused on the 30 and applied that to the whole world and said, well, that is determined the precedent we apply to everybody. Now we are all different and you have to consider the
Different employees respond differently. I don't remember from being in Asia, know, don't work with these people because they're all lazy. You just didn't understand them. Or you weren't working with them in the same way, or you weren't talking to them in a way that, is going to motivate or engage them. They're not going to respond to those sort of signals because those are more suited to your culture than their culture.
And we're all a product of not just our wiring, but our history. I respond to certain things based on the history. as you'll see, I respond late to things sometimes. And it's because I still have certain traumas and certain fears from my workplace. I became so used to submitting work and having it rejected, even though it would have meant.
99.99 % of people's standards and being called good by most all of them. If you're working for a boss that just loves it and uses it as a tool or a technique to achieve what he wants to keep rejecting things that rubs off on you. And you get to the point where actually you struggle to write anything because you're now fearful of what the response is. You're going to sit there over analyzing is this right? Is this right? How could I do it better? How could I optimize this to try and cover every base?
because you had an erratic boss. Those things rub off on people. The history goes with them and we all have different histories. We all have different backstories that go into our ways of processing things or ways of hearing things. We're all very, very unique.
Sarah (53:09)
And I think just just on that,
having kind of an erratic boss, because there is there is a question that leans into that one. So people that are neurodiverse can be really passionate about their work. And you know, they can be very focused. And, you know, that, you know, there's a planning session, and this is our target, and everyone's working towards it. But then they can also be like super vulnerable, when when the leadership can be inconsistent with that.
What do you think can be done to help leadership understand the potential harm that that does to people that can be super focused in a direction and then the focus keeps being moved by leadership?
Brian Tancock (53:51)
Yeah, and some people are fine with the focus shifting all the time. They adapt very quickly. They'll just go, all right, you asked. I remember when I was coding, you know, how many times I built something, put my heart and soul into it. And then someone says, oh yeah, we're not going to use that anymore. And it was a first, was soul destroying because you were working and then it was getting rejected for no fault of your own, just because they changed their mind and wanted different functionality or realized what...
they'd asked for wasn't right in the first place. But your job was just to take what you were given and deal with it. I think bosses need to recognise that how they communicate has an impact. And I think by them being more open, being aware that some people in their teams will need to be spoken to a certain way.
or have their work delivered to them in a certain way, or if things change, they will need an explanation. Whereas a lot of people, a lot of bosses might go, well, I've told you to do it, just do it, get on with it, don't think. Problem with you, Brian, is you think too much. Because I'll be sitting there going, did I do anything? Could I have done anything better? Was it because I hadn't done it? I'd be considering myself as well, when the boss changed, what was being done?
particularly if they didn't tell me why. So I think upfront, classic thing, set out your expectations, share the reason why we do certain things a certain way with people, give them a little bit extra information sometimes, and then be aware that some people will need support through whatever change or transition is being required.
that it could be simple things like priorities changing, being given two top urgent tasks to do at once. You you have one, you were working on that, someone said, this is super important. Recognize that, you know, there are some people that we work with that can handle 200 high priority items and still get them done in the right order and things like that, whereas other people will be completely overwhelmed by it.
Bosses to listen to their staff, to observe their staff, know that they're different, know that it's not going to be a one size fits all way of delivering that change to your staff. It's something I learned when I was doing the project audit, how many projects go live and just sort of tell people to get on with it and then they fail and two years later we redo or get a new system in because the old one was rubbish and we blame the old bosses and stuff. But actually you didn't help
the people engage with whatever the change was or with what you were asking them to do differently. We completely forget about that. We just forget the human side. yeah, the systems have all been updated. They've had an hour's training. We've explained it to them a certain way. yeah, either the system will decide later on the system was rubbish and we'll probably blame several staff and sack them in for not being able to deal with change. But actually,
if we'd have done our jobs properly as leaders, explain things, helped people through it, recognized that different people need different levels of support. Some you can explain it once in a one hour and they'll get on with it. Others will need to touch base with you every week or every month or something. And as a boss being open, let your staff know that you're open to questioning. You're open to someone going, yeah, I know you said that, but I need a little bit more. Or.
I know you said that or asked for that, but I'm a little bit overwhelmed by it. Okay, we'll sit down. How can we go through that overwhelm? How can I make that easier for you? How many bosses do that? You know, some do, but we often are not comfortable having those conversations with our bosses.
Sarah (57:31)
Yeah. Another thing that popped into my mind as well, when you were talking about having those conversations was communication style. some people can take everything in that's spoken to them, and they can come back with something straight away. Other people need to process it. Other people would like it written down, bullet form, or, there's there's all different types of style. So how do you, how do you weave that into managing?
large teams that are going to have all different needs.
Brian Tancock (58:02)
think we have to recognise it's not easy. Just as we say, people are not a one size fits all, we're all unique. think all leaders, all companies are different as well. I think we have to recognise that it's not easy, that it needs investment in the system, the processes, how we operate, how the people interact, how your clients interact.
It takes a great deal of assessment. We do it in our daily lives through reflecting. We do something, we reflect upon it, we tweak it, we go again, we reflect upon it, we keep the good, we get rid of the bad, we change. And I think bosses have to do that as a cycle of you have to look at your staff and say, well, I've taught them a week's time, have a conversation. How's that working for you?
Do you know, is it working? And when they say it's not working for me, don't blame them. Actually go, well, maybe there's more I can do. Now I know bosses have competing priorities and they're busy. They don't have time. Well, then boss gets someone else within your team that can help do that explanation for you. You might be unlocking 20 % productivity if you, if you did that, hire someone whose job is to make sure that people understand the change and help them navigate the change.
You know, you might be unlocking, if it's a big company, you might be unlocking lots and lots of potential. You know, a small cost in one area might actually lead to benefits in others. But I think the whole thing is we talk to people, so we consider upfront that there's different needs and different people need to hear a message in different ways. But then,
it's not saying survey as in get them fill out, you know, some survey form or something, but we have that process where we surveying our staff through observation or through communication, talking, say how did it land with you if it didn't land that well? Or the performance we're expecting from people isn't there. We've got to go back as leaders and say, well, could we have done more? And part of the training you give them for neurodiversity or mental health or those things is actually you equip them.
when they say to themselves, could we have done more? They think, did I consider this? Because they're aware of that. So many bosses are not even aware that people need to hear different messages differently. Just knowing that, I think, which changes the way you work. If you didn't know about it, you would think it was one size fits all and anyone that didn't respond appropriately must be the problem. When actually your messaging was the problem in the first place.
Fiona (1:00:31)
listening to the conversation I feel like I'm the problem.
Brian Tancock (1:00:33)
Me too. Yeah, I think the advantages of being older and having led large teams and hired lots of people is.
You have made many mistakes and I think as leaders having that ability to observe our mistakes and then learn from them. Like I've learned about, the formatting on a resume or in a document or something. So I don't hold that against people. And then it's the benefit of being older. You know, you do have certain wisdoms and they're not just random things you read in a book, but they're actually things you can go, well, I did that.
I think that's very powerful when you share that with other people. And for me to go into a workplace and talk to them and say, yeah, well, you could be like employee A, he talks to his staff like this, employee B and go, well, I was that employee A, I'm standing as A and I was that idiot of a leader that did that. I was that employee that didn't know, I was afraid to talk to people. I think...
The fact that you've lived those experiences. Reflection is a huge, huge part of it. think both as individuals, reflecting on what worked for us and what didn't, and then talking to people about that and having the confidence to speak up. And for leaders to be doing the same, incredibly important. But we are so busy, we just sail through life and we do it the same way we've always done. We're not going to change. We've been doing it for 30 years. Why change something that we've been doing for 30 years?
you've been doing it the same for 30 years, it's probably that's the reason why you should change or at least reflect on whether you need change or not.
Fiona (1:02:07)
Absolutely.
I'm just looking at the time and we've got five minutes left, So I think that what I'd like to do now is move us into the wrap up stage. But I was wondering before I do that,
Would there be any opportunity for us to send you through some of the written questions that we didn't get to from our community? And do you think that you would be able to help us with some responses so we could weave them into our blog post instead? Because I would feel really awful with all of these people contributing and spending their time, I would love.
Brian Tancock (1:02:37)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
And I do have the
ability to, if you want me to, you know, send me a question and want me to record a video, then I can put the same shirt on if it's at different time and do it for you.
Fiona (1:02:56)
I love that
It's been such an insightful conversation and I wish that it could go on for a lot longer. Although you might have me a bit teary at the same time, I think, Brian.
Brian Tancock (1:02:59)
That's my life.
Miss Human, ⁓ I-
Sarah (1:03:05)
You
Fiona (1:03:11)
this has been such an insightful conversation. But before we wrap up, is there one thing you'd want every listener to take away from today's discussion?
Brian Tancock (1:03:21)
It's a message for people in general. Consider that people have a backstory, that they're more complex than even how they present. They may look a certain way, they may be smiling. There's a lot going on inside that you won't see unless you take time to inquire, be inquisitive, ask questions off them.
space to be themselves. And if you can find out what's behind someone, you can do so much more with it. Both for them and for you, you will benefit, you will benefit, your company will benefit.
Fiona (1:03:57)
That's beautiful. Thank you.
Sarah (1:03:59)
It really is. To our DataFam community, thank you for your brilliant questions. We've tried to address as many as possible. We didn't get quite as far as we wanted to. So Brian is very lovingly going to answer some extra questions offline and come back to us. So we'll make sure to include those where you can access them. And if you have enjoyed today's episode, please like and subscribe.
and share it with colleagues who you think might find Brian's insights valuable. The conversation around neurodiversity in business is one that we all need to be having.
Fiona (1:04:34)
And we'll drop some links to NeuroDiverse You in the show notes so you can check that out. And Brian might have a few other links for you as well. So that'll be really great. But until next time, this has been unDUBBED, where we are unscripted, uncensored, and undeniably data. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks, Brian.
Sarah (1:04:57)
Thanks, Brian
Brian Tancock (1:04:59)
Thank you.
