Road Work Ahead
We stand on the brink of disruption that will change the world in ways we could never imagine. Artificial Intelligence, Data Privacy, Cybersecurity, and the Future of Work have converged to create a perfect storm of fear and hope.
How do we respond as business owners, workers, and humans? This podcast explores the many answers to that question. This is not a forum for wild speculation or doom-and-gloom, end-of-the-world posturing. Instead, we are navigating disruption the same way we navigate a freeway under construction: When you see the bright orange sign that shouts "ROAD WORK AHEAD" you slow down, pay attention, and look out for the drivers around you.
Join me as I seek out and interview the people who are embracing disruption and committing themselves and their organizations to a brighter future.
Road Work Ahead
#7 - Loryan & Megan Strant: Neurodiversity (ADHD, Autism), Distraction & Organization, Being Retrospective
As someone who is diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, there is an incredible amount of friction that I have to account for in my work and personal life. The same goes for other neurodivergent people - whether they have Autism, ADHD, dyslexia, or something else - there are a significant number of genuinely talented people in the workplace who are, to a certain extent, drained of their capacity for excellent work because they lack the freedom or confidence to work in a way that fits their specific needs.
This episode starts as a discussion about addressing neurodiversity in the workplace, but really becomes a conversation about a much broader epidemic in many organizations, which is the de-prioritization of people. There are a large number of people in the workplace - and not just neurodivergent people - who are being left behind because they're too afraid to speak up.
Loryan Strant is a Microsoft product specialist and Product Lead, and his wife Megan is a product design, learning and adoption specialist. They are also both diagnosed with ADHD and Autism. Their track records in digital product innovation and adoption, as well as their own experiences with neurodiversity, served as an excellent jumping-off point for a conversation that ultimately led us all to agree that we need to be looking backward before we move forward.
Welcome everybody to Road Work Ahead, a podcast that explores the unmapped future of business and technology. My name is Sam Gerdt and I am your host. As someone who is diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, there is an incredible amount of friction that I have to account for in my work and personal life. The same goes for other neurodivergent people, whether they have autism, ADHD, dyslexia or something else. There are a significant number of genuinely talented people in the workplace who are, to a certain extent, drained of their capacity for excellent work because they lack the freedom or the confidence to work in a way that fits their specific needs. This episode starts as a discussion about addressing neurodiversity in the workplace, but really it becomes a conversation about a much broader epidemic in many organizations, which is the de-prioritization of people. There are a large number of people in the workplace, and not just neurodivergent people, who are being left behind because they are too afraid to speak up about their own unique challenges.
Sam Gerdt:Loryan Strant is a Microsoft product specialist and a product lead, and his wife, Megan, is a product design, learning and adoption specialist. They are also both diagnosed with ADHD and autism. Their track records in digital product innovation and adoption, as well as their own experiences with neurodiversity served as an excellent jumping off point for a conversation that ultimately led us all to agree that we need to be looking backward before we move forward. So just to kick this off and get it out there, I think it's really important when we're discussing this to understand that we are three people who, as adults with careers, all discovered something about ourselves that in some ways was a relief and in some ways was something negative that we had to deal with.
Sam Gerdt:For my part, I was diagnosed with Asperger's as an adult, shortly after I was married. It was simultaneously a large burden off of my back because it explained a lot about me. It explained why I struggled in certain areas so much, both personally and professionally, and simultaneously there's a grief with it, because you recognize that the challenges that you're going to face there's no quick fix. There's a fact about you and it presents you with something that you do have to deal with for the rest of your lives. Can you guys just quickly share with us a little bit about your own experience with that, because I know it's very similar to mine.
Megan Strant:Yeah, I was diagnosed about five years ago, five or six years ago, and definitely there is an element of relief and awareness and understanding and kind of an aha, I guess, about yourself. But I would liken it very much to going through the grief curve where there's also there's a journey and that word sometimes I hate that word, but I think there was definitely a post diagnosis crisis, which was the term I read in a book. I read lots of books because it is like the world putting a big neon sign on you or a big arrow hey, actually you're weird and the world thinks you're weird or incapable or various things. So I did really struggle with it because I think I'd had a successful career up until that point and I'd received a lot of promotions and when I absorbed it and thought through it, all the reasons why I'd ever been promoted and done well at work were my autistic traits. So that was probably really good that I could.
Megan Strant:When I realized that went, huh, okay, and whether that was being able to zero emotion in a crisis and just work through things and take the reins and you know there was a lot of factors I probably struggled more in my personal life with family and different things. So there was definitely a great thing about it, but it did come with a lot of stuff, and there's stuff that you don't just you have to work through over a longer period. You don't just go okay because, as I think you touched on, it's always. It's also the forward thinking oh, I'm never going to have ABC or I'm never going to be good at certain things, yeah, so it can be quite challenging, but it can be really great. Loryan was a few years later, many, many years later, like this year, no, that was.
Loryan Strant:The autism diagnosis was last year, the ADHD diagnosis was not that long after Megan's autism diagnosis and I think, yeah, absolutely there's definitely a grief curve. I remember coming home from my official diagnosis with ADHD and basically I think you greeted me at the door and I basically burst into tears and just said I have to be medicated for life to be normal, to exist in this world. And there was definitely, I think, with that I probably have more remorse over the past than the future, because I think the great thing with ADHD is you don't care about the future, you just go. I'm going to tackle the future head on because we don't think about the future, we just go. So for me it's more similar.
Loryan Strant:Things that I've done well in my career were many, much in part, to do with my ADHD learning really fast, adapting and also, I guess, probably the autism side of things as well, as I guess I think, like other things, we are also just people. So some of those things are not necessarily autism or ADHD. So, but yeah, I think it's more. Had I known that about myself, things in my life would have been different. So it's not so much regret because I can't change it, it's just remorse that. If only that was known so.
Megan Strant:I think, I think we've both definitely gotten stuck there at times. It definitely is a reflecting on the past and thinking if I'd known, you know, things would have been better.
Loryan Strant:What if my parents knew, then they wouldn't have basically punished me for things that I'm hardwired for.
Megan Strant:Yeah, thinking what you could have or what your career path would have been. I often say I should have been a scientist, but as in, yeah, there would have been different decisions in a different, a different childhood in a different life if we'd known. But life's good, so we're okay. Yeah, generally.
Sam Gerdt:Yeah, that resonates a lot with me too, because when I think about my own experience, I have to say that my, with my diagnosis, my personal life became more ordered and my career, my work life, became more chaotic Because, in, in, in just functioning every day without, without necessarily being aware that I was wired differently or why I was seemed so different from people around me, I gravitated towards focusing on the here, the now, the work, the things that interested me and people not so much, and so my relationships really suffered and my, my interests, my focuses. I was very accomplished, and so understanding the diagnosis made me realize okay, no way, I have to, I have to undo what I'm doing. I can't, I can't continue this way. You know I, I valued my relationships. You know we all do. We value our relationships, and so I found myself focusing more on improving those, but then, at the same time, just becoming keenly aware of all of these things in my work life, and it, just it just led to this sense of this chaos, almost, that has to be reined in. The one thing I will say, I will say about that is for all of that chaos and and you guys probably would say the same thing for all of that chaos.
Sam Gerdt:People who feel that sense of overwhelm, people who feel like they're constantly underwater or constantly, you know, struggling to keep it all together, tend to still be incredibly successful. From the outside, looking in, everything looks great and they're performing well. And if, if only you could see inside their brains, though they're. You know things, things are all over the place. Yeah, very true, so it, yeah, it's, it's. It becomes this immediate struggle, with that awareness, to to reign in some of that chaos and, at the very least, so that it doesn't affect you emotionally, so that it doesn't affect you internally, not necessarily so that it, you know, would boost your performance or your efficiencies and career relationships. But all of a sudden, your brain starts. You just become keenly aware of how, how crazy it is in there, I think to that point it's.
Loryan Strant:I've been very open with my diagnosis, my scenario with my work colleagues and I don't use it as an excuse. I use it as an understanding. So this is why I might react or respond a certain way. It doesn't excuse my behavior. I still need to own it.
Loryan Strant:So where I've had, I guess, borderline breakdowns in certain workshops or scenarios because of how things are going, I've made it very clear that, hey, this is me, this is not you or how I need to. Anybody's doing it. It's my ability to manage what's happening right now. It's my ability to take this information and slot it in somewhere, because I don't have the context at the start and I've had to wait half an hour to the end of someone's presentation to understand what they were talking about. So I make it very clear to my colleagues that this is a meeting, not a you know you thing, not a peer thing, not a company thing, not a client thing, and they respect that a lot. But you know, I think it allows them to tolerate me more Because they know that I'm going to cop to it and say that it's yeah, it's not me being irrational. It's, I may be irrational in that moment, but they know that I will own that irrationality and I think it's it's.
Megan Strant:I was laughing in my head the idea of when you say, when you have a breakdown at work I'm thinking of a very Hollywood Situation, you know this very dramatic on the floor breakdown sometimes how do it?
Megan Strant:sometimes it's actually not. It might just be a moment of Freeze. You know it's almost like a fight or flight, it's just a just hang on, you know. So it's not it's a really strong word, but it's um, it is definitely there's. There's chaos and noise and things, and you do learn a lot. But I think in a good way you can become Way more Self-aware than you were and actually in some ways much more self-aware than the average person is of themselves Neurodiverse or not, I like to think.
Megan Strant:Anyway, because we're so hyper, focused or hyper aware of our place in the world and and suddenly we're really worried about Am I a good friend? Am I a good colleague? Am I annoying? Do I give enough eye contact? Do I have these nuances that people notice that I didn't know about myself?
Megan Strant:So you really can put yourself under a microscope and you can worry and be anxious about it, but you can also. There's a phase where I feel like you can also sort of take the reins with that as well, and and and try to be really good at what you do and be a good friend Hopefully, you know and be a good person if that's what you want to be, so there is a maybe a power with it and it can be really positive. However, I feel like I say this loosely because you know you say that we're three people who have diagnosis. We're also three people who are very fortunate. You know there's a lot of people who can't get employment and and that's where this conversation is is tricky because we're talking about our lived Experiences. You know not people who really are struggling and suffering.
Loryan Strant:But some people can't afford the diagnosis as well, yes, and they have to then have that extra struggle of thinking something's not right, but they can't actually work through it.
Sam Gerdt:Well, and that's where we can be thankful to that awareness of at least particular neurodivergences like ADHD, like autism, spectrum disorder, dyslexia. There they're becoming far more understood and I would say society in general is becoming far more Versed in. You know what they are, how, how they present and how how people who have those things Might behave, might need help, might need support. We're getting to this place where I think everybody knows somebody who who deals with something along these lines and it's not like it was, you know, 20 years ago, when you know if you had ADHD, it just meant that you know you had you ate too much sugar, you were just super, super hyperactive or you needed more discipline or something like that. These far more, far more well understood now. So there is hope there, I think, even for people who don't have the resources, that that there's opportunities to be understood and to be understood and to figure things out.
Megan Strant:Yeah, there is. I guess there's the challenges. So what could be? So I was actually diagnosed with an anxiety disorder at about 20 or 19 when I started university. Left-time, had some struggles, and so for 20 or so years I labeled my challenges as anxiety and In maybe January this year, I was actually diagnosed with ADHD along with autism, and I had, for the last year, been on some anxiety medication just to give it a try to see how I felt, and I immediately went Huh, hang on where I'm medicating anxiety, but I've got ADHD.
Megan Strant:Both those two things, I believe, make a person maybe feel full speed, but very different, and so it's a really good example, I think, because I then have just spent the last few months getting rid of medication to say, no, I need a reset, because what is medicating for anxiety and in my whatever that does, maybe I need to actually be on a stimulant and things like that. So it's an interesting example, and I've also been pulling back on sugar and being careful with caffeine and kind of. Actually it's almost like a self experiment. Coffee is great for me. It doesn't speed me up, it helps me focus, but sugar does make me feel jittery and hyper in my brain, and so that's just one experience. I think there's so much there with whether it's a mood disorder, maybe bipolar versus ADHD, versus autism, so it's really complicated.
Loryan Strant:But I mean it's a starting point that people can Connect more with stories of others and learn and there's that really good quote from dr Tony Outwood, which is if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person.
Sam Gerdt:Because, exactly.
Loryan Strant:It's differently. Same with ADHD and you know other ones where people present differently. Because in my teen years and early adult years I was diagnosed, you know, as having depression, which now, looking back on it, going, no, I wasn't depressed, I just couldn't handle the world. You know that wasn't depression, that was just my ability to process, which now, with my very late diagnosis of autism, is now more understandable that it was a Logic processing error as opposed to, you know, a sadness. And I think that's a lot of the challenges. A lot of people are misdiagnosed through their life with the wrong thing because of Understanding by professionals and themselves and the like.
Sam Gerdt:Yeah, I'm glad that you said that I was about to say the same thing. We were actually talking, before the recording started, about Different presentations and I mentioned, you know, ocd is not something that I struggle with and I'm very thankful for that, but OCD is a big part of an autism diagnosis and so, you're right, you meet one autistic person. You've met one. Everybody's very different my, my own, personally, my presentations very different than anyone else I've ever met. I've very rarely encountered other people with the same, you know, combination of of things. And then you know I said it's really important for people to understand too that an autism diagnosis likely means something else is an autism diagnosis likely means ADHD as well and, to a lesser degree, an ADHD diagnosis often means an autism diagnosis as well that usually you don't just have One diagnosis, it's usually a combination of things and so it's incredibly complicated.
Sam Gerdt:It's why, it's why, when we have this conversation, we got to say we're not doctors, so we have experience in this as as individuals who have certain things, but we're not doctors, and it's it's probably not the best path to go down too far. If you have the means, a doctor is definitely the better person to talk to. But let's, so let's get back to, then let's, let's pull this back into the, the professional world. What, what other coping mechanisms Do we have to offer for anybody listening to this, for that workplace? And then, and then let's, let's direct this towards business owners too and say how can you help us, how can, how can we make this work for everybody?
Loryan Strant:So I have for a number of years had a, I guess, a Kind of intro to me slide in any presentation that I've given that basically talks about yes, I have my autistic and ADHD, but also says Elaborates on that, because that doesn't necessarily mean much to people who aren't familiar with it. So I will make things like I will say jokes or make jokes about things. I will go off topic. I will talk fast. I may respond abruptly Just to kind of say hey, these are the common things that you might experience in a conversation with me or or presenting with me the other thing that I also, I Guess, probably I probably apologize a lot more than I used to before and I don't again use the autism and ADHD as an excuse. I Still own it, but when I explained that, I'm sorry that my response was abrupt Bob-a-bye, this is, and I as that, I don't say I've got ADHD, autistic, therefore move on. I explain how that presents and people then have always said every time I've said it Thank you. I really appreciate that.
Loryan Strant:I'll be a little bit more aware of how things are going and I'm not asking for special consideration because at the end of the day, neuro, neurodivergent or not, people have different challenges in their world. Someone may be dealing with a sick grandmother or a sick dog or, you know, extra level of work at home that can, on that day, cause them to respond abruptly or be flighty or those kind of things. So I feel that by me opening up about that and being really transparent about it, my hope is that other people will be more transparent about their own Challenges or burdens. Not in the detail, I don't. I don't want everybody to be doing a psychology counseling session for each other, but for someone to just say look, I'm having a really tough day today. This is why I might be responding this way. Okay, great, I think that would help with each other.
Megan Strant:I think also it's not just when you're at your worst or when they're having a tough day.
Megan Strant:It's also just about needs. So some people autistic or not, or neurodiverse or not Like structure, for example, and that's not that doesn't mean the pepper and salt shakers are always on the left of the table, or you know some very specific thing that can be that when we finish a meeting, the actions are clear and everyone's walking away knowing what they need to do next. And that sounds simple, but I'm sure all of us, or anyone who listens to this, has gone to meetings that have run in a haphazard way or or walked away or had moments at work where you don't necessarily know what you should do next. So I think it's whether people just want organization or clear communication. I think that's really important for people. I'm trying not to say autism, trying to say neurodiversity, like the border, but I think there's human needs that crossover and so and that's important, because there are a lot of Undiagnosed people in the world and there are people who have other challenges. So I think it's important to think about human needs and how people work together, because how I try to lead a team, for example, if I'm managing a team. I've got multiple people that are reporting to me, that are different anyway, regardless of a diagnosis or not, and so I think it's not just about are we better do really good notes, so it's terrible English because one person's autistic. So I think that's what I lean on a lot in the workplace is Can we just have really clear structure so everyone understands?
Megan Strant:I think that, though, is something I've learnt over the last few years, because when I've had habits long before diagnosis say, if I'll want to do I do a lot of visual plans, I'll bring a project down to one page with a whole lot of visual things, and I used to do it thinking it was just what you do in A project. It's it's how you run things, but there was one point where, in a career, they said that thing Megan does, let's make that mandatory as part of all our project plans and solutions, because it's so helpful to see it all visualise, and I remember thinking oh, that's just me, that's just my brain. So there are things that you learn that actually really help everyone. Not perfect, though. On the flip side, there are probably things I do that the team kind of silently try to roll their eyes, without being seen, maybe, but that's the thing.
Megan Strant:So I think there's there's the things we do as individuals and it may be saying to people I'm sorry, I'm. I need that to be a bit clearer. Could you be a bit more direct, or could you? You know, I'd never say I have autism. In fact, most of my colleagues don't know, and that's a whole other thing. But as in so, I try to focus on behaviour and he needs, as opposed to a label. So then it's not about that's just her, because I feel like driving that everyone has needs helps the workplace anyway, instead of focused on labels and I think, also from a technology perspective.
Loryan Strant:Now more than ever, we have so many different ways of communicating and collaborating and managing tasks and Everybody is coming at it with their own experiences of how they've used the tools, even if they're necessarily, even if they're the same tools as the tools like. If Megan uses this set of tools and I use exactly the same set of tools, we might use them very differently from each other, from either based on what we've learned or previous work space experience, a workplace experiences, and I think, with that whole aspect in the in the workplace, it needs to be a more clearer dialogue. As to like to Megan's point about having action items at the end of a meeting Okay, great, and then where will they be stored and how will we check up on them? Because I will forget about them the moment I disconnect from this meeting.
Loryan Strant:So I think, there needs to be more of that conversation, not just, okay, so you've got this, it needs to be more. And how will we manage it? How will we observe it? And then also being very cognizant of saying, right, we've got all these different things, it's overwhelming. Let's regroup and come up with a way and make sure everyone's on the same page, even though it won't be perfect for everyone, but that common understanding, as I said, neurodivergent or not people definitely have a.
Megan Strant:I know we talk about Neurodivergent people mask in the workplace, in in the world, and that the concept of masking I think so many people separate to neurodiversity also mask because they're trying to be perfect, the perfect employee, the best manager. You know, I've been a woman in tech for many years. I've certainly Behaved a certain way so I don't seem moody, bitchy, you know, emotional, all that sort of stuff. But it's funny how if you pause at the end of a meeting and if I'm thinking I Don't, I don't, I'm feeling a bit vague on what's happening next. If I actually say it or if I say does anyone know what the next step is, no one will know.
Megan Strant:So I've really learned that, going back to human behavior as well, that it's not me, that's the problem and actually in a lot of situations a lot of people are struggling and they don't know. So that's where I think Speaking up can really help, because often there's a bit of a resounding relief because some people oh so, and the number of people I ask for myself Sorry, what's the structure? When's the deadline? I like the information. People will see me in the hallway or call me after and go. I'm so glad you asked that because they were fearful actually clarifying anyway. So I think what I guess what I'm saying is yes, we have habits and things that we do in the workplace, but I don't see them as things that pull away from the best the way the workplace runs. They actually often add to it and make it better.
Sam Gerdt:Yeah, yeah. I think the topic of neurodiversity is a jumping off point for Getting into this idea of just the, the the great need for human connection in a workplace, not forgetting that we're not, as the expression is, cogs in a wheel or in a cogs in a machine, but that we are individuals with individual needs, neurodivergent or not. Neurodivergent or not, each person on a team is going to have their own needs, and those needs are going to change day by day, is some, some may be more consistent. So a person with ADHD is going to have a specific set of needs that aren't going to change day by day necessarily. But then there's the other stuff that happens, that that maybe makes someone more anxious or more sad or Lated or whatever, and so we need to account for for all of that as individuals on a team, regardless of any label that you might put on it, and just be checking in with people and be aware that we're working with different people. And then the other thing that Lorian mentioned is this idea that technology always improves. You know we have more options now in this piece of tech or we have more pieces of tech, so now, therefore, we're going to do a better job.
Sam Gerdt:It's just, it's false, and I think we're seeing more of a walk back on this in certain pockets of tech. But we've got to understand, I think, that already people are overwhelmed. The average midsize business has, I think, 60 or 70 pieces of tech that run their company, 60 or 70 platforms that people have to be aware of and have to know how to use in order to get their work done. That's overwhelming for a lot of people, neurodivergent or not. And so the idea of simplifying how we get from point A to point B, how much friction there is there. I think it's an incredibly helpful topic. Again, this is just the jumping off point, but for everyone. So I'm really happy that both of those things came up, because they're both connected to this idea of let's just make the workplace more people friendly.
Loryan Strant:I think a lot of times organizations will focus on the culture, the psyche, the operating model, the branding, things like that, but a lot of times the actual not saying the challenges, but a lot of times many of the challenges that people face in the organization, where neurodivergent or not is the small things, the small steps that they've got to do every day that could be automated or could be done by some other process or connected some other way that I think organizations don't look at because they will say, oh, that's not important, it's a small thing, it takes you a few seconds.
Loryan Strant:It's not that it takes you a few seconds, it takes space in your brain.
Loryan Strant:It's a thing that needs to be performed, so you need to know how to do it. It's a thing that needs to be transposed to someone else who maybe take the job or step into the team. So it's just occupying space in people's minds and that presents, I think, more, probably more visibly or more extreme in neurodivergent people, because that is a precious commodity or precious resource in how much it can be processed at a particular time and what order and those things. And I think that that's where organizations in all honesty for both neurodivergent but just themselves need to sometimes go hey, this new shiny thing over here is all fantastic, but sometimes it's the little stuff and it might be user training on how to use tools, or it might be, hey, let's build this thing because, yeah, it's not about the saving of the time or saving of the dollars, it's saving our people's brains and their frustration levels on a daily basis or a weekly basis. That, yeah, I think needs to be kind of thought of.
Megan Strant:It's interesting you just made me think about. We tend to focus on the people who are doing really well. Maybe this is generalization and think people struggling and complaining in the workplace they're just negative or something negative about those people. But if you took the people who are struggling the most and actually talked to them and made changes, then maybe you would actually surface people who are struggling because of all those reasons. Like I come into the workplace, maybe I've got a lot of things I'm capable of and can add to this company that I'm in hypothetically, and maybe just a simple way people communicate to me wears me down and it's overwhelming and so I can't bring out my best. But yet I can easily get left behind because people make judgments about me, you know. So if we actually thought more about how the way we work and how the tools and this I'm blown away by the number of tools you just said before, because I find even just chat, as in instant messaging, impacts my day in- a huge way.
Megan Strant:Sometimes it's amazing but to have my if you think of my focus as a conveyor belt and the things that I'm doing, it's hard with ADHD to get my brain to go on to the conveyor belt all the channels at the same time and I can do really good work. But when that, when I get a chat or a call, it's severed and it takes me a lot to re-initiate that powerful work that I was doing. So there's all, and that's just one example, and I think there's a kind of over the stat about this.
Loryan Strant:It takes you X amount of time to get back to the thought you had, and I think that a lot of this and this is partially why we're seeing a rise in the increase of ADHD diagnosis Because we have so many more tools in the workplace, especially the rise of chat tools, which are not a new thing, but they're just so mainstream now, because, while, yes, we work in the Microsoft space to a point, and you know we use Microsoft Teams, you know there is slack, but also before Microsoft Teams they'll Skype for business and before that.
Loryan Strant:So these things have it's just the fact that they're there now and almost on by default for everyone, and so, to that point as well, things like a person struggling in the workplace with overwhelm. And you know if you sat them down and said, okay, what's the problem? Oh, too many chat messages, and it might be a case of well, let me show you how to tweak the notifications so you're not getting bombarded left, right and center with pop ups all the time. But also part of it might be how we work and how your colleagues work and those kind of things. So you know, show you how to change your settings. Show other people how maybe you constantly at mentioning the team every single time is actually broadcasting to everyone's heads. My colleagues know that my notifications in teams are turned off.
Loryan Strant:I get zero notifications on my phone, on teams, on other things, unless it's basically a call, which means it's important. So I will have people just going, you know, send me a message and then afterwards go hello, you are available, you must be responding. Just because my presence is available doesn't mean my brain is available, my attention, right.
Sam Gerdt:And.
Loryan Strant:I think that's a thing that is not just a neurodivergent thing. It's a. It's a challenge in the workplace that I think probably is more surfaced from neurodivergent folks that organizations could learn from and benefit.
Megan Strant:What we said something earlier about.
Megan Strant:Well, we heavily simplified but because we, through diagnosis and learning about things you know, we've I know we've both talked a lot and presented On executive functioning, for example, and how our brain works and the things we struggle with.
Megan Strant:So to have that self awareness, to take that back into a company, we've both presented at work previously. You know, when we used to work together, the company got us to present and talk about to everyone. So to talk to everyone about executive function is human, the human brain. So it's not just that we have challenges because we're autistic and you all need to treat us a certain way, going back to it being the human brain, human behavior. But I think what the benefit of what neurodivergent people bring into a company is if we have that self awareness and we've learned about ourselves, driving that awareness of human behavior and human struggle and human thinking into the business more helps everyone. I think that's a really key thing, that it's not just let's be kinder or different because there could be some autistic people or some dyslexic people that we're working with. It's actually let's communicate clearly so everyone always understands what's going on, and I think that's that's very different and that's where we can get to eventually.
Loryan Strant:And it's funny to that point actually, that comment where you know, I'm sure we've all heard somebody say, oh, I'm a little bit ADHD as well, or I'm a little bit autistic as well. Technically, yes, because they are. Executive function, which everybody has, is just for us it's different. So yes, technically you are, but you know that's an oversimplification and can be seen as an insult.
Loryan Strant:But I felt a surge, which I know, because that's thing is, our view of it is different. But, as I said, people at Tomegan's point, that executive function exists for everybody and things like notifications being overwhelming for people is an absolutely valid problem for everybody, neurodiversion or not. But it depends on your job, and so that's a thing is we can't just go oh, you know that person's ADHD, they're too flighty and distracted. No, that person can actually be distracted because they keep popping up with messages over and over and over and the human eye is drawn to it and there's a chime that goes with it. So cool Change that they don't have to have ADHD to be distracted.
Megan Strant:This is where they're being. That's exactly right ADHD and autism. We should say what was the question actually saying that you asked?
Loryan Strant:Oh no, cars electric vehicles.
Sam Gerdt:No, you're right. You're right, it's we're wandering here, that's okay. I wanted to interject and just say Lorian mentioned attention switching, which is, I think, the term. The actual figure I'm aware of this is 20 minutes. It takes 20 minutes to switch back from, from just losing your attention, and so you think about someone with ADHD who maybe loses their attention a little bit more easily, or or maybe that number is even longer than 20 minutes. Yeah, the cost of those notifications.
Sam Gerdt:I'm going to go ahead and plug some really great books here that this is something that I know a lot about. I've read a lot about the works of Cal Newport. For anybody who's read those very good books they're not books for people who are necessarily neurodivergent. They're books for people who find themselves stuck in shallow work and with an understand that by being able to focus on work more deeply you're able to get more done. And so he advocates in his book Deep Work for shutting everything down, secluding yourself and focusing for longer periods of time to get good work done.
Sam Gerdt:And he has other books to digital minimalism, a world without email, that all kind of reiterate some of these same things that we're talking about Turn off the notifications, seclude yourself, and he advocates for companies taking action in these areas too, because so often what you see, especially in tech, is you're expected to do a certain amount of work, but then you're also expected to attend a meeting every 30 minutes or a meeting every hour. You're expected to do a certain amount of work, but you're also expected to keep notifications on and be constantly chatting or emailing. And he says you know, if businesses really want to unlock the potential of their employees, they need to recognize the cost of distraction, and it is, it's a very high cost.
Loryan Strant:And I think it's absolutely great. And one of the things that I find with is also this aspect around the etiquette and how people handle things, because I will send a team's chat message anytime of the day, I don't care what your presence is. That's because my expectation is, unless it's urgent, I don't expect you to respond. So I've had people, you know, receiving my messages on a Saturday and going I'm just out with family and this will sound cold, I don't care, I didn't expect you to read it, you know, or it's my day off, but what am I going to do is send you an email. You might get read that as well. That how you receive the message is different.
Loryan Strant:But I think that's the problem. And I said, you know where I say I don't care, Allegedly, let me do if they think they need to respond to me, you know. Then I'm like, hey, hey, no. So I will now, you know, add that preface to say hey, please don't read this until you know you're back online or don't respond. But I think that's as I said, it's like a two way thing and those people aren't necessarily new to neurodivergence. So it's a etiquette aspect as well and understanding.
Megan Strant:I hate to say like it sounds terrible, but that there's some part of that that I feel is self centered, though, because I deliberately do the opposite. So, particularly with my boss, I have a standing kind of notebook, but literally when I have my weekly one on one, I have a little block in my calendar that's called notes, and whenever things come up across the week I put them in there. So when we meet on Mondays, I go.
Loryan Strant:I buy six dot points.
Megan Strant:What do you want to talk about? We table his sort of stuff. What's the priority? Let's do this first.
Loryan Strant:Yeah, yeah, I agree with that.
Megan Strant:And so and I've gone back to I actually will email more or do the same for other people, because I'm aware that with ADHD, I have lots of things firing in my brain and that doesn't mean people need to be receiving them all the time my brain is firing.
Megan Strant:So I am getting better at kind of clustering thoughts together and then consolidating them and then having a meeting with someone and go here's what I've been thinking about, say this client and some thoughts on it and let's discuss, as opposed to a chat and then a chat here.
Megan Strant:So I think you need to be careful, because all you've done by sending something out of ours is like throwing a tennis ball over to someone and waiting for it to come back, and I just think sometimes we need to think about the value of doing that and how it impacts the flow of work. Does it just get sit there for a while, like? I feel I need to have more control and structure. There's a trait that's funny, you know, on all the consolidated information with something and for it to be handled in an instance and discussed. That just said a lot about me, though, didn't it?
Loryan Strant:But I think that's the point, though, is like I completely get where you're coming from and we've got the ability to delay emails. We've never been in teams, and I'm not sure about Slack and others the ability to delay chat messages to and even I don't mean teams actually pops up saying, hey, this person's working hours and only this. Do you want to wait? And you know, yes, me saying I don't care does sound quite flippant and self-centered. The reality is, as I do care if I'm interrupting them, but this is the kind of whole bidirectional thing that the technology just having it there doesn't mean that the problem is fixed. People need to be educated on the capabilities of the technology and also then educate on the etiquette of things, because I think your point about not just sending random things makes sense. But if it is just a hey, check out this screenshot, that's it, or just a quick one liner, I shouldn't have to go. I'm going to wait until this.
Megan Strant:I get it.
Loryan Strant:But that is the problem is how we manage the micro interactions versus the more macro ones and what works, and what works for one person. I've got one colleague is now send me a chat message anytime of the day. We've got other colleagues to your point in the Cal Newport suggestion, who have their teams and outlook shut down for most of the day.
Megan Strant:I've read. I did read a few Cal Newport books. I think they're fantastic. I also read stolen focus more recently and a few other things on dopamine as well, and so I do think that I'm more focused these days on quality time with my brain at work.
Megan Strant:You know, as in this, task needs to get done what is actually the best way for a group to achieve that, because I don't want to have meetings where we throw things around, come back two days later. So I now will say to people I had one the other day and I said the purpose of this meeting is a decision. I'm going to take you on a journey. I have visuals for this product. I want you to have a think about it because there's one key decision we need at the end. So I give a lot of structure and sort of preface things so we get something achieved that really needs to be achieved, as opposed to Lucid discussions.
Megan Strant:But it's funny one thing that I also one of my little litmus test in a way, with some thoughts that I think I'll send a chat is sometimes I actually ask myself if we were all in the open plan working in the building that day, would I go? Hey, john, because remember in the old days when we worked as a team, physically you'd go Alex hey, can I just ask, is it that important that I want to ask them right now? Would I break their focus or would I actually put it to the side and have some of those things I think we need to rethink because we've gotten into a habit in society of thought pink.
Loryan Strant:Yes.
Megan Strant:And that's insane. It doesn't need to happen that way.
Sam Gerdt:So, yeah, my, my own observation is because I had, I had a little bit of experience in the workforce before the advent of really the advent of smartphones on a mass scale, all of the all of the technologies. So when I came in, you're fresh out of school to do to do office work. The expectations were very easy. You had email and you had the project management system, which was incredibly simple it was. It was, it was very simple and I wasn't really struggling with with work chaos, with with brain chaos. I could function very well in that system.
Sam Gerdt:Now there were other issues that I had to deal with, but they weren't. They weren't what we're talking about. That, that what Iccoli. Or to set a task, I need to check 30 boxes and write in 15 textings and there's four drop downs and I have to ask three people and it just gets far more complicated. And then the idea of notifications. I think Steve Jobs was a brilliant designer, but that little red dot and maybe it was Mark Zuckerberg, I don't know who did it. I don't know who did it, but that little red dot, whoever did that, I don't like them. It was terrible.
Megan Strant:And even or a ping, because do you so we have our phones in a different area of the house. Part of it is a lot to do with the wrong modeling and that. This thing, we don't want this thing to be in your life, in front of you. But naturally when it pings you do leave and go to it and go what's that thing so.
Loryan Strant:I don't know.
Megan Strant:But yeah, it's interesting when you see yourself becoming a slave to a sound because it's what if it is an urgent thing or it's FOMO or whatever? But the way people and to have children who don't have phones and not be a slave to a ping, I'm very aware that I can see that over the next five years they probably will become reactive to the things they're not even in their life right now and that's really interesting. I think it's like the old us and then the real us. It sort of shows you.
Loryan Strant:And I think that to that point, I absolutely hate the unread notification, I hate the item count, I hate the push notification, I hate the notification sound and to that point I will flat out, as said earlier, I've turned off notifications. So I will, quite happily, and also I think a lot of them for me has been the mental training. So I will sit there in a meeting and I will see my team's notification count actually increase and get to a point where it's nine plus, because it doesn't go above that. It just says nine plus and I might come back on this 15. I've actually gotten really good at ignoring it because I've effectively mentally trained myself to say I will put my attention where it needs to be when I want it to be there.
Loryan Strant:Now, if somebody wants something urgently, I'm very clear to say call me, call me, because that will interrupt anything I'm doing. I get that notification whether it's on the computer, on my phone, but I have yeah, as I said, it's a combination of turning those off because I hated the fact that there would be a pin and you'd go oh, I know that sound, it's from that program, I'll go check it. There is the side where I come back and there's been an entire conversation thread that I've missed out on that.
Loryan Strant:Maybe, I should have stepped into earlier, so be it, but it's the not being drawn in. I was like I want to rule where my attention goes, as opposed to having other notifications or other systems do it because they think they are the most important application, not people, be very clear. The application doing it.
Megan Strant:It's interesting that you and I've made decisions on that as well. I leave my. I have two monitors in my computer. My second monitor I've put perpendicular and I have it. It's long. I have my communication app I'm trying not to be Microsoft centric my communication application and my email. I leave my email on my calendar because I'm a big time blocker. So I'll look at my calendar and go. All I need to be doing right now is writing that proposal. If things really like I don't need to be checking my email because the reality is it's one hour or it's three hours, if I didn't reply to email from 9 am until 12, like, that's the thing we all need to think about a bit more. I think it's a whole other conversation, but I will. I don't do anything else in a meeting, I think.
Megan Strant:I'm very engaged in meetings. I hate it when I can tell others are on email because I think what is the point of being here if we're not going to be engaged and be in this topic? But I will check, check, check chat because sometimes, like with a client, someone in the project team will be messaging going oh they're across that or we can't give them more budget there's. I need to kind of be sort of yeah. So there are the things that we carve out, the way we work and what works for us.
Loryan Strant:And I think people need to do that more, because to that point I actually from yeah, I don't like having my email open and visible. It is open all day but I don't check it because I'm not drawn to it unless I want to go check it. But what I do have is, yes, I'm a nerd. So I custom built myself a small app that shows basically my calendar, what's coming up and how long they're for and what tasks are on for the day. And I also needed to have the dopamine hit. So I also have like a stats count showing how many have been completed and how many remain, so that I can see my progress through the day.
Loryan Strant:But also you, obviously. What you can't see is right now and it's turned off. But I have a monitor above this main monitor that shows those tasks and the calendar. So I've got that at a glance available to me instead of being opening up another screen or another application and being drawn into those things. So that's where I've really controlled it to the nth degree to say that I need this information. So I'm going to extract it and show it in a way that works for me so that I can really control that experience for myself and not be missing meetings because I didn't have my calendar open, or things like that.
Megan Strant:So what we've effectively done is we've both got learned more about ourselves, carved out the way we work best and literally make an effort to surface what we need to see and shut out other things. We're actually doing that.
Loryan Strant:The other thing as well, from that meeting perspective, is we both have standing desks and so, while this is a technology and yes, I've been the nerd I am have connected it to my meeting platform. So when I join a meeting, my desk goes up. But I also have a large array of fidget toys here and I will deliberately, when my desk goes up, because I need to pace, I need to move, I will step back from my desk and have a fidget toy to keep my hands busy, to stop me from wanting to click and look at other things, even though I don't need to. Because that point about the meeting chat being up to date with that, yeah, sure, that's absolutely relevant and I do that from time to time, but for the most part, I'm the guy who has historically said sorry, what a dog barked or there was a noise.
Loryan Strant:I didn't hear what you said. Could you repeat that? Which is actually me not paying attention. So I make sure to give my 100% attention, but I don't know that comes with. I don't know if you have to edit this out resting asshole face, because the level of control that it takes, the level of brain effort that it requires me to be 100% focused means I have that face, so hence why I need fidget toys to kind of help me break out of that a little bit.
Sam Gerdt:I'm familiar. Anytime you hear me smile or see me smile, it's because my brain has said you need to smile now.
Loryan Strant:So it's, really true.
Sam Gerdt:It's really true, especially like in these interviews, that I do. So much is put on like conscious put on, and there are times where I'm so focused on putting it on where I have to step back and say in my brain I have to say, okay, I need to catch back up because I'm not hearing. I'm not hearing what they're saying and I'm gonna be lost here in a second.
Megan Strant:My current boss. When I first started working with him and a few times in the first month or phase he would say I think he did a few times say you okay, like just checking in, and I'd go. I'd go, yeah, why? And I'd often joke and go mental note, smile more because my focus space is in a meeting is serious, and I'd just be thinking and then I'd be talking and there'd be maybe hopefully warmth coming out verbally but sort of completely serious. And my whole life people have told me when I smile my face lights up. I just thought that was like some sort of attractiveness compliment but in hindsight it's because I was always so serious looking and grumpy.
Sam Gerdt:It's like you're turning on your outside appearance after it's been off. Everything's diverted inside, yeah, so essentially, what we've said over the last 20 minutes is the technology and advances in technology, and especially some of the really cool stuff that's coming out. It serves either to help us or it serves to make things worse, and it's kind of a mixed bag. We've really experienced a mixed bag, and I guess it depends on who you talk about. Lorian, you're big into tech. Megan, you're less big into tech. I'm kind of in the middle, I would say, of the two of you. I'm probably somewhere in the middle, and I see really as a mixed bag. I mentioned the red dot. That was a huge step backwards, not just for neurodivergent people, but for everybody. We went in the wrong direction with that technology, but there are other things that I see that I think this is really good.
Sam Gerdt:You guys mentioned you both mentioned blocking time. So that you can focus. Blocking time is incredibly beneficial for me. What I'm not able to do, though, is actually take my list of tasks and prioritize them and actually make the time blocked calendar. I've tried and I've tried, and when I do it and I have it, it works, but it falls apart so quickly and then I have to spend so much time trying to get it back. That that's the limitation. But now there are AI technologies and I'll go ahead and put a plug in here for reclaimai. It's the one that I use. It works with Todoist, which I'll put in another plug here. That's my task management app that I use, and I'll tell you exactly why this duo, this combo of technologies, is life changing. In my case.
Sam Gerdt:We talked about all of the dropdowns and all of the buttons and all of the things that you gotta click to ingest a task into most of these project management systems. With Todoist, I can just type it in natural language Do this thing on Monday and then hashtag project and then the little at symbol that puts a tag on it. Remind me to do this every three weeks. And it doesn't matter how I type it in, it's gonna go into the system exactly how I need it. And it's one text box, my entire, the entire thing. One text box. And then, if I tag it with reclaim, that reclaim app will pick up on how much time I said it would take and it'll plug it into a time blocked calendar for me. And if somebody schedules a meeting, or if I just don't get it done, it will pick up on that that it wasn't checked off and it'll reschedule it. Or if a meeting comes in and interrupts tomorrow's plan, tomorrow's plan will change and I don't have to do it. It saves me hours a day and probably 90% of my brain capacity in some instances to have this high tech tool come in and do that for me.
Sam Gerdt:So it's like I said, it's a mixed bag. So my question, I think the next thing I wanna ask is with technology being a mixed bag, what's the pitfall here? What do we need to be aware of in order to make this work better? And I think I'm thinking more about, maybe, our bosses, our employers. What do they need to be aware of in order to make this work? I already mentioned we need to recognize that not all technology is gonna be good technology, and just adding a technology doesn't solve a problem.
Megan Strant:I'm gonna talk first cause I'll be quick, cause I know you've got so much to say here. No, I imagine if the whole setup you have, sam, and how amazing that is and what an impact in a positive way that makes on how you work in your day. Imagine if you changed jobs and then you were given a laptop and in a new tenant where that software or whatever you use, they said no, that's not available, and you had to lose it. I think that's where there's a challenge. Our bosses, or one person, one head of IT potentially it makes the call on what is allowed in the platform at work and they may block out apps that are fantastic Things, whether it's Canva or Trello like there's, whether it's mind mapping or task management the way you handle your task management can be heavily impacted by it being taken away, and so we both work with Microsoft tools.
Megan Strant:We've both been Microsoft consultants for a long time, so we work in that, I guess, suite of tools and we're aware that there are the odd people occasionally who say, oh no, because I need this and it's something shadow IT outside the platform. So you have to be careful. Our bosses, basically the leaders in the business, can make decisions that impact people, and sometimes we're given a suite of tools that we can mesh together, a way of working from them, but we have to consider if there's some amazing thing that we should pay for that can make it better.
Loryan Strant:And that's a really very important point, because in my workplace, that person who says no is me. Now the thing is, though, my colleagues who know me well enough know that a no from me isn't a no, you can't have it. And the same thing I say with our children just because I haven't said yes doesn't mean no, it just means I need more information. So if you say that, as Megan said, we work with Microsoft technology and my immediate response will be okay, you want this. Is there a reason why you can't use the tools that we have to achieve the same thing? And I know that there will be reasons.
Loryan Strant:So if you can articulate that, then great. Okay, then let's have a look at that external system and understand it from a compliance, security, privacy perspective before we go and use it, because shadow IT doesn't have to be shadow IT, and the biggest issue with shadow IT is that whole compliance, is that whole privacy, data retention, ownership, residency, whole bunch of things. So if you say that drawio is better than Microsoft whiteboard and here's why you need to use it, great, then let's connect it to our identity platform and ensure that you're using your work account and that no client data is sitting in another country where maybe it's not allowed.
Loryan Strant:So it's not, and I think that's the thing is that a lot of times it's too easy to just say no, whereas it should be a more considered approach and maybe it still might be no at the end of it.
Loryan Strant:But I'm sitting here, when you're talking about Todoist and I know we spoke about this before the other day where Todoist doesn't work with Microsoft 365, and I'm sitting here going, well, I have the keys to the kingdom, so what can I do to make my stuff go across to Todoist from Todo and to Google Calendar from Outlook that I, so I can use Reclaim, which is abusing my power, which I wouldn't do, but that's my brain is immediately thinking that, because one particular tool I use that actually Megan does as well for product management is a tool called AHA, and a lot of what AHA has is actually in the Microsoft 365 suite, but it's all over the place and it's not connected.
Loryan Strant:And I sat down and said to my boss a few years ago I can't be a product manager in the tools that I've got because it's all over the place and it doesn't connect in. I need this tool and it costs over $100 a month, which is more than what my actual Microsoft 365 day-to-day product costs, but I need this to do this effectively, and it was a game changer. So I think that's the thing. That's important is to evaluate and go hang on. Is this a legitimate thing? Great, then, let's look at it, let's see how we make it work.
Megan Strant:I've always been a big fan of the agile, retrospective kind of technique and even if I'm not an agile team, I've, as a manager and as an employee, I've often said can we do a retro and can we sit down and talk about what's not working and what is working and what can we change? I love asking people. I spend a lot of my job asking people how they're going, what are their challenges with the tools we have, and adoptions are key part and I love hearing the people who are hidden in dark corners of the business, who just are surviving and operating, because they'll have something that they're doing that we haven't thought of and it might be a workaround and it might be. They've gone to YouTube and they've learned something from like a YouTuber on Excel or something. So this is the thing I think keeping talking and getting people to surface ideas, because then we find everyone's lacking this thing. Let's just go get that product and make it happen.
Megan Strant:Some of the greatest impact of technology in the last few years for each individual, I sense is to do with task management and helping people all bring everything together. There seems to be a theme of we wanna simplify it, we wanna strip it back because there's been an explosion of apps and software and things are coming at us and this can do this, but what about this? So we almost need to strip it back to what are our needs? What do we actually, what do we need support on? And there's all that. And it's funny how we're not talking about Power BI, dashboards or deep analysis or data science. We're not talking about the complex because obviously I mean, I'm seeing firsthand at work how we're creating and building a data lake and doing amazing things with AI, but the thing that people talk about, that we're talking about, is my day and what I need to do, and so that's a really interesting point to get to, I think, is that we're showing that the basics people are struggling with basic life things and work things, rather than all the complex.
Sam Gerdt:We're looking at this in my own workplace right now. We're recognizing that our project management is starting to get too complicated and it's not working well for everyone, and so we have been going through this process of taking a step back and saying, okay, well, let's look at the tools that we're using, what's good about them, what's not, and let's work a better solution. And, without saying too much, the solution that we're working and I'm pretty heavily involved in this is a solution that cuts down the number of different tools fairly significantly and tries to pull as much together into a single place as possible, for a couple of reasons, and we've touched on some of this already. Number one so that, in order for someone to do their work, they don't have to have three or four things open. They can have one thing open. Number two you don't have to manage the settings or the notifications or the little intricacies of three or four different systems. We're simplifying the knowledge that you need to have of the tools so that, like Lorian said, we're not taking up unnecessary space in your brain that could be used for the work itself. Another aspect of it is we want to give people the freedom to work the way that works best for them.
Sam Gerdt:Most people don't need a super detailed roadmap for accomplishing tasks that are in their job description. They know how to do it, it's in their job description, it's what they do, and we need to learn how to trust people to do their jobs. So we are taking some things that used to be more detailed. Maybe it took up three or four different tasks in the project management system and we're saying that only needs. We only need one action item there. They know how to do it and in cases where maybe multiple people are doing the same kind of task, we're making allowances for different people to do the work differently. As long as the outcome is the same, we're pleased, we're happy.
Sam Gerdt:So there's all these little things that we're recognizing and I think we kind of. There was that explosion of apps that we all saw and there was this, like I said, average mid-sized business 60, 70 apps. Probably we're getting to the point where they don't need that many, they just have them and different people use them for different reasons and they just keep getting at it and it creates this tangled nightmare. There is this need to step back and simplify and say, okay, well, how can we make our business, our work processes more people oriented, less tool oriented. I think that's so important right now, especially since we're gonna get another wave of artificial intelligence based startups and apps and tools that are gonna be really buzzy and people are gonna wanna incorporate them, and it's gonna create this next wave of that kind of fear missing out if I'm not using all of these tools.
Megan Strant:Yeah, with some people, though, because, remember, there's so many people that are stuck with being left behind already on modern technology. Because what is that really? Because I mean 10 year old modern technology. You don't understand how to collaborate in the cloud and work effectively, as in there's a lot of people that really need support.
Megan Strant:And then imagine if you're feeling uncertain or a bit of anxiety generally day to day because you haven't quite grasped at all, and then there's a wave of AI and people are thinking, well, hang on, they're gonna be in fight or flight or in a different mode and think, well, what do I know about AI risk, and they're gonna be really negative and worried about it. So I do think we're in an interesting time when there's a percentage of the business who are so savvy they were the ones that did Power BI without training there are people who are doing workflows because they're working it out and learning from YouTube, and so there are people sprinting ahead and they've already embraced chat, gpt and AI, but there's a large number of the workforce that are not coping already, and so that balance is hard and we need to really work out how we bring people forward and make the most of both.
Loryan Strant:And I think also in the process of looking at the new shiny, we're going to be neglecting our due diligence and our responsibility for the things that we should be doing now anyway that also help the new shiny, because the whole thing with these AI tools looking at our data and helping us with our day-to-day work the thing I've been saying to people is junk in, junk out. If you complain about the ability to find content in your organization now, well, how do you think AI is gonna do it any better? Because it's not you. It can't actually understand that this document versus that document is the reason why it's gonna look at things like the modified date or certain code blocks, and sure there'll be some bits that it will do well. But if I do a search for a particular term in our organization and I find five identically named documents that have been modified by different people, that are in different locations or the same location, then how will AI help with this?
Loryan Strant:Now, sure, it probably will to an extent, but it's that same thing that we haven't. Where we live like hoarders, we don't delete things. How will the AI know if we, as the human being, haven't curated our own content? How will it build on that, and I think that's gonna be neglected. I think that's gonna be adding in the new frustration wave of hey, I've got this but it doesn't do what I want, because this like well, fix that.
Megan Strant:So if we don't spring clean our files and we don't spring clean our behavior and ways of working, then, is AI useless or is it just potentially going to be not as effective and there isn't the power because it's going to surface junk?
Loryan Strant:Well, the thing is you have to look at the existing behavior with things like search, whether it's on Google or Bing, or internally, where people will basically not look at the second page, and that whole thing. If you need to be on the first page, or what gets you on the first page relevancy. So, been in the workplace, what gets the file on the first page relevancy? But we've got five of them on the first page, so which one and I think that that's the big thing is that that needs to be cleaned up. People need to be aware that they can't just keep going and creating and creating and creating. That you need to clean up. I use the analogy that I've seen of the example from conferences where storage vendors say, oh, last year the world created this many exabytes of data and the next year we're going to create this. But should we be?
Megan Strant:To show that growth, but maybe delete some of the old stuff.
Loryan Strant:Maybe it doesn't need to have several copies of it, because how do you know what's the right one? Unless, I think we've talked about task management and people working together, I think we've almost neglected knowledge management, and it's going to be more crucial than ever for neurodivergent, for neurotypical, for people working with AI, not working with AI, because there's too much stuff out there to make informed decisions on.
Sam Gerdt:Yeah, it's such a good point. Most neurodivergent people depending on what it is that you have, most of them, I think it's fair to say deal with knowledge management. That's their struggle is surfacing the right knowledge at the right time and being able to apply it correctly.
Megan Strant:In your brain, yeah, in your brain.
Sam Gerdt:And so we tend to be more keenly aware of the problems that exist in organizations, with their processes, with their storage, with their practices, whatever it is we tend to be far more aware of. This could be simplified, this could be done so much easier. It's too much distraction for me to have this many notifications, this many files, this many emails, whatever it is, and we're relating it all to this over here. But then you look at what's coming with artificial intelligence and Loryn. I think you're dead on If we say, well, chadgbt was trained on this many trillion tokens, but how much of that was good? It was trained on all of these books, but how many of them were good and how many of them weren't good?
Loryan Strant:And how is that going to?
Sam Gerdt:affect your output, and that's just as an example. I talked previously with someone who was excited about the idea of having a company oracle, taking all of your company data and dumping it into an artificial intelligence, an LLM, so that you could then interact with it just by chatting basically chatting with your data and it's a beautiful idea and I think his company is actually well organized in other ways that might make it work, but for the majority of organizations that's gonna be a disaster.
Loryan Strant:You're gonna get all kinds of, especially when you have conflicting and contradicting information Exactly and one of the things that I'm doing in an artificial capacity in my job is working with a few colleagues who have recognized that we have pockets of knowledge and information in all different places, because that's how people have worked. And we're trying to say, hey, so we've actually set up a collection of sites called the Fountain, because it's the Fountain of Knowledge, and we've got some other sites under there that we are curating very heavily, to say, hey, that's fantastic, could you put the file there and, sure, post about it in that location, but put the file there so it's with all the others, so that as you start looking at the things, and there are knowledge management tools out there that help with this stuff that we're starting to look at, because we're recognizing that when the in the Microsoft world it's called Copilot, but when that comes to us, it will help, but it will also give us the wrong answers.
Megan Strant:There's an amazing opportunity in industry and there are things that I can't say that we're doing. But if you look at certain industries whether it's construction, it, education, let's say legal, for an example, because I don't work with that If you were to ring fence a tenant for a legal organization and use AI to run queries and ask questions, whether it be looking at patents so if a legal organization has worked and done across different industries, what is the average? What has been the pattern over 10 years of disputes? In the arts, there are things that you can utilize your tenant as a data lake and use AI to uncover and forecast an amazing potential there. But, yes, the question is how much junk is in there that is gonna make those queries surface. Really valuable forecasting, or what do we have to do?
Loryan Strant:And I'd almost say something controversial here, because one of the things I've suggested in my organization and I'm by no means an organizational psychologist and as we've already, identified through here that sometimes I don't even have I'm not even tactful, but is identifying the people in the organization who have different, I guess, ways of thinking whether it's due to neurodivergence or not and identifying them and harnessing for the good instead of trying to box them in.
Loryan Strant:And where I'm getting to with this is, I think, almost with this co-pilot or AI, whatever it's gonna be called in different organizations should almost take all the neurodivergent folks and go help us clean out crap, because you will be the ones who will probably work through it faster because go ADHD power. But you'll need the other people with different neurodivergence who will not let you finish it 80% because you've got distracted, and will assure that the job is done and ensure that it's done consistently and in a set structure, in a set way, because we almost need, I think and I can't speak for every organization, but I know many are gonna need practically an overhaul of their knowledge and information before they can actually take advantage of these new tools, because otherwise they'll just fall on their face.
Megan Strant:Well, if you think about, yeah, the number of organizations out there who probably ever did implement structured, proper knowledge management, many people don't know what knowledge management is. I certainly, at a point in my career, had to learn because we had a knowledge manager years ago in a company and I went what do you do? Compared to a processed person and other people, so it's not a heavily used skill or framework, I think, and so that's where a lot of problem is. But circling back to maybe something I said at the Stardest call, like taking the people.
Megan Strant:you say taking people who are neurodiverse but taking people who are struggling and asking them where the problems lie is really important because if people can be vocal about where they're struggling, chances are there's 10 or 20 more behind them who are lined up with the same struggle and, whether it be finding information or getting stuff done or tracking tasks or knowing what's going on on the project, we need to listen more to the people that are struggling rather than just thinking. We need to put good leaders out in front to take people along.
Loryan Strant:Absolutely.
Loryan Strant:And that will surface, I think, improvements in how our organization works, and I think it needs to be a mixture of macro and micro at the same time, because, if you think back, you know years ago, digital transformation was the big buzzword and organizations were spinning up digital transformation teams and organizational innovation teams and that probably died off because what was the value? And it also took a long time. A lot of times, the innovations and the improvements can be something very small. Talking with our project managers recently, they're talking about and one of them actually said Loryn, help me, I'm overwhelmed with the amount of minutes I need to keep for meetings and tasks and prep and these things. I went okay and I dwelled it on Well, hang on, with this new feature that you're not licensed for but you can be, and with this template change here, I can make it that your meetings are automatically recorded and that you also have an intelligent meeting recap feature, which will basically be your notes and action items, and so that little thing is a transformation, but it's not a big overbaked thing.
Megan Strant:So, to your point, it's sitting with people who struggle and working with them. Opportunity, I guess, for maybe almost micro changes. It's micro changes that will transform.
Loryan Strant:I think micro changes are big. It is a good term.
Megan Strant:Is it? 15% of the population has some sort of disability. There is a percentage within every organization of people who have a disability or are neurodiverse. And if a company has 20 people or 100 people, 1,000, then that's the percentage of your number of staff. So there are going to be many people that are undiagnosed. There are going to be people who are not going to disclose because they're not comfortable. There are going to be people who are disclosed. So there are going to be an element of people in the workforce of a company that have varying needs because they're human, but then also compounded because they're neurodiverse.
Megan Strant:So we really need to start to think about how is our workplace, what's the term? Is our workplace? Is the way we work, setting people up for success, or is it actually creating barriers for people? And is it a barrier because they're neurodiverse or a barrier because they can't find information? And I think there's some really important things that need to be addressed Because people are struggling day to day, whether they have a disability or whether they just can't get access to the right information or can't get the right help in their role or things done because there's a red dot and I laughed myself before because there's a red dot that came up on this monitor we're looking at, which has distracted me, but yeah, I think the way we work creates barriers and obstacles daily and we're not talking about it and we're not really thinking about it that way. We're just thinking about what we need to get done and how do we make money and how are we efficient.
Sam Gerdt:I think the attitude can be and I'm not going to say that it is, I'm going to say that it can be that businesses are so focused on forward motion, forward progress that they see oh, here's a new application, let's plug it in and have more forward progress. This person's not being productive, let's replace them. Forward progress. This technology is good. Everybody says it's good. Forward progress. And what happens is we get into this place where you wake up and you realize, ok, there's alarm bells going off and I don't exactly know why. And the reason why is because you've gotten so distracted with this singular mission of forward progress that you've actually hamstrung yourself with bad data, disorganization, too many apps, too many security issues, not the right people in the right seats. There's all kinds of problems that organizations have today and we can point at them, and the sad thing is there are all of these startups springing up saying I have a solution for that, I have a solution for that, I have a solution for that, and it's wrong. They don't have a solution for it. What they have is an additional thing that you're going to throw into this organization and it's going to be like a grenade that's just going to cause more chaos and I feel like the thrust of this conversation which, by the way, has gone very differently than I thought it would, and I'm very thankful for it the thrust of this conversation has been forward progress today, with the impending doom of AI, whatever it is, with everything that's going on in the tech world right now.
Sam Gerdt:Forward progress for an organization today looks like stopping talking to your people, getting to know what the struggles are, what the problems are, taking a step back, getting your data organized, getting your processes organized, maybe minimizing the number of applications that you use to get your work done, removing distraction from the workplace kind of going back to the old days when you didn't even have the screens.
Sam Gerdt:Everything was just concentrated work. Maybe you were sitting at a desk and, like you said earlier, megan, the thought of going to someone and asking them a question you actually had to think is this worth getting up out of my seat? Is this worth shouting across a room Like putting yourself back into those situations mentally, because that's when you're going to surface the real issues that are threatening your organization. It's funny that you have to make a conversation about neurodiversity. Is what surfaces all of these issues? Because you put three people in the room, who have attention challenges, who have challenges with how they think, and all we're going to do the three of us sitting around a table, all we're going to do is talk about all of the things that keep us from doing our very best work.
Sam Gerdt:And all of the things that keep others from doing their very best work.
Megan Strant:We're not talking about deep work, we're not talking. It's almost like the time block of the work doing the work. We're not talking about that as a problem. It's the everything around it that gets in the way of us getting to. That is what we're talking about and that in itself is really interesting that there are too many barriers and obstacles to us doing really good work, that we have to spend time getting passed to do the thing.
Loryan Strant:And I think that point about the forward motion sharks have to keep moving unless they die. Well, they also need to eat. So if they keep moving in an area where there's no food, they're still going to die, and so I think that's the thing is we need to stop, and that was probably an analogy that some marine biologists are going to pull me up on. But I think we need to look a little bit, a step ahead and look sideways and also look behind, like Megan was saying, with retrospectives, and yeah, not just go, no, I've got to keep moving, kind of keep moving, and so really quickly.
Loryan Strant:There's a visual that I use in my possessions that a lot of times when I present, I try to break people's brains at the start and then show them the hey, here's what you can do. And I've got this visual of it's a person on a bike with square wheels and the person behind them has a round wheel trying to sell them a round wheel, and the person on the bike is going sorry, I'm too busy, and that's the whole point. Is that whole forward motion. We've got to keep going, otherwise we'll not be able to charge our people or leave us or this won't happen. So yeah, but that's not happening.
Megan Strant:As a result, can I just say and this is not necessarily on topic, but you reminded me of something just before not that long ago, there was a day where Taylor Swift tickets went on sale in this country and, like in a lot of places, it was a 9 am I went into.
Megan Strant:I was actually working from home. I went into work the next day and our IT guy said you would not believe the number of people you could see in the open plan. Yesterday TicketTech our ticketing company, taylor Swift, was on their monitors because everyone decided it was completely fine to stop work at that point in time because they wanted Taylor Swift tickets. And it was really interesting because we both, we were sort of going, everyone was so distracted by it, so many people in the office, and so he just said, oh, we should have the day before disabled the ability to use that URL.
Megan Strant:But anyway, what was funny was yeah, that's the big in that moment, a huge percentage of our company and the world or Australia was distracted by the same thing. But it sort of went yeah, there's so many things they're probably all distracted by all the time that we just don't know about because it's always different. It's they're looking at their phone, they're listening to a podcast, go bar. So it was just an interesting scenario to say a huge number of people at work be distracted by one thing at one time and all be doing it and not be working. And it was significant. You got to wait a while to process, to get through that process. But yeah, it's just to have them all distracted by the same thing at once. But we're all distracted all the time. It's just the way of the world.
Sam Gerdt:And the same boss who says maybe we should have disabled that URL is promoting policies and I'm not gonna say that in this specific instance because I don't know that situation, but in many instances, the same kind of person who says we should have disabled that URL is the person who's also saying you need to keep notifications on, because if we need you, we need you, and there's not this understanding of what that does to a workplace. Well, I'm gonna end it here, but I wanted to ask each of you very quickly, as neurodiverse people what do you want to see happening in workplaces across the world in response to what we're seeing with incoming technologies and now there's activism and there's promotion of these ideas of supporting neurodivergent people. What are you hopeful to see changing in the coming years in the workplace?
Megan Strant:So previously, and whether that be a month ago, probably what would have been on my mind up until recently would have been awareness training, teach people about neurodiversity and teach people about executive functioning. But I think I worry now because I've been asked do you want to get involved in our workplace due training on neurodiversity? And I've seen the companies that some of them that come in and do it and it actually my blood boils when I hear them, because they do it in an outdated way that makes everyone think people with neurodiversity can't do their job properly, and because they focus too much on deficits and how we need to support neurodiverse people's deficits, and so I'm less inclined to think that that's the right way to go. I know that society leads the way and when we have better role models and shows on TV showing neurodiverse people being amazing in a normal way, like not being like a gifted savant, so that's really important.
Megan Strant:When it comes to the workplace, I think we just need to have more conversations and dialogue around human needs and surfacing how people are going and how we're using technology and to do a bit of a stop-start, continue change or a retrospective. We need to take stock and look at how things are going and talk to people with neurodiversity, but make it okay for any person to surface challenges. So we surface real challenges, neurodiverse or not, and we have a dialogue about it so we can all work better and say, hey, I'm not okay, can we communicate differently? Can we track our tasks differently? So I think just a dialogue is really important, as opposed to pointing to one group of people and saying, oh, they need you to, they can't communicate as well as you, so let's do this. Well, let's all lift the benchmark across the way we do things.
Loryan Strant:I think I absolutely agree with that and I think that the things that I would probably say would also be not necessarily neurodiverse specific, but I think we are so busy and so distracted and also we've moved so far with technology that to your point before about when you started a job and how much simpler it was. And we comment all the time about how when you looked for a job ad it said, must have experience with Microsoft Office because it was so much simpler back then. We don't have that now. It's just expected that that Hago user, hago learner, with the pandemic, a lot of technology was thrust down. People throw Microsoft or other and not necessarily supported.
Loryan Strant:And I think organizations will say oh people, we welcome a culture of people speaking up. They're not going to, they're afraid because they're also ashamed. They feel that I should know this but I don't. So I'm not gonna speak up and, to be quite blunt, this whole thing of oh, we wanna create a safe space, it's bullshit. It's never going to be a safe space because it's work and it affects your livelihood. So I do think that organizations need to engage with people and actually pause, not stop the entire company, the entire organization, but it's actually some way, whether it's external people who actually using current methods, but it's not just about the neurodivergent people. All the people sit with them somehow at scale and go how can you work better, how can you be supported and just to at least identify things? I don't know. I'm saying that I think that's probably a people in culture person will be watching this game. Really simple statement there, lauren, but how do we actually make it work?
Megan Strant:Just change it, make it better Just fix it, just fix it.
Loryan Strant:But I think that needs to happen. I think we cannot expect people to come forward with their challenges neurodiverse or other but we need to get to them, every single person, and help them.
Megan Strant:It is possible to reflect and look back at the same time you're moving forward and do some baby step change while you're moving. I used to work in a team where we did a retro for 15 minutes every Friday and we circled three things to take into the next week. Now that's not always possible and we're not waiting for a major transformation where there's a better world and a better workplace in the future, but we need to actually talk and think and have an undercurrent of change. That can happen slowly. Is it possible? I don't know and it's gonna take a long time, but people need to think through. I was feeling very passionate last week about the word discrimination and how people are discriminated against every single day by the quote, like all these micro things that we don't think about and our unconscious bias. So it's not. We can do a lot of sexual harassment training. We can do a session on autism, but it's out in the workplace that we need to have different conversations, not just training.
Sam Gerdt:I tend to agree. I think, for my part, I'll go ahead and answer my own question as someone who has a little bit more control in their own workspace. Tech, business tech is right where I'm at. It's really important for people who have roles like mine, rather than being tech-centric, focused on features and new products coming in and all of that, to really stay grounded in the mission and purpose of the business. The end product where do we need to arrive?
Sam Gerdt:And then, looking at the people that you have to accomplish those tasks, first, and saying who are the right people for the job, how are they working, what do they need, and, like you were saying, have those conversations so that if you have an employee who comes in and says, hey, listen, I have ADHD or I have this anxiety disorder, I have ASD, whatever it is, dyslexia, there's all kinds of specific things we could talk about.
Sam Gerdt:But and this is gonna be a challenge you can be in a position and this is totally doable be in a position as an employer or as a team leader, to say that's okay, because our processes are built to work for all kinds of people. Our processes are built so that, as long as you can look at your job description and say I can do that, you're good, you're good, we can accommodate that. But that's going to require businesses, instead of getting excited about new tools, new products, new technologies, it's gonna require them to take many steps back in most cases and say how do we simplify? And go back to focusing on what we do, why we do it, how we do it, and just answering those three questions.
Megan Strant:There's a show I saw on TV recently I think it was called the Summit, and it was about a group of 10 or 12 people that have to make it to the top of a mountain and the premise was that they had to bring each other in the journey and if someone was slow, they basically had to go at the pace of the slowest person. They had to make sure everyone finished that day of walking or whatever. And that's say 10 or 12 people, and I feel like there are approaches that we need to bring into our workplace, which is bringing everyone on the journey better, so we can get the most out of everyone for our business and reach our goals together, rather than those who trample on people or stand out, move forward and sprint towards the next shiny thing and the rest are left trying to work through the junk.
Loryan Strant:And I think it needs to be done more often. Instead of it, new CEO comes in and wants to shake things up and then you do a review of things. It needs to be more frequent, because I think if it's done more frequently then the amount of change is smaller, because it's tweaks, it's adjustments, and there's that line from the 100th of October which is the crazy Ivan, which is that submarine captains will kind of pause and turn the submarine to look behind them because they can't hear behind the noise of their forward motion. And I think that that's what organizations need to do and do it often, because then you can go okay, this thing we implemented not working as well as effectively. So instead of waiting for someone to come in from a big consultancy to say, right, this didn't work, we're changing it all to. Actually, this didn't work as we expected, but if we change this then maybe it will. Let's do that for the next three months, six months?
Megan Strant:What is the whole premise of this podcast? What's the name of it? Roadwork Ahead.
Sam Gerdt:Roadwork Ahead, yeah, when I think of roadwork.
Megan Strant:What do we do when we come to roadwork? We slow down. We have really clear signage and instruction. And safety is we nailed it?
Sam Gerdt:There's something in that you nailed it. Yeah, what do we do when we see that sign? Slow down. And your attention just goes up hyper alert. And that's what we're doing. We're taking time to slow down and say, well, let's talk through this with attention on all the things, not just right in front of you, but all around you, looking for workers, looking for signs, looking for new things that weren't there yesterday. That's the whole point I wanna clarify really quick on my comments.
Sam Gerdt:These actions don't necessarily mean that everyone gets to keep their role. These actions don't necessarily mean that in a company who's being attentive the way they ought to be attentive, that everyone gets to stay where they were at. In some cases it was a mistake to hire a person. In some cases it was a mistake to put a person in that particular seat, and so the attention that I'm talking about isn't what I'm not advocating for tokenism or handouts in any way. What I'm saying is there are incredibly talented and gifted people who would be phenomenal for your organization who, if you would give them the freedom to work the way that they work, they will do what it's expected of them and they will do it better than anyone else. But that requires you to take steps backwards and do what we talked about before.
Loryan Strant:I have that in my workplace and be quite open, that I am allowed to, to a point, do whatever I want. Now I still have responsibilities and things that I need to achieve and, ultimately, they also know that I'm not sitting there playing games all day. They know that I'm constantly looking to the betterment of the company.
Loryan Strant:Now, that's a very luxurious position I do not take for granted, and but my leadership team know that money and benefits fall out of me by doing that. So I think there's a way that more people could somehow leverage that and benefit from that. It's a very dangerous place because they also know if I ran a business, I'm gonna be responsible in the process. I know also that I'm thinking beyond, but I think to your point is, yeah, is giving people the opportunity to, I guess, a job craft a little bit more, not require that they fit in this box whether they're neurodivergent or not, and to have them have a little bit more freedom to work differently, to create differently, because it may create, it may yield results that you weren't expecting, but benefit from.
Megan Strant:Or say goodbye to people who are. I think I'm a very, a pretty positive person and we talked earlier in this about self-awareness. There are people who are not self-aware and they're resistant and negative and sometimes bitter and sometimes barriers in that workplace because they don't wanna change or they're not willing to shift the way things are working or just don't bring a lot into the team. So you're right, sometimes it means a shift in different ways to make things work better.
Sam Gerdt:Megan and Lorian, I appreciate your time. I really enjoy talking about this. It's turned into a lot more of personal experiences and conversations about our own opinions, which is refreshing. It's nice to not just be speculating all the time or talking about something that's new and off the wall. This idea of retrospection is incredibly important right now.
Sam Gerdt:I think where we're at, and I feel like this whole conversation was very retrospective in all of the right ways, so I do wanna appreciate your time and your insights Before we go just really quickly. Is there anything specific that you wanna promote?
Megan Strant:Just if anyone's listening and they if they think I don't really know much about neurodiversity. That neurodiversity is a topic is to question the perceptions in your head and maybe readdress them and educate yourself. That sounds harsh.
Loryan Strant:I think the promotion I would wanna do is not of myself or ourselves, but of people in their organization is promoting awareness of as in not running a campaign, look for people who are not fitting a box, who are working differently, and find them. That's those are the people I would wanna promote attention to, because they can be so much better than what they're potentially doing right now.
Sam Gerdt:Thank you guys. We'll end it there. I really, again, I really appreciate taking the time to talk. I really appreciate this retrospective approach and perhaps in the coming months we can reconnect and just see how we feel about what we've said and how we feel things are going. I always like to see what comes of these conversations.
Megan Strant:Thank you for the discussion. It was really interesting and, yeah, enjoy your weekend, yeah yeah, thank you. I'll see you guys next time.