I’m Not Neurodiverse … | by Julian Bond

or am I?

I was with some friends recently, outside work, talking about neurodiversity, it was one of those discussions about labels. Using labels is often problematic – who wants to be labelled? Maybe Paddington offers a positive example of a label …
 
But the point is, we are all neurodiverse, there is a range and diversity, and there is no ‘normal’. What is perceived as normative (heteronormativity anyone?) is often discriminatory, marginalising, and excluding. What we learn from anti-racism activism (hopefully), is that ‘we’ often don’t get it until we identify sufficiently with those who experience discrimination, in its various forms. As an example, the current UK government claims structural racism doesn’t exist, in the face of those who are campaigning against it …

 
So, not to belittle anything, ‘neurodiverse’ is a kind of neuroracist labelling. And yes, there are special challenges in being ‘neurodiverse’ while black, as my friend Marcia writes in ‘Black, Brilliant and Dyslexic’. You can read an article about her book here (the photo is from this article).
 
My awareness of dyslexia as a particular form of ‘neurodiversity’ began to grow as I did some work with Marcia at the early stages of her book’s development. I should also point out that one of my children (non-binary) is dyslexic, they had adjustments while studying to enable them to succeed. However, my own understanding was limited as I didn’t study with them. More recently, one of my colleagues was on the Project Management Apprenticeship with me, and they are also dyslexic.
 
How do we work together, and succeed, across the neurodiverse spectrum? We are all on it, and I intend to find out if I am at all autistic after some recent relationship feedback. My colleague is very creative and has also enjoyed the systems and processes of project management but in a more visual way than me. I’ve struggled to pick up more visual work, wanting to do so to improve our collaboration and communication – these two Cs are the open secrets of real success at work. I modelled the first as Director of the Christian Muslim Forum (a national charity), bringing Christians and Muslims together, surrounded by both off-stage and on-stage calls of ‘Don’t do that!’ The second has become ever more important to me as my project funding role is increasingly delivered through good communication. Studying project management has given extra impetus to my wanting to do everything better, and better for others.
 
My project funding role means that I am answerable to an approvals committee, my project sponsor if you like. Increasingly joined-up working (collaboration) has meant getting to know and work more with those who are on the committee, including one who, like my colleague, has dyslexia. I met up with him, just last week to begin exploring dyslexia in relation to the reports that I produce – what would better, dyslexia-friendly reporting look like? Here are some tips, which I am writing down for the first time, apart from my original scribbles on the hard copy report that I took with me last week:

• Use pictures and images – photos, screenshots, video stills, with hyperlinks for electronic documents.
• Use tables where possible to replace paragraphs with lots of key information, e.g. names, costs, locations, categories.
• Put hyperlinks in bold. Don’t overuse bold elsewhere but do use it sparingly for key information*.
• Avoid unnecessary duplication and while it may be helpful to have details in an appendix, if it’s not too long it should be in the main body.
• Promote video content where it is providing key background information, don’t offer it at the same level as written documentation.
• Be clear about descriptions, spell them out so that they are not vague and obscure.

I’ve made myself accountable by documenting these pointers, I have to adopt them soon when I produce the first draft of my report and ask for a dyslexia-friendly assessment of it. The beautiful thing about tailoring communication for those who have dyslexia is that it makes it better for everybody. This means that engaging with a label – ‘...diverse’ – improves situations. Becoming more inclusive, in the real sense, includes everyone, rather than being conditioned by the ‘normativity’ which led to some people being left out.

* I was pleased to receive my dyslexic colleague’s appreciation of me as a ‘good bolder’ 🙂

Julian Bond is a Project Funding Officer for the Methodist Church based in London and has recently completed the Multiverse Project Management Apprenticeship, with Distinction. He is writing for the Apprentice Lens as part of the Blogging Team. Here’s more about him:

"He loves writing about all kinds of topics, recently being inspired by a weekly writing challenge on work during the pandemic. He brings a wealth of work experience and concern for people’s well-being together.  He has also written various book reviews. His writing can be found on Medium.com."