Tell me about your vision.
My vision is helping organizations to become more neuro-inclusive,
because right now it appears that there's fairness or maybe even merit in the workplaces.
But in fact, organizations cannot be considered inclusive.
And if you look at practices that we use, let's say, for selection or for promotion,
they result in the fact that 85% of autistic people with college degrees
and all kinds of talents end up being unemployed or under-employed.
But 42-30% of all neurodivergent people end up being unemployed, unemployed or under-employed.
And that's despite the fact that actually research shows that bringing in neurodivergent people
improves productivity and creativity in the workplace tremendously.
Research by J.P. Morgan has shown that autistic people and their employment are 140% more productive.
So think about the paradox. People who are 140% more productive when they're in the right job
are excluded from the workplace to the point of 85%.
It doesn't compute, it doesn't make sense.
It's slightly better in some countries, so Germany and Australia have slightly less appalling numbers,
but they are still not anywhere at the point of parity with other people.
So there's something going on in organizations that we need to fix so that all kinds of talent would be able to thrive.
That's amazing. There's a lot I grasped from what you mentioned,
but I have a few follow-up questions on this aspect.
First, I would love to see those studies.
I think that would be amazing to actually see all those things and see what you're stating,
what people have to say about that. I think that would be awesome.
The second thing, why is this vision, why do you care about this particular vision in your life?
What is your vibe of getting out of bed every morning and talking to people about this?
I've been getting out of the bed in the morning for decades with the passion of creating organizations that are intersectionally inclusive.
I started working in global diversity and intercultural relations, big-level cultures, multinational organizations, basically while I was in college.
It was fantastic. I loved my job.
I worked with all the different cultures and it was so much fun because we had all the different languages and different foods.
Then I encountered a huge gender discrimination in the same organization that was super inclusive on the level of cultural differences,
but they did not consider gender.
If you look at other organizations, they consider gender but no race, race but no disability, but not all the other human differences.
I wanted to figure out how to create organizations that are fully inclusive of everything that makes up a human.
Then when I got a doctorate in industrial organizational psychology, trying to figure out how to do it,
there was just more and more research that showed all kinds of discrimination in the workplace.
I looked at all kinds of disparities and issues throughout my career.
Then I started looking at psychological level differences.
Why do we have those dramatic differences in specifically neurodiversity inclusion, which are much more dramatic than for any other group?
Nobody else is excluded to the extent of 85%.
When I started looking into it, what I realized was that neurodiversity, the psychological level diversity,
how you react to the physical environment, how people perceive your communication and respond to you,
really reflects bias on the very psychological level,
that let's say the same bias that we don't like people who communicate differently from us,
would apply to let's say autistic people, it would apply to language discrimination and accent discrimination,
it would apply to regional accents within the country, for example, those that indicated someone grew up in poverty,
are also going to be hit by those differences in communication.
So when you start looking at the level of why people discriminate against those who communicate differently,
or why don't we give opportunities to people who communicate in ways that we're not used to,
or why is it that so much hinges on the interview, even though the interview very often has absolutely no bearing on how a person can cook the food or keep the books.
It doesn't make sense. We use tools for selection that are basically not valid.
Just give people work tests and work samples, and all those people that are discriminated against in the interview
because of differences in communication that have nothing to do with their actual ability to do the job,
are going to have a much better chance.
So that is just one example that shows that the psychological level differences in how we perceive someone and how we respond to them,
overlapping with outdated organizational practices that are not valid, are a huge part in this disparity in neurodivergent hiring,
but they're also a huge part of all the other kinds of discrimination that occur in the workplace.
So to me, inclusion based on those psychological level differences is the key to creating organizations that are much more inclusive in general,
which is why my approach is called the Canary Code.
Canaries were used in coal mines to detect toxic air through 1980s.
It's not a folk tale. In the UK, every coal mine was required to employ two canaries through 1980s,
and they were actually well taken care of. They even had little canary resuscitation devices with oxygen tanks.
So they were not killing canaries randomly, but they would take them down to the mineshaft,
and if the canary is showing the signs of distress, it means that after a while, miners will also be impacted.
But because canaries are able to fly, sing, and do the bird things by design, they're more sensitive to toxins in the air because they metabolize air more intensely.
They process oxygen both on inhale and exhale. So it's more intense, which is why they're going to be impacted by toxins first.
So that just shows that if you create air that's healthy for canary, it's going to be healthy for everyone.
Well, it's actually not that dissimilar from autistic people. Autistic brain processes 40% more information than the average brain.
So if there is noise, there is bullying, there is stressful work environment, the autistic people are going to be impacted first.
If you create a work environment that is inclusive and productive for autistic people, everyone is going to benefit because, again,
autistic people metabolize stress and human interaction as intensely as canaries process air.
So, again, the idea is to create inclusive organizations for everyone.
So neurodiversity is just one way of looking at it because neurodivergent people are canaries.
And then let's say it's not just autistic people, I'm just using that example, but let's say people with ADHD very often are more sensitive to their environment.
Both autistic people and ADHDers, I use identity first language as preferred by the community, they're both more sensitive to injustice in the workplace.
So when there's injustice, they are going to be reacting as that toxicity alarm.
And then what happens, they usually end up being driven out of the workplace instead of fixing the toxicity, which then eventually gets to everyone.
So when we create workplaces that are supportive and inclusive for neurodivergent people, everyone is going to be healthier and less stressed.
There's a lot you share in this.
And from what I see from now on, we'll have to depend on our views.
I think our views don't or do align, and I don't know where it's at yet.
When it comes to inclusion and diversity, I have different views, not that we should include or not include people.
I believe that when it comes to giving someone a job or employing someone should be done on merit if they're able to do their job or not.
Which is exactly what I'm talking about.
Exactly. So that's what I want to get on to because I didn't know which way you were leaning to.
When it comes to inclusion, I don't and I'm I'm I'm from India, born and raised.
So it's not like I haven't seen racism at all or anything of diversity stuff.
Like, it's not that. But I believe in my heart that if there is someone else of a different race, white, black, brown, whatever, and they have more merit than me.
And me and him are applying for a job or her are applying for a job.
I believe if someone else is more merit than me, they should get that job despite of my circumstances.
That's what I believe. And if that is not what you believe, then what I talk to you about from this point on was to be a different conversation than what we have been right now.
But I think I'm getting the sense that you believe the same things that.
And cared for on their merits and not of their circumstances.
The community is not based on any kind of preferential treatment for any kind of group.
It's actually based on six principles like flexibility, measuring work based on outcomes, input, organizational justice.
And the last one is valid measurements.
So that's why I brought up hiring and interviews.
We are not actually hiring on merit because we're not using good measurement.
So right now we rely on interviews very heavily.
In fact, most people don't know the difference between interview and hiring process, even though hiring process is a much broader thing than the interview.
So we could do skill tests.
We can do job trials and those things are much more accurate at predicting someone's ability to do the job.
So actually it is hiring on merit, which is currently not happening.
What is happening now is hiring on, oh yeah, my cousin went to the same school as you or I like your face.
It's not the actual merit that much of the current measurement taps into.
So that actually is something that is fully compatible with merit.
Because I'm not suggesting hiring autistic people just because they're autistic people for jobs they're not qualified for or ADHDers.
I'm suggesting measure accurately and if you do that you're going to end up with more diversity
because you will remove similar to me bias from hiring because right now we very often confuse merit
and we just like someone's face and we just like that they're from the same town as me or they have the same accent.
So I think fixing those obstacles is very important.
Another way I talk about it is I don't like DI that is ladder.
So right now people face obstacles in the workplace.
Let's say there is disparity in promotion for different groups.
There is a line of thought that thinks we just need to bring ladders over those barriers for certain groups of people.
So let's bring a ladder for women because there's a barrier to promotion.
Oh my gosh, and then we need to build a ramp for people with various kinds of disabilities.
That doesn't make sense. Why is the barrier there to begin with?
So if there is unfairness, let's say, in how the promotion system works,
then we need to make sure that the promotion system is actually based on performance, knowledge, ability to learn, attitude,
all those things that are supposed to be considered merit.
But again, very often it's like they look, for example, in women's appearance or disabled people can never be leaders because whatever.
People think about them.
So to me it's about removing barriers rather than bringing in a bunch of ladders.
But right now many of our organizations are filled with those barriers that are again unfair
and have nothing to do with the actual productivity and ability to do the work.
That's a great point. That goes directly to my next question for you, and I want to dive deeper into that.
That will be the last question for today, Ludmila.
So according to you, what do you hope to achieve at what level in the amount of change you're looking to see in the world
when it comes to applying the principles that you shared with me in real world?
What is your goal for being on the show and what you see, hope to achieve that could happen in the future?
I want people to be able to use their talents to the maximum because the more people are using their talents to the maximum,
the more society is going to thrive.
Sometimes people think about it as, okay, so those people are going to thrive, then I won't.
But if you have a society that has more to go around, the bigger pie society,
then everyone is able to bring in their talents and their productivity.
So I want to change this kind of zero-sum mentality that some people's success always comes at the expense of other people's success
and give everyone opportunities to do the job that is the best for them, not for someone else,
but that aligns with their strengths and with their abilities because that will enhance the society
and that will eventually create more thriving and more opportunities to go around.
So here's the conundrum on that. There's obviously levels that this can be applied to.
For example, a small business owner who has to think about bringing in money for the next month
or retaining some customers so they can achieve better or provide for their family is not thinking about all these things.
If you go on a higher level with companies who have been sustained for five to ten years,
who have a few sustained clients and they're bringing X amount of revenue to sustain let's say five, ten, fifteen, twenty employees on a regular basis,
they may have the resources, time and energy, and the right leadership, which is very more important in this case scenario,
to include these aspects and this way of thinking into their processes.
So at what level do you see the change or where do you see it starting? Do you see it from top to bottom, bottom to top?
What do you hope?
Do small businesses need talent?
Yes, they do.
The whole point is talent. I'm not trying to tell a small business owner that their only first employee must be from the group X.
The business owner should hire the best person for their job, whether it's a small business or the large business.
And again, I'm not talking about just bringing in people just because.
I'm talking about bringing someone who is best for that job, who is going to deliver outstanding performance.
And that very well might be a neurodivergent person that will go into hyper focus and do ten days worth of work in one night.
Because that's what neurodivergent people do. So don't confuse neurodivergent people with substandard hiring or any kind of diversity with substandard hiring.
I'm talking about bringing in the best person for the job and just not discriminating because sometimes people think, OK, the woman has got three kids.
She's not going to invest. The woman can be the most efficient person because she knows she needs to feed three kids and doesn't have a ton of time to be online and play games.
So she's going to put in the utmost effort in whatever time she has. And that small business will actually benefit much more than if they decided, oh, no, this woman with three kids.
So let's go with someone else. So just look at actual productivity. I don't think it has anything to do with the size of company.
If you look at many entrepreneurs who are successful, they are people who have been discriminated against in the workplace.
And then they started their companies because their talent deserved more than what companies were giving them consideration for because of various biases.
Even Elon Musk had difficulty getting hiring, getting hired. People didn't want to hire him. There's YouTube videos where he talks about it.
They don't want him because he didn't communicate in the way like all those extroverted business people do.
So you don't want to have people who are different from you. OK, you push them into entrepreneurship.
And though actually a lot of entrepreneurs are neurodivergent. Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.