Neurodiversity

As asset, not diagnosis.

Jonathan Mooney wrote in The Short Bus about living as a dyslexic person. For years it felt like failure. Until he understood that dyslexia isn't failure. It's a different way of reading. One that better perceives relationships, patterns, movement.

Many entrepreneurs have ADHD. Many innovators have autism. These aren't coincidences. These are human variations that are stronger in certain things.

This is what I see in the DIP manuscript. Designing inclusive production doesn't mean: everyone gets the same things, the same way. It means: recognizing that different brain types have different strengths. And mobilizing those strengths.

An ADHD brain sees patterns others miss. It jumps between ideas in ways others see as chaotic but that can be genuinely innovative. An autistic brain sees details others pass over. It can lay down unwavering patterns where systematicity is required.

Many organizations try to adapt these brain types to their structure. Instead, they should adapt their structure to the brain types.

This isn't inclusion for kindness. This is inclusion because it actually works better. A team of only neurotypical brains will never see certain kinds of problems. A mixed team will see more.

Thiel would say: this is where you conquer competition. By hiring talent others reject. By hiring them not despite their difference, but because of their difference.

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Source: Jonathan Mooney, The Short Bus (Holt, 2007) and neuroscience research