Episode 413 - The Neurodiversity Edge with Maureen Dunne

The Extraordinary Business Book Club

'This is the moment to embrace authentic neurodiversity inclusion as a core organizational value. It isn't the whole solution to anything, but it is part of the solution to nearly everything.'

As we hurtle towards the workplace of the future, where human and machine intelligence will interplay in ways we can't yet fully imagine, one thing is clear: standard modes of thinking are becoming less valuable to organizations as algorithms become ever more efficient at replicating them. Nonlinear thinking, hyper focus, intuitive leaps and the ability to tolerate social discomfort and resist groupthink - attributes that have until now been under-valued and under-employed - will become more valuable as complements to AI. And that means that neurodivergent people will become ever more valuable within organizations.

That's the argument of Dr Maureen Dunne, cognitive scientist, neurodiversity expert and member of the neurodiversity community herself, and it's also the topic of her new book. As well as making this case, she also shares her own neurodivergent approach to writing: an interdisciplinary, visuospatial 'conceptual synaethesia'.

A rich and extraordinary conversation, at every level.