Podcast conversation

Andrew Kitley from The Invisible Gift meets Nathan Whitbread

In the final episode of season 3 of The Invisible Gift, Andrew meets Nathan Whitbread – The Neurodivergent Coach. The Neurodivergent Coach provides Consultancy, Coaching and Assistive Technology training for dyslexic and neurodivergent individuals and teams. In the episode, we learn what the term neurodiversity really means. Nathan explains the Medici Effect and why neurodiversity has finally become sexy and the boys identify why the best leaders work for their employees. Not the other way round.

Listen here.

Top quotes

“Labels can be helpful but also quite dangerous. It’s always important to remember first that you are a unique human with unique characteristics and traits who happens to have a dyslexia diagnoses.” – Nathan Whitbread

“I always say we should strive to identify as individuals not by groups or labels because you can pigeon hole yourself.” – Andrew Kitley

About the guest

Nathan Whitbread is a motivational speaker and founder of The Neurodivergent Coach. Nathan described his early life in education as ‘constantly avoiding’ essays. He would chose his degree precisely because it wasn’t essay driven. Nathan graduated from the University of Surrey with a degree in Mechanical Engineering with Business and Management in 1998. Nathan would only learn he had dyslexia when he began a career in marketing. In 2015, he founded The Neurodivergent Coach. The Neurodivergent Coach provides Consultancy, Coaching and Assistive Technology training for dyslexic and neurodivergent individuals and teams. The Neurodivergent Coach works with both individuals and organisations to create a more neuro-inclusive workplace. Since 2017 he has been a Workplace Needs Assessor for the British Dyslexia Association. Nathan is also an Associate Assistive Technology Training Consultant and Coach at eVoice.

About the host

The Invisible Gift is hosted by entrepreneur and dyslexic, Andrew Kitley. With twenty years experience, Andrew Kitley has worked his way up the metaphorical and literal ladder to become Managing Director of Kitall: an engineering firm. Under Andrew’s guidance, Kitall is now one of the most sought after names to complete complex engineering projects in the UK. In each episode of The Invisible Gift, Andrew seeks the advice and inspiration of a fellow trailblazer who has defied the odds to achieve the extraordinary – turning the challenge of neurodiversity into a gift.

neurodiverse

Neurodivergent Traits at Work: How to Retain and Empower Your Team

Research from the British Dyslexia Association estimates that at least 15% of the working population has neurodivergent traits. That means in a team of twenty, at least three people are likely to be navigating the workplace through a different lens. Some will know it. Many will not. Most will have spent years developing strategies to manage in environments that were not designed with them in mind.

For managers and HR leaders, neurodivergent traits are not a problem to manage. They are a resource to understand. The organisations that get this right retain talented people, unlock genuine performance, and build cultures where more people can do their best work.

TL;DR: Neurodivergent traits are the characteristics associated with conditions like ADHD, dyslexia, autism, and dyspraxia. They include significant strengths as well as genuine challenges. This post explains what those traits look like in practice, how they affect performance, and what managers can do to support neurodivergent employees effectively.

What are neurodivergent traits?

Neurodivergent traits are the characteristics associated with neurological conditions including dyslexia, ADHD, autism, dyspraxia, and dyscalculia, as well as acquired conditions such as PTSD and migraines. Crucially, research by Professor Amanda Kirby shows that co-occurring traits are more common than single-condition profiles. Most neurodivergent individuals carry traits from several different conditions in combination, which means no two people present in the same way.

This matters for managers. If you have met one person with neurodivergent traits, you have met one person. Applying a single solution to a varied population will not work. What works is understanding the individual.

Neurodivergent traits that benefit your organisation

A strengths-based approach to neurodivergent traits is not just good for wellbeing. It is good for business. The traits that create challenges in some contexts are often the same traits that drive exceptional performance in others.

Creativity and lateral thinking: Many neurodivergent people think differently by default. They make connections that others miss and find solutions that a more linear thinker would not reach. In environments that value innovation, this is a competitive advantage.

Hyperfocus and depth: When interest and motivation align, many people with ADHD or autism can achieve extraordinary depth of focus. The challenge is creating conditions where that focus can be directed productively.

Pattern recognition: Many neurodivergent individuals are exceptional at identifying patterns in data, systems, or behaviour, skills that are highly valuable in analytical, technical, and strategic roles.

Emotional intelligence and empathy: Particularly common in autistic people, a heightened awareness of fairness, ethics, and the experiences of others can make neurodivergent employees exceptionally valuable in client-facing, coaching, and leadership roles.

Persistence and resilience: Having navigated systems that were not designed for them, many neurodivergent employees bring an ingrained resilience and a capacity to persist through difficulty that neurotypical colleagues may not have been required to develop.

Common challenges and what they mean in practice

Understanding neurodivergent strengths is only half the picture. The other half is understanding where the workplace creates unnecessary difficulty, and what can be done about it.

Memory and information processing: Many neurodivergent individuals have limited short-term memory capacity. Think of a bookshelf that holds three books instead of nine: when a new book arrives, an old one falls off. In environments where information is shared verbally, in long meetings, or without written follow-up, this creates a significant and entirely unnecessary disadvantage. Written agendas, follow-up notes, and the option to record meetings are low-cost adjustments that make a material difference. For more on how technology can support this, read Is Being Technology Agnostic Important? (https://theneurodivergentcoach.co.uk/neurodiversity-and-being-technology-agnostic/)

Organisation and process: Many neurodivergent employees find it hard to navigate organisational systems that rely on implicit knowledge. Knowing when to prep for a meeting, how to manage a shared calendar, and how to build buffers into a working day are skills that neurotypical employees may have absorbed unconsciously. Co-building processes with the individual, rather than assuming they will work out how, makes the difference between someone struggling and someone thriving.

Time management: Time blindness is common in ADHD and affects some autistic people too. It is not poor attitude or a lack of professionalism. It is a neurological difference in how time is perceived. Practical adjustments like alarms, visual timers, and clearly structured working days reduce the cognitive load significantly without requiring the individual to do something their brain is not wired to do. Read more about this in Time Mastery for Neurodivergent Executives (https://theneurodivergentcoach.co.uk/time-mastery-for-neurodivergent-executives/).

Masking and wellbeing: Many neurodivergent employees spend significant energy appearing neurotypical at work. This is known as masking, and its cumulative effect on mental health and performance is substantial. An employee who masks heavily may appear to be coping well while working twice as hard as their colleagues just to keep pace. When change happens, that person has no reserves left to adapt. Understanding masking is one of the most important things a manager can do. Loneliness and Masking:

What HR Leaders Need to Know (https://theneurodivergentcoach.co.uk/masking-loneliness-and-neurodiversity-at-work-what-hr-leaders-need-to-know/) goes deeper on this.

What good support looks like

Support for neurodivergent employees is not about sticking plasters. It is about building an environment where people do not need them.

That starts with awareness, but awareness alone is not enough. Training needs to be supported by practical processes, accessible to everyone, and embedded in day-to-day management rather than buried in a policy document.

Good support means employees know where to go for help, what to expect when they ask, and that asking will not be held against them. It means reasonable adjustments are straightforward to request and reliably followed through. For guidance on what reasonable adjustment actually means, read Reasonable Adjustments: So What Is Reasonable? (https://theneurodivergentcoach.co.uk/reasonable-adjustments-so-what-is-reasonable/)

For many organisations, a Workplace Needs Assessment is the most effective starting point. It gives the individual and their manager a shared, structured understanding of what is needed and why. Read more about the manager’s role in a Workplace Needs Assessment (https://theneurodivergentcoach.co.uk/manager-role-in-workplace-needs-assessment/).

The organisations that do this well do not just retain neurodivergent employees. They create the conditions where those employees can contribute at their highest level. The costs of not doing it are real: attrition of talented people, legal risk under the Equality Act 2010, and the loss of the competitive advantage that genuine cognitive diversity brings.

If you would like to explore how to build better support for neurodivergent employees in your organisation, get in touch (https://theneurodivergentcoach.co.uk/contact/).

Related reading

Reasonable Adjustments: So What Is Reasonable? – Find out more here

The practical follow-up to this post. What reasonable adjustment actually means, what it does not mean, and how managers can act on it confidently.

Loneliness and Masking: What HR Leaders Need to Know – Find out more here

Understanding masking is an essential context for any manager supporting neurodivergent employees. This post explains what it is and why it matters.

Manager Role in Workplace Needs Assessment – Find out more here

If this post has raised questions about how to support a specific employee, a Workplace Needs Assessment is the structured next step.

Stay connected

If this post was useful, there is plenty more where it came from. Every month we share practical insights on neurodiversity, management, and making workplaces work better for everyone. Sign up to the newsletter here

Neurodiversity through the lens of intersectionality: lost opportunities and goldfish

A considerable number of people are still arriving in adulthood without any diagnosis or understanding of their neurodivergent traits (ASC, DCD, dyslexia, dysgraphia or other neurodivergent conditions).

There is often an assumption that people know what they need and know how to access it. The reality is not everyone has access to the support and insight that is needed to help them identify their neurodivergent traits.

Read the full article here.

Broom and dustpan in Cupboard

Project neurodiversity sorting out the broom cupboard

John Chambers, former CEO of Cisco Systems says “25% of CEOs are dyslexic, but many don’t want to talk about it”. There is an argument that if leaders self-identify as neurodivergent the rest of the workforce will feel more comfortable coming forward and having a conversation about neurodiversity.

Organisations can thrive instead of survive if they embrace neurodiversity. The current situation looks like there is a lot of noise, good ideas and goodwill in helping individuals become more effective in the workplace. The reality is that many of these initiatives are disjointed, not bespoke, and fragmented, so organisations are running many different special projects at the same time. This creates a substantial operational overhead that can detrimentally impact the organisation’s effectiveness.

This is a big problem that is not going to go away unless we start to think more holistically and in a project-orientated way across our organisations to help support neurodiversity. We have to think about the constraints we have to operate in. What is the scope of what we are trying to do? How long is it going to take? Do we have the resources to deliver it? And most importantly, how will we know what success looks like?

The project management approach is just as relevant to individuals. In my experience, many individuals have had a very fragmented and disjointed approach to support. To help them manage more effectively I would argue we need to treat neurodivergent support far more like a project.

Project Mindset

It is often easy to get baffled and confused by the potential solutions and lose sight of the problem we are trying to solve. Are we taking a project mindset to neurodiversity in the workplace? Are we focusing on what the problem is?

As an example, John needed support with task management. His company provided him with a robust task management app. The app allowed him to connect tasks across applications and distribute them throughout the organisation. John required a simple solution to help him understand what he needed to do and the priority that should be assigned to each task. As a result of the solution, John became obsessed with making sure he was fully utilising the app rather than focusing on solving the problem. He became stressed, anxious, and guilty about not using the app completely, which distracted him from the problem at hand, which was effectively prioritising his workload.

John’s situation is true for many individuals, as often incorrect solutions are provided that often create additional problems instead of solving the original issue.

Adjustments and support fall into two models which are, The Medical Model, which is about fixing the individual and The Social Model which looks at the social/organisational factors that disable the individual from working effectively.

Often the easy answer is to try and fix the individual by providing an off-the-shelf solution, but there needs to be experimentation, open dialogue and possible coaching.  Then a solid process can be written down and used going forward.  This needs to be led by the individual with support from the organisation. When we look at this in a project way, it means taking a step back and thinking about the impacts of what’s going on within the organisation.

The broom cupboard

Another example: I worked with Toni, who had recently been diagnosed with ADHD and was dealing with work overload and unhelpful organisational behaviours. Toni enjoyed teaching and was successful in the classroom, but her administrative abilities let her down. Furthermore, there was bureaucracy within the organisation, which meant that basic administrative tasks were assigned to senior staff.

We began with small wins to gain momentum, such as examining how Toni could better complete her administration. We set up a distraction-free environment in a broom cupboard for her to complete her administrative tasks. Toni’s mood improved dramatically as a result of a simple change that was inexpensive and quick to implement. Then we altered the way classes were assigned, allowing Toni to have breaks and time for administration between teaching. This was a more difficult organisational issue that required leadership support. The changes were made one at a time and were evaluated based on their impact and usefulness to the individual and the organisation.

In this particular case, it was helpful to get quick wins before working on more challenging adjustments. This allowed Toni to build trust and gain confidence in what was being implemented to make sure the solutions met her needs.

Action is key on Project Neurodiversity

“Often movement is the most important thing.”

Claire Pedrick

We are often afraid to begin, but to determine what is useful, it is critical to ask the individual and the teams involved what the problem is and how we can begin to solve it together.

Toni was overwhelmed in the previous example because she couldn’t see a way to begin solving the problem. What worked was solving one problem, reviewing the solution to ensure that it resolved the issue in the short and long term, and then moving on to the next. Action will frequently involve challenging the status quo, but I would argue that well-thought-out systematic changes will often benefit not only the individual but also the larger organisation.

Creating workplace adjustments should be viewed as a project that should be implemented, but be prepared to roll it back if it doesn’t work. The process should be structured, and documented and any changes made need to be communicated, recorded and approved by all stakeholders who use the process.

I hope the information above has helped you think about neurodiversity and how to use the concept of a project to make changes more effectively. I’d love to hear more about your experiences in making your work environment become more neuroinclusive.