We are wrapping up this series on championing for different thinkers, with some concrete examples of how this can be done at work. It’s actually really simple!
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Transcription:
Hey, welcome to part 3 of our conversation about championing for the different thinker, that neurodiverse, ADHD, dyslexic adult, and obviously, we can always champion for the younger person too. Ah, that’s the easy part though, um in reality, it’s easier to champion for them. They’re in environments that have um, more options for that.
So, let’s talk about championing though for the Adult. And, I’m on number 3, which is, this is a great thing I was taught years and years ago about young people, and they’ve said, a young person will be successful in life, and they can almost guarantee it or they can say it’s a really high probability right it’s in the upper part of the curve, that they’re gonna have a successful life and move into adulthood well, if they have 5 people that support them. 5 adults. If they can hold up a hand from any age and name off 5 adults that they trust 100%, they will tell them anything. They wind up doing really really well. That’s what they found, and so, that also applies when it comes to being a different thinker and being in a new environment, so let’s say in a job environment, school, those types of things and it really gets down to enrolling 5 people, so this is #3- Enroll 5 people to support them behind the scenes. So, if you’re a boss, again if you’re a teacher, those types of things it’s enrolling a few students. Last time I told a story about a fellow student of mine that stood up for me when I was getting harassed and bullied about my bad spelling test, and it’s the same thing. It doesn’t change. What makes a difference is if there are 5 people within that work environment that you have enrolled to help support them, to check in on them. ‘How’s it going?’ to make sure if there is any gossip behind the scenes, they just squash it. Like when they walk in a room, if somebody’s gossiping about that person, about let’s say they were gossiping about my spelling, ‘Oh my gosh did you get the emails from JoyGenea? Oh did you see those spelling errors?’ If that person is a champion for me they walk in the room and go, ‘Well, yeah. Like that’s not uncommon. She doesn’t, you know, it’s part of her dyslexia. That’s all. Why are you guys making it a big deal?’ It’s really simple to just squash and pull all the energy out of that type of criticism and judgement and help people get focused on what really matters. ‘Well was the content of her emails ok? Like, did you understand what she was asking?’ ‘Well yeah but they have errors in them.’ ‘Well yeah they’re probably always gonna have errors in them. That’s why she does a lot of internal emailing and less external emailing. So that doesn’t get in the way for her or the company.’ Simple conversations are easy to have for different thinkers. So those 5 people that squash the gossip, that in a meeting if they notice that different thinker’s being mowed over which trust me, happens a lot of times. They can just champion for them and simply say, ‘You know I- I think JoyGenea was over there um trying to say something and she’s kinda got mowed over a couple of times. Let’s, you know maybe circle back over to her and and see what she had to say.’ Simple things like that. That’s what it takes. And having 5 people enrolled in championing for a different thinker in an environment makes a huge difference. So, how can you be a champion for somebody today. I’m JoyGenea. Thank you.