323. Neurodiversity at Work: Unlocking Hidden Strengths with Wainwright Yu

What if the person you’re frustrated with at work isn’t lazy, careless, or “not leadership material,” but simply stuck in an environment that works against how their brain operates? That question sits at the center of my conversation with Wainwright Yu, a senior technology executive and leadership coach who specializes in neurodiversity and cognitive diversity. We get personal quickly, starting with the moment an employee disclosed ADHD during a performance conversation, and the gut-punch of hearing the same possibility raised about his own child soon after.

From there, we move into practical, strengths-based leadership. We talk about why the Golden Rule breaks down at work, especially when attention, executive function, and processing styles differ, and how the Platinum Rule helps us lead people as they are. Wainwright shares a powerful example of role fit: a struggling employee becomes highly successful when his work shifts from process compliance to complex problem solving. The lesson is bigger than ADHD at work. Every human is “uneven,” and the best managers learn how to align tasks to strengths, values, and energy rather than forcing a one-size-fits-all standard.

We also unpack how to find hidden strengths, how to reframe traits like impulsivity, mind-wandering, and anxiety into courage, creativity, and foresight, and how to build team norms that support differences without turning them into a spotlight or a stigma. You’ll leave with concrete ideas for psychological safety, better conversations outside performance reviews, and small adjustments that remove friction while keeping standards high.

If this sparks an insight, subscribe, share the episode with one leader who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s one strengths conversation you’ll have this week?

🌐 Connect with Wainwright:
• Website: https://www.wainwrightyu.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wainwrightyu/

📚 You can purchase Wainwright's book on Amazon:
• Leading with Compassion: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DWMQTJS4/

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:01

What if the person you think is underperforming is simply in the wrong environment? What if what looks like a weakness is actually an untapped strength waiting for the right conditions, and what if leadership is not about treating everyone the same, but understanding what each person needs to do their very best work. In today's episode of The Leadership Project, I sit down with Wainwright Yu for a conversation we do not have often enough. It's about Neurodiversity, Cognitive Diversity, and how leaders can better understand the different ways people think, work, focus, process and contribute. Wainwright brings a powerful blend of executive leadership coaching experience and personal insight into this topic. This is not just a conversation about Neurodiversity, it's a conversation about better leadership and how we can create the environment where everyone can unlock their full strengths and do their very best work. Let's dive in. Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. We have a special treat for you today, a topic that we don't often think about or talk about, but we really need to. We really need to have these conversations. I'm greatly honored to be joined by Wainwright Yu. Wainwright, is a Top Executive in the technology domain, in hightech, if you like, but he's also a leadership coach with a specialization. In helping people with Cognitive Diversity or Neurodiversity, and helping them discover and harness their unique strengths. We know that people with Neurodiversity have challenges in the workplace, but they also have these amazing and sometimes hidden strengths that we want to be able to harness and bring to the surface. So, I'm sure that all of you are already intrigued. So, I want to get right into this. I'm going to invite Wainwright to say hello to the audience, and I'd love to know a little bit about your background, but mostly what inspires you to do this work with Neurodiversity and with people that are cognitively diverse in the workplace.

Wainwright Yu: 2:19

Thank you so much for having me in the show, Mick. I'll answer your question about what got me into this line of work with two very short stories, very, very short, I promise. The first one was I was sitting in front of one of my employees, and she was not performing well, and so we were having a performance conversation, and in that moment she had disclosed to me that she had ADHD. She said, "Just to let you know, I have ADHD." At that point in time, I knew, nothing about ADHD or Neurodiversity. And so, as the manager, I very quickly then said, "Thank you for telling me." I went back and researched what you know the company supports are for that, and then I obviously offered those things to her. She eventually didn't, didn't succeed in the role, and she left the company, shortly thereafter. The principal at my son's school called me in and had a conversation and asked me whether I had considered having my son diagnosed with ADHD, and if you can think about sort of being in those two positions in short succession, that just made me realize, oh my goodness, I'm just missing an understanding of this reality that people face, and I couldn't help this employee who was already sort of underperforming in her role, and now I'm the father of a child who, at a point, may, may have ADHD and was eventually confirmed as having it. And that really spurred me, to learn a lot more about this, to be educated, and to be a much more valuable resource for others who have ADHD. And I'll tell you, Mick, as they say, a lot of this is genetic, and so, as I learned more about it, I sort of realized, like, oh, how does this run in my family, and my parents, myself, and, and I find that the world, the world is just Cognitively Diverse, just like we're diverse in other dimensions of our life. We are diverse in the way we think, and learning about that is a really important part of being who we are and contributing to the world around us.

Mick Spiers: 4:16

A really good one, right? Thank you for sharing both those stories, and I like the curiosity that then, that inspired in you. What I'm curious to know straight away is how it felt, and I'm going to play both of them back to you and say that if you like any other leader, you want your people to succeed. I want to know how it felt when you had this person where you couldn't make it work, and they did end up leaving. How did that feel? And then, secondly, when you find out that your own children are heading down this path, how did that feel? What emotions came to the surface?

Wainwright Yu: 4:55

So, on the first question for this employee, there were certain behaviors. That she was demonstrating that just were perplexing to me, because it didn't resonate with how I experienced life myself. Often we assume that people are like us, or people are generally the same, and so there would be things like she knows a deadline is coming up and she just forgets about it, or she knows the meeting is coming up and she would forget the meeting was ever there. And I just want to understand, like, why would that happen for you, and she would implement certain tools, like notifications, to alert her that those meetings were happening, but then those wouldn't work either, and so. I felt sort of at a loss on how to be a better support, which is why we brought in a, sort of a coach who would support her through the process, but what I eventually realized, this is a bit of a third story, Mick. I apologize, but there's a, there's another employee who I didn't know at the time had ADHD. And what was different was that employee ended up becoming incredibly successful in the team, and they ended up getting promoted thereafter, but he was actually also being performance manage at the time, like roughly at the same time, but he ended up becoming successful two years later. The big difference, looking back, which I didn't know at the time, was we changed his job. It wasn't something we were intentional about. It just so happened to be the case that his project ended and he needed to move to a different project, and it just came to be that the new project was a good fit for what he was really good at. And for this other employee, they were just continuing on with the project that they were already assigned to, and they eventually didn't succeed, and so part of the realization for me was fit is a really important thing. The fit and the challenges in front of you and the inherent strengths that you bring to the table.

Mick Spiers: 6:44

Yeah, pause on that one, and we'll come back to your kids in a moment, if I can, because I think there's a bit to unpack there. The first word I'm going to throw back to you is, you said perplexing. And what I want to say here is, I think this occurs even when there isn't Neurodiversity, by the way, but I think it's going to be magnified when there's a Neurodiversity here, so you know you've probably heard this before, Wain, and I'm sure you know the difference between the golden rule and the platinum rule. So the Golden Rule that people talk about is treat other people the way you want to be treated, right. And that can be an okay default when you're first starting to know someone, but the Platinum Rule is treat other people the way they want to be treated, get to know their preferences and how they work best. If I then add Neurodiversity into the mix, you're sitting there and I'm going to throw the word back at you, perplexing, you're sitting there going, how is this person not getting this, or why is this not working for them? Because you're sorry to say, you're kind of projecting your own values and preferences onto them when we get to know them more, and if we're adding Neurodiversity into the mix, their needs are different to yours, so if you treat them the way you want to be treated. It's not going to work.

Wainwright Yu: 8:04

That sounds, that I 100% agree with that, Mick. And in fact, that we might get downgrade the Golden Rule to whatever the Burns Rule, because it's not, it's not particularly good if you think about it.

Mick Spiers: 8:18

Very good. It's funny because for many I'm going to say for decades that's what leaders were taught and I think it was a limiting belief and it was called the Golden Rule originally and then someone came in and went " Sorry. Ps, that's that's crap." Let's go to the Platinum Rule that so yeah maybe it should be the Lead Rule. All right very good, and then the second one was the role fit I'm going to tell you that I've had two people in my business this year who landed in completely new roles and flourished that were somewhat struggling in their previous roles. But the way that they fit into their new roles, and this is regardless of Neurodiversity, the way that, they are just flourishing, so when you get into the right role that fits with their personality, their approach, their strengths, amazing things can happen. All right, now let's come to your kids now, if we can, so.

Wainwright Yu: 9:10

Yeah, I'll just mention one quick thing, Mick, because you often kind of use the term, you know, regardless of Neurodiversity, and I think it's helpful for the audience to also just understand that every human is uneven, right, like your, your characteristics have their other differences versus other people. But what makes Near Diversion People different is that their peaks and valleys are just higher and deeper,

Mick Spiers: 9:33

Alright, yeah okay, that's good. That's a really good thing to say, and nice that you picked up. I used that, that phrase a few times, yeah, very good. Okay, so tell me about the emotion when you discovered your kids were also in this spectrum.

Wainwright Yu: 9:48

I think my first reaction was just shock, because all I knew at the time were all of the commonly known things about things like ADHD, which is that. They can seem to attend. They have Low Executive Functioning Skills, and just my personal experience with life is that intelligence is helpful and it matters. But the Executive Functioning Skills matter a whole lot as well, in terms of being able to succeed in life. And so I was just very worried. I was very worried. I didn't understand what to do, and so that was my initial reaction to all of that, I think. If you were to ask me, how am I dealing with it today, and it's been six years since then. Today, I think it's a constant struggle to be able to see things from their perspective, to use your term, the platinum rule, because at the end of the day, we are living our own lives, we are sort of in our own, the life we live is comes from our own worldview.Because we are living in our own bodies and our own minds, and we will never really fully understand how they see things. And I have to constantly remind myself to do that on a day-to-day basis, and that's I often tell people, even though I know what the right thing to do is in my head, living it every day is harder than, and harder than just understanding it.

Mick Spiers: 11:06

Yeah, okay. Thank you for sharing that. So, I can, I can see two streams there, that the awareness did help, but then the intentional actions of, I'm going to say, put myself in your shoes, of almost pausing,"Oh, hang on a second. This is happening because of this." You need to check in with yourself on a regular basis, and it becomes an intentional action at that point, but one that doesn't just because you know it doesn't make it easy, is what I'm hearing.

Wainwright Yu: 11:34

Yeah, and I think the disabling parts of Neurodiversity, for sure, exist, and they are, they sometimes often become the most visible thing we see, and I often have to remind myself to see the enabling aspects of their profile and just focus on that more, and that's been under the journey as well.

Mick Spiers: 11:55

All right, so we're definitely going to talk about this Concept of Harnessing the Strengths, including if they're, if they're hidden strengths. In a moment, there's one more thing that we've danced around that I want to talk about, and that is Diagnosed versus Undiagnosed, right? So, and let's go to the Leadership Lens here, but any parents listening to this, it, this may show up in the same way, by the way. So, when you've got someone in front of you. You had one worker that said to you,"I am diagnosed." And then you had another one where there was no apparent diagnosis or no known diagnosis, but the traits were still there. How does a leader look at this when your, what advice do you have to a leader that has a work, worker come to them and say I have been diagnosed versus observing behavior and going, "Oh, there's some interesting traits here." How does the leader deal with this?

Wainwright Yu: 12:53

My advice to myself on this, and the good news is it applies to people who are Neurodivergent and people who aren't. Is to lean into understanding what makes people uniquely great, and I think if you do that, it actually doesn't matter whether they're diagnosed. In fact, their disabilities are only become a smaller part of the story. What you're asking yourself is like,"What is it that this person does really well?" And how do I put them in positions and and roles that allow them to lean fully into those strengths, and then you get the best part of that person, of course. The disability, disabling aspects do play a role, and they do need to be supported there, but I'd say, if I had to split, if you had 100% of energy, and I would, I would subdivide that energy between the strengths and the challenges. I do 80/20 with 80% of the strengths and 20% of the challenges, and I think that drives the best outcomes, especially for adults.

Mick Spiers: 13:55

Okay. All right. Really good. So, there's elements I'm picking up here. Is we need to take the time to understand what their unique strengths are, including ones that may not be initially evident, acknowledging that there's going to be things that they struggle with, and potentially putting in some support mechanisms or different ways of managing those things that they struggle with, that you're putting the weight of your energy to harness the strengths is what I'm hearing here, okay.

Wainwright Yu: 14:24

Would it be helpful, Mick, to give an example?

Mick Spiers: 14:26

Yes, please. I'd love that.

Wainwright Yu: 14:28

Yeah, so this one employee who I had mentioned to you was struggling, and then eventually became successful. So the role he was in, where he was struggling, was one where he needed to coordinate basically customer support processes and funnily enough, he just wasn't doing the job, like he would constantly remind him that, like, "Hey, you need to hold a high standard here, especially with customer service, the processes need to be documented in a very detailed way, and your job is to make sure that people are complying with those processes." And he just didn't end up doing. His new role was one that required him to solve one very difficult problem, usually a highly technical problem, and you can, you can tell just by the way I described the two problems that they were very different kinds of problems to solve, and he was very self-motivated on the second kind. Because he loved solving problems, he never procrastinated, he really just, and he had very high standards, in fact, on the latter, but he couldn't, self-motivated, he couldn't self-motivate himself on the on the former type of challenge. So that's one example, and the shift in this role really allowed him to show what he could do.

Mick Spiers: 15:39

Yeah, that's a great example. Now I want to test something with you to make sure that I don't misunderstand it, and I'll speak for the audience as well. So you're talking about that one individual where, when they found what they love, they throw their full self at it. They, it's amazing what happens when you find something that you love doing. Time seems to be immaterial. You get into a flow state, and you're having the time of your life, and when you're doing something that you don't enjoy, you all know what it feels like, it feels like you're dragging your feet, etc, etc. But the thing I want to test, make sure I'm understanding you're talking about that individual, I'm assuming, and this is what I'm testing with you that just because someone's Neurodiversion doesn't mean that they're all going to have the same preferences of that individual. This is, this is going to be an individual path for every single one that we have to go, okay? Well, what do you love doing and what do you not love doing? And how are we going to frame that? Am I right?

Wainwright Yu: 16:41

Absolutely, different people have different sort of areas of relative strength and weakness, different things give them energy, different things glean their energy. I agree with that.

Mick Spiers: 16:50

So, what I wanted to make sure is leaders don't listen to your story and then go, "Oh, I've got a Neurodivergent person, I give them our most complex single problem, and because it worked for that person, that doesn't mean it's going to work for everyone, right?" So, you've got to get more curious. I'm going to say.

Wainwright Yu: 17:05

Absolutely that there are certain Cognitive Profiles that really like working on the details, and there are certain Cognitive Profiles that, that absolutely abhor the details and only want to work on the big picture.

Mick Spiers: 17:15

There you go. Okay, perfect. All right, so how do we do that? Then we've already used the word Curiosity, but I can kind of throw something out there and say that the challenges might be more self-evident. We see, we can see the struggles, but how do we find the inner strengths?

Wainwright Yu: 17:31

So, there's two ways by which I often think about this. One way is more from a Character Perspective, and what I mean by character is things like perseverance, honesty, gratitude. There's certain different people have different values or character, and understanding that element of a person helps you lean into the thing that gives them the most energy. So, just to give you an example, Mick. A lot of people I know have love of learning as a really high value, and if you give them opportunities that allow them to serve that value, they will have incredibly high energy, incredibly high motivation, because it's serving something they care about. Other people may have a different, like teamwork might be a high value, and do you want to put them in positions where they can live that value on a day to day basis, so understanding that aspect is one aspect, and then the other aspect is one of the, you know, Near Divergence and Cognitive Diversity has a lot of labels involved in it, and there's often this debate about whether the labels are helpful or not helpful, and they're helpful only in the context of it giving us some way finding, you know, people of certain labels tend to have these traits. They don't always have them, and in fact, they have them in different degrees. But it gives you just a little bit of a sense. So, just to give you an example, people with ADHD are often considered impulsive. But what impulsive also means, a more positive framing of impulsive, is they're also more courageous. They're willing to dive into something without really knowing fully whether it'll succeed. They tend to be inattentive, which is there, their mind tends to roam, but they also tend to be more creative, because when their mind is roaming, you're connecting dots that other people may not be able to connect. And so the other element of this is, if they are diagnosed, or they have a, they have a sense that they fall into one of these Cognitive Categories, then understanding, like, what are the strengths of those cognitive categories that you could lean into.

Mick Spiers: 19:27

Yeah, very good. Okay, so I'm hearing two chapters there, and in the first one I'm going to use a noun and a verb, I'm going to say what are their values, and then what do they value, and that will, that will help you find something that might find their groove and find their what gives them energy, which was a beautiful saying that you said one right. And then the second one is the the awareness to spark curiosity, and it might, might give you some hints of what to look for, but don't pigeonhole them, is what I'm saying. Bcause then, and what I'm hearing, because they're not all going to be the same, but it might give some hints to what to look for, so the inattention, the inability to focus in a meeting on whatever the meeting is today, they're, they're all over the place, but to harness the creativity of that mind, not to chastise it for its inability to focus on a meeting for 30 minutes, is that fair?

Wainwright Yu: 20:26

That's absolutely fair. I'll tell you, Mick, that one of the things that I do is coach individuals who are adults, many of them are either non-diagnosed or late diagnosed, and so one thing I often tell them is, you have made it so far, you know, back in the 70s or 80s, when they were born, you know, near diversity was less well understood. So they have assembled a set of tools that allows them to leverage their strengths and accommodate their weaknesses. So part of the coaching process is just simply to understand what has enabled you to get here so far, and they share a fascinating set of tricks that people have come up with over the years, and it's just really great to hear what those things are.

Mick Spiers: 21:12

Yeah, that's really interesting. So, kind of look how far you've come. It's almost, you know, a sign of their resilience, their strength, and their adaptability, that they've had these challenges their whole life. And whether they knew it or not, they worked out ways of working around it, and now we're going to help them shine a light on, well, how did you do that? So they can maybe repeat that sometimes, so that adaptability that they've had to, out of necessity, do, let's unpack it a little bit, and go, okay, what worked, what didn't work, and how might we harness more of what worked, and have Management Strategies for the things that didn't work.

Wainwright Yu: 21:54

Absolutely, and have a little bit less guilt as well, because sometimes there's a little bit of guilt around using these strategies. There's a, we may not have to go into it, but there's a fascinating discussion about procrastination here that, that is one example of a common trait.

Mick Spiers: 22:08

Yeah, so tell me, let's, let's unpack one, let's, let's unpack, let's say that you've might be the person that you spoke about before, but you know, let's say that a leader has got someone that often misses meetings, just completely forgets or misses deadlines. What's our Management Strategy?

Wainwright Yu: 22:25

Well, for that one specifically, it's not always a Procrastination Challenge. What I find with that is they can use the term earlier, Mick, they can get into a flow state, they get so they get so focused on whatever task they're on that, they ignore what else is going on around them, and so often what I do with those types of individuals is just make sure that whatever they end up focusing on is the most important thing, and then you're good, because the challenge typically is if their area of focus ends up becoming sort of not quite aligned with what the team needs or the business needs. Then they're often spending their energy in an area that isn't productive. If you can intervene somewhat earlier and just make sure that they have the right guidance and you have the right conversations, that they are hyper focusing on the right thing, then you've got, you've got the golden combination.

Mick Spiers: 23:15

There's the gold right there. I love it, Wainwright, and I'm going to reflect back to you and say that when I get into a flow state, I can forget to eat for hours and hours at a time. I can forget to eat, so I'm going to then project that into the workplace. If you can get into a flow state to forget to eat, of course you can get into a flow state and forget the meeting or the deadline or whatever. And now the pattern interrupt that I'm hearing from you is let's harness that flow state, but let's make sure it's on the right thing that's going to bring the most value. Very powerful. I like this a lot right now. Okay, right now, we've spoken a bit about how we can work with people that might be Neurodivergent, either diagnosed or undiagnosed. There's going to be leaders that are listening to this, that are self aware of this, or maybe not self aware, they're going well. Actually, it's not my people, it's me. Tell me more about Neurodivergent Leaders and how they can create their own kind of strengths and work them work with it themselves.

Wainwright Yu: 24:18

Yeah, yeah, and this is sort of where the discussion about what has made you successful so far really, really, really helps, because I find a lot of Neurodivergent Leaders have a little bit of Imposter Syndrome, a lot of leaders have Imposter Syndrome, but a lot of Neurodivergent Leaaders have Imposter Syndrome as well. And so this, this idea that you are here and you are as successful as you've been so far because of your strengths and having them see what those are and just name them is a big part of the process and often some of those strengths do relate to their their Cognitive Diversity, often creativity is a big thing, bravery is for sure a big thing, meaning the willingness to take. Risks, even in place of uncertainty, is, you know, a very important leadership trait that is really another version of impulsiveness, as we discussed. And then really acknowledge some of the things that might feel difficult, but how they've been able to manage that so far. I'll give you one example for myself. Actually, Mick, for me, one of the challenges has been anxiety, like I've just generally been an anxious person growing up. I remember one moment, this was back in college, I stepped out of the college classroom, I was feeling very anxious, and what I did was I enumerated in my mind the things that I needed to do that day, and it just told myself,"Okay, here's A, B, and C, they're all good, everything's fine." And I've realized over the years, even though I've sort of felt this, and I've largely thought about as a negative, I've realized that how my anxiety actually is one of my strengths, because it helps me look around corners. I'm always looking around corners. People say one of the things that makes me good at my job is I see problems long before they happen. That's because I'm a kind of an anxious person, always looking around for the problems, and so it's a part of the, part of becoming a leader who is Neurodivergent, or is to understand both, like all of the things that make you unique, and how they show up as good things. And so sometimes they show up as negative things, but even those things that seem negative may provide some values in situations.

Mick Spiers: 26:26

Yeah, really good. So I'm feeling almost like an Element of Emotional Intelligence here, Wainwright. So come on a journey with me on this one. And the Heart of Emotional Intelligence is to be able to notice a name with some level of accuracy and emotion when it comes to us and, and then to unpack it and go, okay, what is this emotion trying to tell me? Because all emotions is it's information, it's trying to tell you about either a Met Need or an Unmet Need, it's trying to draw your attention to something, and then to be able to go, "Okay, what, what is this anxiety trying to tell me, oh, it's trying to make me aware of this." And then you've got a choice, you can allow it to lead you to freeze and capitulate, where you can go, "Oh, that's interesting, I can manage that, and you can lean into it instead of lean away from it."

Wainwright Yu: 27:16

I love that, Mick, that resonates a lot, and I think the extension here is to recognize that Emotional Intelligence is not just emotions alone, it connects to, you know, unique near neural pathways that we might have, our unique upbringing. There's another, there's a lot of things that make us who we are that we need to be aware of, and Emotional Intelligence sits on top of it, where now that Self Awareness allows me to self manage so much better.

Mick Spiers: 27:45

All right. So then we've got awareness and regulate, right? And with that awareness, and whether whatever it is, let's use two extremes. Let's use Risk Aversion versus Impulsiveness. Let's use both of them, regardless of which one you are on that spectrum, lean into it and turn it into a strength. If you're risk averse, well, that's going to make you

Wainwright Yu: 28:04

and putting yourself in situations that prudent. It's going to make you good at governance. It's going to make you ask the right questions, not to step away and go, "Oh, I'm not going to do that, but to step in." And then, if you're impulsive, recognize that you're impulsive, turn it into creativity or something like that, but also be aware that you might put your hand on the stove and burn yourself sometimes, right? So, so, but that awareness is then you can convert what might have been a, I'm going to use your term that you used before. Might have been a label that was a has a negative connotation, turned it into a strength, reframe it, reframe it. value what do you bring?

Mick Spiers: 29:22

Yeah, okay. This is interesting. On the kids one, I want to unpack that a little bit. I think what was jumping into my head when you were talking one night. This is this is where the dreaded phone call from the school comes. So, if you've got Neurodivergent children and the class, a teacher's dream, potentially. I'm not a teacher, so I'm extrapolating here a little bit. Would be conformity, where the, where the day goes exactly as planned, but it's that's also not realistic. There's going to be some kids where, "Okay, we're going to read a book now, kids." And some kid is going to drift to the back of the room and play with dinosour because conformity is, it's going to be a struggle for someone that is different, and I don't mean different in a bad way, I just mean different. Different is not bad, it's just different.

Wainwright Yu: 30:13

Yeah, and teachers have the struggle of having specific learning objectives they're trying to get through, and then their ability to know whether or not a child has already learned something is, you know, not very precise. I'd say, because they use tests and other things to be able to determine that, and sometimes tests aren't always the best measure, and often they're dealing with large class sizes, where you know you're just having to manage all that at the same time across the number of students, that's what makes it hard on their end, and obviously it's hard on the child's end as well, if they have to fit into an environment that isn't a good fit for them.

Mick Spiers: 30:48

Yeah, really good, Wainwright. And then, as we get to the workplace, we've got a little bit more flexibility. I hope to. I like to think that schools are getting better at this, by the way, Wainwright. But certainly when I went to school, and I can look at kids that I think, when I look back now, absolutely, they were Neurodivergent, and they were, they were forced into situations that were very uncomfortable for them. I think that's getting better these days. And then, in the workplace, well, the more we're aware, the more that we can tap in, harness the strengths, and and make adjustments around the 20% that you know, 80%, 20% that you're, you're talking about before. All right, I've got another path I want to go to now, which is okay. The situation I want to put you in, Wainwright. Is you're a team leader and you've got a team of seven, and let's say one or two of them exhibit these traits, either diagnosed or undiagnosed. How do we work with the rest of the team? Right, so you've already started to work with the individual to go, okay, how can I get into an operating rhythm with this person based around their strengths, their unique traits, their values, what they value, all of these things. How do we then get the rest of the team functioning with them as well in a way that's a well-oiled machine?

Wainwright Yu: 32:07

Yeah, there's two sides to this, Mick. I think the first one is to do what we did for the individual, but do it at the team level, which is to draw greater awareness of each individual strength and have the team celebrate those strengths together, so very often we say,"Oh, this person actually is a really good program manager." They are able to rally teams together, they're able to hold teams accountable to deadlines, and they're just really good at that, and they excel at that type of role. That's one, just celebrate the strengths. I think the other one, which is probably a little bit more challenging, is to recognize the deficiencies, but not to make it so big. So, you know, just actually, this Program Manager that I was just talking about, actually, is a specific human individual, and one of their downsides is they tend to be a little anxious as well. One of the reasons why they're very good at drumming, drumming the beat is because they care about making things, making sure things were on time, and one of the things that happens on the negative side for them is they might get too anxious when things were running late, they need to self-regulate that anxiety. And so in the team that I was on, where this person was an employee, what I noticed was the group just understood that, that was sort of a thing that could happen with this individual, and they were just willing to accept it. They would just call it out as if it was a normal thing and say, "Hey, you know, I can see you're getting a little worried, we can help, that's all you know." Basically, you acknowledge it, you act on it, but you don't, you don't make it, you don't make it a sort of a black mark for the person, because sometimes when you recognize, when you see someone's relative deficiency, it sort of becomes a black mark, it becomes like tainted in some way. This is just accepting it. I can see that this person struggles with this, and we're all going to just work together to overcome, overcome the struggle for the team, while celebrating things like that.

Mick Spiers: 34:08

Yeah, really good. Okay, so I want to unpack both of those things, but I'm going to do it in reverse. I think that last, that last bit's very challenging. I'll tell you what was jumping into my head as you're going along, so there is the acknowledgement of, okay, this person. This is not their strength, but how do we do that in a way that doesn't give it more oxygen than it, I'm not going to say deserves, because that's not the word I'm looking for, but if you. I'll jump to an example of what I'm talking about. If you say to someone,"Don't worry, and they weren't worried, all of a sudden they start worrying, right? So, if you, if you bring too much attention to it, it makes it worse". Is what I'm going to say. But if you ignore it, that's at your peril too. How do you get that balance went right?

Wainwright Yu: 34:56

Yeah, so part of it was I try to think about an example. Here, where you know, I have an example, actually, for, from, from a child perspective. One of the things that I can see with some, some children is slower processing speed, meaning it just takes a little bit more time for them to understand something, think about it, and then react to it. And so, if you, if you know that, based on, you know, various tests, and you know the history working with a child, you would just then say"Okay, for this person I just need to send you the instructions ahead of time, and it's just a part of how we work."

Mick Spiers: 35:29

And you don't make a big deal of it, don't make a big deal of it, you don't stop the meeting and go hang on, everyone, wait, remember Wainwright needs more time than everyone else to process this, so we're going to have some thinking time for five minutes, that would make it worse.

Wainwright Yu: 35:44

Yeah, you're putting a sort of a negative spotlight to it, but in this case you're just adjusting the way that it works, in which is everything is just normal.

Mick Spiers: 35:53

Okay. Really good. Okay. And then I want to come back to the second one, because I think it applies to everyone on this team, regardless of Neurodiversity. Is yeah, let's have a great conversation about whatever one's strengths and preferences are. What, what do they like doing? I'm going to use a really silly example here, Waingwright. But it's, it's very true for me. I'm going to talk about one of my weaknesses, got nothing to do with Neurodiversity, just cognitive ability and focus. Pivot tables, if you ask me to do a pivot table, I will find somewhere in the corner to hide for a little while, and I'll avoid it for as long as I can. Then eventually I'll do it, and it'll take me four or five hours to get it bloody right. Person sitting next to me will go, "Pivot tables, give it to me, baby." And they'll knock it off in 30 minutes, and it'll be correct. So, so this whole thing of strengths, I mean, let's just lean into it. Why give the person that can't stand pivot tables the pivot table job, who's going to go home miserable when the person next to them, you said before, what gives them energy? They're sitting up in their seat, going, "Me, me, me. Can I, can I do the pivot table?" I can't stand pivot tables, to be clear. I think I've made that clear, but other people just love it. So, and if we're not aware of that, of the thing that we keep on avoiding that we don't like, there's another person in the room right now who is asking to do that job, and it gives them energy. How does that kind of sit with you?

Wainwright Yu: 37:26

It sits very well, and in fact, it reminds me of the fact that one of the tools we have as managers and leaders is we can form teams. And we can assemble teams that have complementary skills, complementary interests, and so forth, that you know allow people to do exactly what you said, we just combine someone who may not like pivot tables but bring something else to the table with someone who loves pivot tables but may not like other types of tasks, and can bring them together in a way that meets the organization's needs and the people's needs.

Mick Spiers: 37:57

Very good. Okay, so I'm going to bounce off that. I'm going to use the same example. I'm very good at knowing what the variables need to be in that table. I'm very good at understanding what are we trying to achieve here. What are we trying to farm out of this data, so that we can make a good decision and aligning it to the strategy of where we're trying to head. I'm good at that. I'm just not good at building the table, and if I'm coupled with someone that loves building the table, I can be the one that's got the thinking around, "Okay, what are we trying to achieve here?" And then the other person can be doing all of the button pressers, right? So, yeah, very good. All right, given us a lot to think about, Waingwright, I'm going to draw us to a close now, and I want to make sure that we give people something they can action, so there's going to be people listening to this that either have some level of self awareness or self diagnosis of the I struggle with this myself as a leader, or they recognize it in their, in their teams, either diagnosed or undiagnosed, they see the traits and they're like, even down to the point of what we just said, they might have a team of seven, and one to two of them exhibit these traits, and the other, the other five do not. Where does someone start if they're listening to this show and go, "Wow, this Wainwright, he's talking about my team" or "He's talking about me." Where do they start?

Wainwright Yu: 39:21

I'll get two specific pieces of advice or thoughts on that one. On the first one, when you're dealing with yourself, I think the first step is to do one thing to help your, you understand yourself better, and I'll give you one example. We talked about, you know, character, character strengths or values as one angle of yourself that you could understand. There's actually a freely available online tool on viacharacter.org where you could take this survey, and it'll tell you what are your values thing, what are the top five values or six values that really give you energy, are essential to you, and just spend a little bit of more time understanding. You are, I think, on the people side, as a team manager or a leader, I think the most important thing is to create enough psychological safety in your organization where people are willing to reveal these deeper parts of themselves to the organization and not feel like they're going to be judged for doing that, and it's hard. It's hard, because, especially in this environment, some people feel anxious and afraid that some of these may be taken the wrong way. But if you're a leader who shows similar vulnerability and shows in your actions that whatever information you get, you're not going to be using it against the employee. In fact, you're going to use it to be able to create a better work environment and better team performance, I think you'll see more of that openness over time, and that really can help you make better decisions for your team in the long run.

Mick Spiers: 40:52

Yeah, really good point. So, two things I'm taking away there is to lean into what are your strengths and values, and whether it's via character finder or could be a Gallup Strengthsfinder, any kind of tool to help you go. Yeah, this is what I value, and this does what brings me energy. You know, things like this. This is valuable information for you, and it's valuable information for your team. And then the psychological safety. I'm going to say two things. One, the vulnerability. I think that was beautiful, Wainwright. If you're vulnerable about it, it gives other people a license to also be open and vulnerable about it, but also the second part is it could trigger a really good conversation with the team, a conversation that's not a negative conversation, it's just a conversation about strengths. What are you good at? What do you struggle with? How might we best work as a team? This example of the pupil thing, it could be as simple as, as that I really love doing pivot tables, really I hate doing pivot tables. Let's buddy up, but it's having those conversations.

Wainwright Yu: 41:56

And to that point, Mick, try as best as you can not to do it in the annual performance review, because you know that moment feels like a judgment moment for many, and so do it in the, in the context you said, which is like you're just doing work and suddenly someone says, "I don't really like the material." So that's the perfect moment, it's very casual, very low stakes, and you just learn about each other.

Mick Spiers: 42:17

Very good. All right, excellent, Wainwright, you've given us a lot to work with today. Thank you so much. This is a topic that we don't talk about often enough, but we can turn this into something magical. So, the awareness, starting with awareness that this exists, thinking about the Platinum Rule Plus Plus, treating other people the way they want to be treated, and getting curious about how they work best, and not putting them into situations that are not going to be conducive to their very best work. I'm going to use the flow state thing. If someone gets into a flow state, channel it to something that is going to be meaningful to the purpose of the group, and don't work. I'm going to use this. I think I used this phrase early in our conversation. Instead of working against it, let's try and work with it. Let's work with people's strengths, and let's then collectively, as a group, maybe have ways of working around the things that some people might, might struggle with. And if we have a powerful team, you're going to end up with a complementary patchwork quilt of strengths that build on each other and work around anything that anyone struggles with, and we all struggle with something, we all struggle with something, but if we have these conversations and we have this curiosity to learn in, lean into it, we can convert all of what could be perceived as a challenge, convert it through reframing into a strength, so that distractibility into into curiosity was one of the ones that we, we spoke about the hyper focus, channeling the hyper focus, if that's what they have, and making sure that we're making the right assignments here in terms of how we're going to work together, and then the baby steps of starting off with some kind of strength assessment, character assessment. What do you value all of these things? And then having a really good psychological safety with vulnerability to have the conversations that the team need to have. It's, it's really powerful, Wainwright. So, now I'm going to take us to our rapid round. These are the same four questions we ask all of our guests. What's the one thing that you know now, Wainwright Yu, that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Wainwright Yu: 44:35

I wish I knew that people were not all the same, and that there isn't one definition of what good looks like.

Mick Spiers: 44:42

Very powerful and beautifully aligned to everything worth it. Okay, what's your favorite book?

Wainwright Yu: 44:48

I'd say one book that I've read recently that really made an impact is a book called The Language of Emotions by Karla McLaren. Her premise basically is that all emotions. That are neither good nor bad, all serve a purpose. And we talked about anxiety a little bit earlier, you know. And I'll give you another example, which is anger. Anger, on the positive sense of it, is just about it's an emotion that helps us set boundaries, and I love that. Like every single emotion she goes through in the book, she just says, obviously, there are certain negative situations where you might experience this, but there are certain positives they exist for a reason, and I thought that was really powerful.

Mick Spiers: 45:27

What is it drawing your attention to? That's what I always, always try and think, what is this emotion? Why this emotion? Why this emotion now, which can help you with, you know, what was the trigger, or whatever. Then what is it drawing your attention to, and then we can work with it. Yeah, very good. Okay. Sorry, this is one of my favorite topics. You can probably tell, what's your favorite quote?

Wainwright Yu: 45:49

I don't really love the words of this quote, but I love the meaning of it. And so the quote says, "The master of the universe is the master of himself." I just love the part of it, which just starts with the self, like the self awareness and the self mastery, like if you have those two things down, there's a lot of good that can come out of just being able to self regulate and self understand, and I really just love that. I also love the idea of putting the power back with individual.

Mick Spiers: 46:17

Yeah, really good. All right, fantastic. I finally went right there's going to be leaders that are listening to this and we've sparked their curiosity and they need to know more. How do people find you?

Wainwright Yu: 46:28

Yeah, I'm most active on LinkedIn, so you can just find me on LinkedIn. Just look for Wainwright Yu, and you should be able to find me. I'm happy that my parents need me, something that's relatively unique, so there aren't that many other Wainwright views out there. Or you can go to wainwrightyu.com and find me that way as well.

Mick Spiers: 46:42

Alright, brilliant Wainwright. Well, thank you so much for your time today, and the, and the gift of your wisdom and experience. Also, I want to thank you for sharing so openly some of the stories, and vulnerably some of the stories that help cement this, this learning that we've spoken about today, and and to inspire us all into into action, not not just just sit back and watch the world, but go actually, How do we lean into this, and how do we work with it instead of against it? Thank you so much, Wainwright.

Wainwright Yu: 47:12

Thank you so much, Mick, for having me, and thanks for all the work you do for the show.

Mick Spiers: 47:17

What a powerful and very personal conversation there with Wainwright, you. So, let me ask you, Who on your team might you be misunderstanding who might be struggling, not because they lack capability, but because the environment is working against them? And where might you be applying a one size fits all leadership approach when the person in front of you needs something different, because one of the biggest takeaways from this conversation with Wainwright is this. Different does not mean deficient, just means different. And when leaders take the time to understand how people work best, everything changes. The challenge is not to lower the standard. The challenge is to create the conditions where people can meet the standard in a way that works with their strengths. So, here's your call to action have one strengths conversation this week. Not in a formal performance review, not as a judgment, but a real conversation, ask someone what work gives you energy, what work drains you, when do you feel most in flow, and what small adjustment would help you do your very best work, because sometimes leadership is not about pushing harder, sometimes it's about removing friction. In the next episode, we'll take this idea even further, because I'm joined by Chris Deaver, where we explore brave leadership, creativity, and the power of co-creation. How leaders can stop being the hero with all the answers and instead become the conductor of the orchestra, so until then look for these strengths in your people, reduce the friction, and as always lead better. You've been listening to The Leadership Project. If today sparked an insight. Don't keep it to yourself. Share it with one other person who would benefit from listening to the show. A huge thank you to Gerald Calibo for his tireless work editing every episode, and to my amazing wife Sei who does all the heavy lifting in the background to make this show possible. None of this happens without them. Around here we believe leadership is a practice, not a position, that people should feel seen, heard, valued, and that they matter. That the best leaders trade ego for empathy, certainty for curiosity, and control for trust. If that resonates with you, please subscribe on YouTube and on your favorite podcast app, and if you want more, follow me on LinkedIn, and explore our archives for conversations that move you from knowing to doing. Until next time, lead with curiosity, courage, and care.