The Canary Code

Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Nola Simon. I'm the host of the Hybrid Remote Center of Excellence, and joining me today is someone that I've met on LinkedIn. I've known her, we went back and checked it. I've known her since 2020 ones on LinkedIn. And her name is Ludmila Palo, and she's an author and a professor. She's just written a book called The Canary Code, which is a guide to neurodiversity. I need to actually bring the book up to read. I don't have my glasses. Oh, yay. A Guide to Neurodiversity, Dignity, and Intersectional Belonging at Work. And that's where I want you to really understand what that is about, because that topic is so large, but it deeply ties into flexibility and how hybrid remote, doing it well, can really benefit all employees, not just employees that are neurodivergent.

So thank you so much, Luna Mila, for joining me. I'm so happy to be here, Nola, and it's been so fun interacting with you on LinkedIn over the years, but it's even better to put the actual face and the actual voice with it. Yeah, exactly. That's, I do try to do some videos, but video is not my favorite medium.

So I like the podcasting aspect of it. Wanted to actually tell you a little bit about my story. I know we know each other online, but I don't know that we necessarily know an awful lot about each other. I may have an advantage over you because of the book, but I actually when I was a kid, I was diagnosed as gifted. Now, my father refused to let me actually participate in the gifted program. So that was my first introduction to how neurodiversity can be interesting. But my daughter also has learning disabilities. And actually, both of my children have learned have individual education plans. And I have Wardenburg syndrome, which is hereditary. So I'm deaf in one ear. And so is my daughter. My eyes are different colors. That doesn't usually cause any issues, but the hearing does, right? So I'm always interested in these things because it affects me and my family intimately. But I've also experienced it in the workplace as well too, right? As being a caregiver my mom got dementia.

I had to take time off work for caregiving. So that's where I mentioned to you that intersectionality Becomes a really important thing to me. And that's what first captured my interest in your work, that moral dilemma. Thank you for sharing. I can see why this is quite personal for you. And it's very interesting how Families can be so multiply different and multiply neurodivergent, but that's definitely a pattern that I see. And I think that fuels of passion for many people to really get it right. Not just for one type of person, but for multiple types of people, which is something that I really want to do because nobody just feeds one check mark. There's so many different things about us. Yeah, and there's actually a story in the book that you share about somebody you you met at a conference and you found her outside and she was actually using an EpiPen because she had food allergies and obviously had some issues with what had been served at the conference.

That actually happened to me, not food allergies, but I have asthma and they, they threw a it was a get to know you. There is a silly game. They had us running out in a field with freshly cut grass. Okay. And nobody told me that there was going to be it wasn't exactly exercise, but it's exercise enough because I have exercise induced asthma and I'm highly allergic to grass. And by the end of the the thing I couldn't breathe. And nobody had told me that we would be doing it. So I didn't actually have my inhaler on it because most of the time it's really well controlled. I thought I was going to a hotel. No, it was going to be out in a field. So my gosh, yeah. Go ahead. No, I just, those orientations and bonding activities can be pretty dangerous. Yeah, exactly. And I was like, if I didn't know how to actually control my reaction because I'm like, you need to get me coffee because coffee will actually help with that. And so that's what helped you to be okay. Because I was like, yeah, how did, yeah, I, if you drink really hot coffee, it can actually subside some of the asthma. Attack and obviously that's not going to be a great solution if it's a really bad attack. But again, most of the time, it's really well controlled, but you have to have strategies in place to know how to deal with things. That you weren't expecting and so that's this whole kind of emotional labor. Another story that you told that you were when you first started your career, you started in a knitwear factory and you were afraid you were actually going to lose your balance because of the noise and actually fall into the machine and die.

Yes. I was 14 and basically it was a local factory where my mother actually worked there when she was a teenager. And my grandmother worked there when she was, 70. Yeah, many of our neighbors were there. So one of our neighbors actually lost half her hand. So like I knew someone who's like several fingers got choked by one of those machines. And so that didn't help anything. But I never did well with noise and noise does make me dizzy. And In that particular the machines that create neat fabric, they're taller than a tall woman. They're probably the height of a very tall man. And then women just reach to the top of them. And my mother's friend actually worked there. It's a very scary job and they are pretty close to each other. So if you lose your balance walking between those things, you'll fall into one or the other. Because there's rows and rows of those things. And I've always had super sensitive hearing. I didn't know I was autistic at the time. Or dyspraxic for that matter, which I'm both. So that was absolutely horrifying. And and then I finally, I managed to talk myself and my three friends into a job that was like sorting through fabric remnants. So away from machine. Yeah. So I didn't stay in the noisy place because there was just no way. But it was my first attempt at job crafting. Literally because I was like, I have to job craft or I'm going to die . Wow. So it was like, okay, what can I do in this factory that doesn't, that is not going to kill me? And I don't know how I heard about this. little like unit that was making things out of fabric remnants. So they would take remnants and make like kids, cats and small things. And I don't remember how I did it, but I somehow talked my way into that unit. And so me and my friends ended up doing that job because like you stayed in those jobs for, I think, At least two years for the high school. And I would have died at some point in there if I stayed in the place where the big machines, I've always found that when you're motivated enough, you fight, you have your ears and eyes open for a opportunity, right? So that's probably how you found it. So that's honestly like me when I started advocating for. Remote work or work from home. I was way back in 2011 and it was because like, I really had, I live north of Toronto and I really didn't have a solid daycare solution.

And it was a 2 hour drive each way. And I was seeing my kids 1 hour a day. In order to be the type of mother I wanted to be, it was either find a way to work remotely or find a different job. And I campaigned to really get into, like, all the beta tests and stuff like that, too. And I really became the lead in that. So it didn't exist, but it just so happened, one of the women who was at the daycare that I was at, she worked for the company in a different division, and they had made an exception for her. So I knew it was possible because it existed, right? So it's word of mouth, but if you're not listening and you're not actively searching, I think that you don't necessarily see it.

So that's probably how you found the opportunity is, you knew you needed to make a move. It was not an option. I knew, I think I somehow knew that thing existed, but it was not an option. We were either in the weaving or in the sewing. Okay. And so those were the only two options, weaving and sewing, and I was like, and I knew probably more about the factory than most people because my mother did the sewing for like years. And then she worked in the office there, so then she like got promoted to a typist from sewing. And so I knew my way around, but this job does not exist. Like I invented that remnant sorting job.

Oh, okay. That's awesome. That demonstrates like an understanding of the business, right? So you capitalized on the knowledge and the, like the network that you've had and created something out of thin air that would better serve your needs, right? I have to At age 14, that's incredibly inventive.

So I don't know. I was really scared because again, that was just like, no, it was just physically horrifying. So I think it just jolted my brain into using whatever I had, which is, brain power because doing things with my hands, it just, I got punished my entire childhood for not being able to do things with my hands because nobody knew what dyspraxia was. And my entire family is blue collar and super Andy. And they just thought I was. Adopted because, which I'm not but because I was completely incapable of like successfully accomplish any kind of menial tasks. I can garden because that's like the brute force, but anything that requires precision. I can't do handwriting. If I'm sewing, it's going to be all over the place. It's just bad. And so it's I haven't tried, but I always get yelled at because I was called useless pretty much every day of my life. And my parents actually told me regular that my hands grow out of my butt and that's a nice way to put it.

So that's how bad it was. I was just never good at doing things with my hands. Yeah, and that's the thing workplace issues of diversity and inclusion don't start in the workplace. They start in society, right? And they start at home, like you've mentioned. So home, school it's a bigger problem than just workplace culture. It's a societal culture. And that's where, I'm really drawn to your work because you're looking at systemic solutions Absolutely. That will help all people. If we can create ways of working that really adapt to the margins and like the people on the edges who aren't neurotypical then everybody in the middle, everybody else benefits as well too.

Exactly. It's. When we create environments that place people into where they work best, yes, we produce more, we're happier, and really the entire society benefits when people are not excluded based on arbitrary things like You don't make eye contact, so you can't be an accountant. What does it have to do with anything? Or you can't brag about yourself, so you can't be an accountant. Again, what does it have to do with anything? So we need to improve hiring systems and then job matching systems. And we need to focus much more on strength and what we can do, rather than what we can't. Because again I get yelled at every day for not being able to do with my hands.

My parents never noticed I was gifted. Nobody ever noticed I was gifted because everyone paid attention to me not being handy. Yeah, exactly. And sometimes it's that frame of reference. Like my daughter has anxiety and I was talking to my doctor, but one day, like my husband what my husband and my daughter were having interaction, what my daughter said to me do you think he has anxiety? And I had never thought about him having anxiety. It never occurred to me, right? Because he is just who he is, I've known him for so long, this is the way he is, right? And I asked my doctor and it's chances are, if one of your children have anxiety, it's hereditary, right? And I don't have anxiety not at a diagnosis level, right? So you start to reframe how things work if you consider and he doesn't have a formal diagnosis, obviously, but it's now that I started thinking in that way about how he perceives. Things and how we have conversations and how we make changes, like a lot of it starts to make sense. And it's oh, we can totally work through this because I have an understanding of what's going on or possibly going on. So it's very interesting to you to be able to reframe. I wanted to talk about your book in the way that you've structured it. I think that you have designed this in such a way that it's really. One of the most inclusive books I've ever come across where you've got it structured in such a way where you've got highlights, you've got deep dives, you've got all of the resources to back everything up. You've got appendices galore, but then you also have developmental questions that you end each chapter with, which causes people to think, and have key takeaways that they can really apply. So it's very, you go, it moves from the, from the abstract to the strategic to the practical and, everyday application. And it really makes you think in different ways and it's. It's honestly designed for, anybody who is neurodiverse, anybody who supports a neurodiverse person, anyone who wants to be an ally and understands the benefit of creating systems that are going to be inclusive and anybody who really just wants to extend their research and their understanding.

So kudos to you for designing such a, it's a fabulous resource. I haven't even plumbed the depths of it yet, but. Thank you. It was very interesting. Thank you. I wanted to write a neuro inclusive book because if you are talking about neuro inclusion, then you need to model. So how do you model it in writing? And I am, I'm one of those hyperlexic autistic people that have zero trouble with a wall of text, but I've also, I also taught college for much longer than I'm willing to acknowledge, almost 30 years. And so I know that people struggle with reading and it has nothing to do with their intellectual ability is how reading is structured. So I wanted to write for people who either it's ADHD or dyslexia or whatever it is, or a combination of different things. Or Even just people not having time. So actually many features that, for example, help people who have ADHD, also help people who are just busy. So someone is just, has a busy job but doesn't have much time to read. You actually have very similar demands for how you structure, key points that they're visible. And then if they want to explore more, they can go explore more. They can hyper focus and go in depth, or if they're not in the depth mode, they need to be able to get key points quickly. So they're able to use it and you don't want them to get bored looking for something. So it, it just, Got me thinking that I could illustrate the whole idea of the canary code, which is if neurodivergent canaries can breathe in the coal mine, then everyone can breathe in the coal mine. So if I created a book that neurodivergent people will find an easier read than the typical read, then it's also likely to help neurotypical people. And that will demonstrate the principle that if I'm going to help people who have some neurodivergent type of brain that needs a little extra organization with the reading, it's the same kind of organization is going to work for everyone, including, managers or. HR people who don't have time go digging for things and it doesn't have to work for me. So that's another thing. If it was just for me I probably wouldn't do it, but I just know that there are many people who need it. And the wall of text is really not something for work really for majority of readers. And even if I can do it, it's really not the best to pervade and for to present information. So it was really. An exercise of, doing it what I'm preaching, but also an interesting challenge just to see how far I can take this structure and make it as friendly as possible. And another thing I did not compromise on vocabulary because people say you need to stop using complicated words. And, but it's not the words that treat people up. You can always look up the word in a glossary. It's actually structure and how you explain things. And I try to explain very complicated concepts without not calling things what they're actually called, but structuring in a way that's sexual acceptance accessible and it seems to be working. So everything I've heard so far. are enjoying it. And and that's everything from seals to kids who just like following the structure, obviously, the kid will get information from the book. But it's been very interesting that when you come, you take complicated material and neurodiversity is a pretty complicated material and so would be leadership and management and human resources practices. But there are ways to make it accessible while still really being faithful to the material. Yeah, so it was an interesting challenge. Yeah, no, I think it's brilliant. I'm part of what I really enjoyed as well is not only do you have that glossary, but you actually talk about the changing language, because as things change in the workplace, the terminology that we use to talk about things on a day to day basis, even the word hybrid, for example, you know, when I first started working from home Which was much later than you did, by the way. Apparently, Mila actually created Word For Bone. I didn't create it. It was a, that was a joke. I did start doing some form of hybrid ish work in 1990s. I'm pretty sure it was in the first one. Yeah. No, I know. I did. That made me laugh though, because I always tell people I've been doing this for so long and I was like, I started like advocating for it in 2011. So I'm reading your book and I'm like, she's in the nineties. That's amazing. But that's, that really gives you an understanding. Understanding for how flexibility really improves and it's not really just the time and place, the location, the office versus home debate. There's all kinds of other different types of flexibility that really can aid anyone who's neurodiverse, but anyone else in the company as well too. Do you want to talk a little bit about how flexibility can really aid? Oh, absolutely. And we do talk about place flexibility as a typical way of being, in the office, at home, the third place, traveling. And it's very important. And for people who have hard time concentrating, working from home is major. It can make or break their ability to work. For people who have. Any kinds of physical disability, it's makes so much difference in ability to be employed. And really working from home can help so many people in so many different ways, but it's not the only way. And it's not the only way that will work for everyone. So let's say an autistic person who lives with seven roommates might want to go to the office. even though the autistic person who lives in a more accommodating environment is much better off working from home. So there's a variety of differences, a variety of sub variations, they went within each label, and there are autistic people who also work better In the in structured environment with other people, so within the same neurotypes, we might need something very different, but many people who are neurodivergent could thrive. I have another story in the book or someone who was late diagnosed ADHD or, and then she discovered working from home before she also discovered that she was an ADHD or and not. Just another illustration that really made a. Tremendous difference from just always working and trying to get a job to being super efficient because you could work on your own time. I think I just read that story. She was working like 100 hour weeks, the woman who worked for Sony. Yeah. And that's where I relate to that as well too. Because work from home, allowed me to work early in the morning before my kids got up. And I didn't necessarily need it from It was more about balancing workload. And the schedule flexibility is actually called other thing because sometimes people want you to work from home, and they still want you available at certain times. So in addition to place there's the time flexibility makes a major difference and whether it's a parent who needs to drop off kids at particular time, or parent. Who does homeschooling or their kids need a particular type of attention at a particular time. Yeah. Or it's someone who has sleep differences, and many neurodivergent people also have sleep differences. Some people it's not that they have no willpower and bad habits. Some people do. People's brains are wired differently and some people have their best mental productivity at 2 a. m. and other people at 6 a. m. and other people at no one. So allowing people to work with their best time makes the most sense. And also how this time is sliced. So many organizations slice our work in those 50 50 to an hour segments, like schools slice them and, 45 to an hour segments. That actually doesn't work for majority of people. Some people need, little pomodoro sprints, 25 minutes, take a break. do something, go back to it, and that's how they get their maximum productivity. Other people like me, I need three to four uninterrupted hours to be on my time because there's only so much focus I can manage in little snippets of time. So when we do not allow people to slice their time, In the way that works best with their brain, we're also going to curb their productivity and so scheduling, time star, start time, end time, how you slice your time. It has a tremendous difference in how we work. And then there are other things like availability of time off. Someone can work, very intensely for three months, but they need vacations after that. And if you just force them into, no, you have to work for an hour to get your little week off it can really hurt their health. And allowing people to prevent burnout. In whatever way works for them. For example by taking vacations or in different ways at different times can also be huge difference. So availability of time off. Some people are not wired to work 40 hours a week, but they can be amazing if they work 30 hours a week, 25 hours a week, creating jobs that allow people to have, viable life while doing that. is also something that's very inclusive of again, whether someone has health differences and health needs, long COVID, for example, people might only have so much energy, but they want to still keep up their careers. And so sometimes having a part time schedule or temporary part time schedule during pretty lengthy recovery time, it would be like, years, but people could actually. get back to getting to work full time. It really depends. There's a lot of variants, but allowing people those transitional periods, or it could be someone had a surgery or some other treatment and they need this prolonged time for recovery, but no, it's either you're not working or you're working 40 hours a week, which actually means like 60 hours a week. And addressing all those issues will allow so many people to The fulfillment that comes from work, obviously, not all of our lives fulfillment should come from work, but doing something meaningful is important for us and keeping our careers, many of us invested, years and preparing for our careers. And then, we get sick and for some reason we get completely kicked out of work. Even though part time schedule could have allowed people to take advantage of our expertise and for us. To have income and meaningful work why not support people? Why make it so difficult if it's not even accommodation? We can just think about it as performance enablement. Yeah, exactly. It's about that reframing, but that's really hard for a lot of leaders to really do that unless there's legislation involved. And you mentioned in the book, several different examples in Germany or Finland, where there's actually legislation in place that actually mandates. that there needs to be flexibility in terms of the hours. Yes. And they also many countries limit overwork. There's just much stronger legislation in that way in the US. Obviously, some states have attempted to do something, but you could tell people after a pandemic trying to take away all those pandemic gains that really helped many people like disabled people to actually have higher employment numbers during the pandemic. And it's really doesn't make sense and it doesn't help the society in general because when society limits who is able to exercise their talents, the society just limits overall the amount of talent that's contributing to it. It's not a productive approach. And again, from. human perspective, why not prevent human suffering? And from the societal perspective I think Finland does really well and Netherlands doing really well. So it's not Bad for the economy, as some people think. Managers who have trouble with flexibility usually try to evaluate people by proxies of performance, which is usually presence. Or, mouse clicks or whatever. But if you switch to evaluating the actual outcome, And get rid of those proxies, which isn't just arrange the work around the human, but evaluate the outcome, you probably will get less stressed human, much happier human and much better outcome. So that's why evaluating performance by outcomes is one of the important parts of my model and my book because it's just too much is. basic, I like you, I don't like you. And the present is moving. So someone can just be there staring at the computer because they can't function and then doing the work after hours or chatting or, doing whatever people do in most offices, which is not always the most productive things. And why are we doing this? Why not let people live their best lives? But also look at the outcomes and hold them accountable for outcomes. Yeah, I agree. It just makes so much more sense. And your, I really liked your take actually on proximity bias. The fact that proximity of bias actually happens within the office as well, too. It's not even just something that's impacting people who choose to work remotely or some version of hybrid, right? It's people and access. Within the office itself, too, so you could be present, but still not be invited or welcome or feel like you belong to approach senior leaders at the water cooler and have those types of conversations that have the potential to advance your career. Everybody says might happen, right? It's really a myth of access. Absolutely. And we, if we evaluate people by water coolers, we are going to keep doing what we've been doing, which is supporting and promoting one type of personality. That's not even necessarily the best type of personality to promote, or at least not the best if the entire group is the same personality, you need to have different kinds of people. in particular layers and levels of organization, but we do know that it's much easier in most organizations for extroverts advanced, for example, which actually hurts organizations, because if you end up with overrepresentation of this particular personality, they end up being very social and also being very competitive, because there's this also competitive edge. And then there's nobody to balance this kind of dynamic, it can get very dysfunctional, you actually need to have a mix of extroverts and introverts with significant presentation of introverts for a functional team. And on higher levels of organizations, there's basically no And that is not good for the interpersonal, competitive, and work dynamics that occur in those levels. And and then we just perpetuate that. The lack of diversity in this particular kind of case of personality, but other characteristics. We need people who are deep thinkers. Yeah. And not just, they blurt out the first thing that comes into their mind, but the blurting, the first thing that comes to your mind seems to be advantage in many environments. And then again, that's who we end up in the boardrooms. desperately need deep thinkers as well as other styles of thinkers. But many of our functions when we just evaluate by proximity and the water cooler. We end up kind of cloning the one type of individual and it is really not helpful and it is not fair to people who cannot advance because they are, in, In the corner, actually doing the actual work. Yeah, no, I fully agree. And I've seen that happen myself as well. And that becomes a whole gender aspect as well, too. You said that neurodiversity is 1 of the most difficult things to, to change and to teach, but there, when you add in the aspect of gender, that becomes even more challenging. Oh, there's so much. And again, you don't want to change people, you want to. develop their strength and match them with their strength. But let's say if you add gender, we talk about titral bias for women specifically. And titral bias is an idea that there's only that narrow range of behaviors that's considered okay in women. It's very easy to go from doormat to overly aggressive, the B word, and it's a very thin line where you're just assertive enough. And for men, there's much more space to be a, different kinds of personalities and still be okay. For women, it's much more narrow, and if you add to it black women or Asian women, there are also very specific expectations for how you. present yourself or like just the right mixture of meekness and performance or how you have to monitor your voice not to be classified as aggressive. It's super exhausting. And then if you add neurodivergence and some neurodivergent people have hard time monitoring their facial expressions. And It's hard sometimes to monitor your emotional experience and too many organizations were judged by, you cried once, you're out forever. That makes absolutely no sense to just arbitrarily eliminate people on basic human characteristics. And for women especially, once you put in all the do's and don'ts, That don't put you into some kind of non promotable category based on completely arbitrary standards. It's literally pretty impossible. It's such a thin tightrope that people have to walk that it's very hard to succeed. And if there's any kind of intersectional identities in addition to gender Yes, it's, it can be tremendously difficult and frustrating and a huge waste of talent, right? Yeah, I agree. And so there's a lot of reporting. They basically said that women are leaving the workforce and they're attributing it to lack of access to remote work or hybrid. But honestly, it's more systemic. It's more. We're doing all of this work. It's challenging to raise our families, and we're still not getting anywhere. We're not getting anywhere. We're not paid what we're worth, and there's penalty for married women, and there's penalty for single women. You can't win. If you're single, then you're expected to do everybody else's work and not get paid because it's assumed that you don't need the money. I was literally told that single women don't need the money so we're not going to pay you. American women don't need the money either because they've got husbands. Exactly. You can't win. It makes absolutely no sense. There's no right way to be a woman. No, you're just punished in every random way. People can justify. Not giving your a chance. Yeah. What was that line? Inclusion just needs, oh, exclusion. Doesn't need a reason, just an excuse. That is the best line in your book. I love that line. Oh, thank you. And it's, I wish it wasn't true, but I do think that it calls it what it is. Unfortunately, yes, there's a lot of exclusion and it's completely arbitrary and we need to do much better. Exactly. So that comes to the, some of the chapters that you've got at the back is, leading while you're neurodiverse, but also for managers who are managing people who, up until this point weren't actually diagnosed and didn't have accommodations, which I thought was a fabulous chapter to include. Because. As I mentioned, my daughter has learning disabilities, right? So she's she didn't take jobs while she was in high school, because I knew that would be a lot for her and we could avoid her having to work while she was in school. But now that she's in the university, she's doing summer jobs and these jobs are not designed in a way that are inclusive and she's very. Worried about telling anybody that she has a learning disability, and it's just been incredibly stressful. She's in a grocery job where she's doing personal shopping, and it's all timed. It's incredibly stressful. Yeah, it is incredibly stressful. And the other job, is actually like admin, like secretary kind of thing. And but the communication becomes challenging, right? Because that's what her learning disability is centred in. But it's funny, because if I talk it through with her and we talk about, how to advocate for herself and she just needs that extra support and she's. I guess she's lucky that she's got me and I know a lot about this, right? I spend a lot of time researching and advocacy for her, but when you transition from that school environment into work, and you lose certs and individual education plans, and you don't necessarily have automatic accommodations that are reviewed on a regular basis, like they are in school, or at least in Canada, that's what happens. The onus really is on the individual to develop self advocacy. Look for mentorship. You're lucky, you get a manager who's willing to advocate for you on your behalf, and you've got that psychological safety to, discuss exactly what you need. How do you make that better? Okay. So in many workplaces is accommodations. Again, they're treated as something special. You need to bring a doctor's note and basically being different. I'll just push you into, okay this is very not normal. This is very not good. So there are ways to normalize differences even without, forcing people to disclose diagnosis if they're not ready. So one way to do it is just normalize differences and some of the more progressive companies use it. user manuals or how I work best forms that everyone can fill in and every, everyone is asked to fill in when they come in. So how do you work best? Are there some things that let's say trigger you or upset you because we don't want to do that. How do you prefer your information as it comes? Or batch it and give it to you at one time. How do you need your feedback? You can even ask more specific questions depending on the job. And again, it's available to everyone. And that allows for certain extent of tailoring just cum managers. Approach you regardless of particular diagnosis if people feel like they're not ready. So that's one way, just normalizing those differences. But then also de stigmatizing those differences so that we don't have to do it as disclosure without disclosure, but we could just say, I have dyslexia or ADHD or whatever, and it's okay, so in your particular case, what do you need? Because again, we do know that people are all different, and then, one ADHDer needs something completely different from another ADHDer. But If there was just a menu of things of how people work best and even Tailoring to certain extent of how you work, and that's available to everyone. It would help people who maybe have, minor preferences and differences, but for people with more intense needs, it could be a lifesaver because it would allow them to safely say, I need this, I need that, and not be stigmatized for it. Yeah. And I can also customize it even just like from like menstrual cycles and impairing menopause and menopause symptoms and stuff like that too. That's not necessarily ongoing, but it's persistent. So eventually changing morphs, but everybody's going to be at a different end of that cycle. Yeah. And so there's another thing obviously in some early career jobs. Things sometimes do come as you go like you show up and then there's this task and there's that task. In most grown up jobs they're not, temporary jobs or early like college or high school jobs. Very often there are projects that are very substantial projects that take significant time. So if we tell people ahead of time this is due down, and manage the chaos that's very often comes in the offices that creates those false emergencies that could have been prevented and then people just go okay today this happened and you have to do this and then now this happened and you have to interrupt your interrupt and do something else which can be very putting people off balance if we just create a well programmed well oiled environment where people know this big project is due at this time Emergencies happen, but they're really they're not a part of what we do because we have thought through how we do things and then people can regulate. So let's say have six weeks to do the project. I know I'm no good when I have pmms or whatever's happening, or, those days of the week when I, whatever stage I'm in. And I could plan that. Maybe I'll work more a week before or week after, and I have control over my time. If someone has long covid. And has fluctuating energy levels, then they will know, okay, I'm going to work on this thing from, 8am till 10am. And then I know I'm going to need a break and a nap and a lay down. And then I'm going to work on this more, and I'm going to take another lay down, and I'm going to work on this more. So it's more of a pacing themselves within a day. That might help someone who is. My version of autistic who, you know, if I go into hyperfocus of I literally forget everything else. And before I know it, it's midnight. Okay, fine. Just let me do this, but then don't throw random things at me because saying, Oh, she's done. Yes, I'm done. But I did two weeks of work in two days because I didn't eat or go to the bathroom, which like literally happens. And but then people say, Oh, you're done. So you need to get more work. But you actually are Right, because you just did two weeks of work in two days. And if people just give us control of our time and not say, Oh, okay, so you look like you're not doing anything, we need to interrupt you. And you might be just like thinking of creative ideas, but just let people flexibly use their time on longer term projects, which again is more, is pretty typical in most projects. Office, white collar type jobs. It's absolutely possible to organize this sort of thing without random interruptions. We'll be much better off. Or even if it's a job that requires, someone to produce a number of units of whatever with their hands. Give them flexibility when they are on their best. And when they know they're going to have, back pain from whatever particular time of month, again, they're adults, they should be able to say, I'm just going to do my units of whatever week before and week after, and I'm going to take easy this week. Why is it that particular difficulty? There are some things. Very few of us work on assembly lines anymore and in other circumstances when it's really difficult for most of us, it's just more outdated work organization that prevents us from aligning work with. Absent flows, whether they're monthly or daily or whatever our differences require us to adapt to. One of the most dangerous things in work is really the way that we've always done it. That's really impacting this as well, too. It's you've always been working like this we have to continue it. And we honestly don't. And that's where you're seeing turnover and I think you have a stat in the book. It's what, 50 percent of people, if they don't get the flexibility that they need to accommodate their neurodiversion they'll actually leave. That's the theory. They say on the surveys that yes, if they. Are not going to get their flexibility. They're prepared to leave. Yes, but employment levels of anyone who's neurodivergent is either they're either underemployed or they're not employed. It's a very, it's not great. Yeah, there definitely are limited opportunities. Yeah. But you don't want to stress that person who is looking for opportunities and thinking that, oh, okay duh, they might want to leave, but they're nerd virgins or they have no options, therefore we can do whatever with them. It's really a horrible way to treat a person. Yeah, it is. And I wanted to end on that story of Lewis Capaldi, because I think that is such a beautiful story, and I love that you saved that dedication in your book, because if you don't know this story, Lewis Capaldi has Tourette's, and he was performing at Glastonbury, what was it, 2018, 19? No, it was 2003. It was when I was finishing the book, it was last year. Oh, 2023, that's right yeah. That's right. I think it's June 23rd or 24th or something like that. I think it's, I think it's maybe 23, 23. Yeah. We were exchanging videos in her post when she posted it. And so anyways he his Tourette's started in the middle of his song. What is it? Someone to love? Yeah. Someone you love. Someone you love. And the crowd finished his song for him. And it was just such an expression of support and love, and it was so positive. I remember watching it and then to see you write about it. I was like, Oh, that's perfect. And it helps you finish the book, right? Yes. I was almost done. It was just always so stressful. And there's always more that you need to say. And then there's just, always things, writing a book. So many moving pieces. And then you start thinking, Oh my gosh, is anyone going to pay attention? People discount neurodivergence as diversity. Is it enough to write a book about it? So it was really helpful. And people just so many people are just so many sad stories and horrible stories. And I'm like, Is it even possible to have neuroinclusion? So it was one of those moments when people could say, Okay, yes, neuroinclusion is possible, and it is possible for people to not abuse neurodivergent people, but just provide them with support. And that really did help me to get through and finish writing. Yeah, no, I thought it was beautiful. And to be quite honest with me, I've said this to you on LinkedIn, but I really hope that your book gets picked up by the leadership in the world and, ends up being focused at places like World Economic Forum, because it is workplace culture. It is leadership, is there anything you'd to mention to people about how they find you, how they read more of your work? I'm very easy to find on LinkedIn. If you just go Google Lyudmila Preslo, my LinkedIn profile probably is going to come up. My book has a website that's just the same as the title, The Canary Code. Many of my articles are linked there. I have a Special Eastern blog, I have a Psychology Today blog, I have quite a few articles on Fast Company, Harvard Business Review and all of this is linked to my website, so you can just go and read back a variety of articles. And, or you can just go to a particular blog like Psychology Today and find a lot of, a lot more of my articles or you go to Harvard Business Review and look for my name and a lot of other, a lot of articles are going to come up. And LinkedIn usually is the best place to find my newest content. I sometimes do Instagram or Twitter, X. But linkedin is really where I do the most of the social media interaction. Yeah, that's where I found to be. I'm very happy. You did well and thank you for making this time available to me. I appreciate that. I will make sure that everything's in the show notes and people can find you. Because I do think that. The book is excellent. It's really well designed and it's got really important messages that are going to be essential for the future of work and thank you. Thank you very much. I'm glad we had this conversation and hopefully we can create a more flexible future work for everyone. Yeah, no, that's the goal. That's the goal.

I'll see you next time.