The Culturally Intelligent Safety Professional Episode 11 Included like a left handed golfer

This week I chat with Mike Styles and explore more in the world of neurodiversity, this time again we focus on dyslexia. Mike has been working in this area for 20 years and comes with a wealth of knowledge about the experiences of dyslexic people. We cover what dyslexia is and the various other forms of brain wiring linked to this particular form of neurodiversity.

We discuss the tech available to assist people to become more included in society and explore a story about golf, you will need to listen to the episode to connect the dots with dyslexia

Mike discusses future plans to expand some of his educational offerings into the workplace, something really relevant to those working in health and safety, Mike challenges us to really think about how we present information to our workers a percentage of whom may well be dyslexic. 
Check out the resources to help you become more aware of the dyslexic world.

https://ako.ac.nz/Search/?term=dyslexia

The dyslexia Friendly Style Guide

https://ako.ac.nz/knowledge-centre/dyslexia-resources/dyslexia-friendly-style-guide/

Mike Styles Book – “Congratulations you have dyslexia – Great Minds Think Differently” available by emailing Mike @ mike.styles@dyslexia-consulting.com

The Culturally Intelligent Safety Professional - Episodes released weekly.

#connection #engagement #value #culturalintelligence

Transcript

Greg: 0:00

Hi, everyone welcome to another episode of the culturally intelligence safety professional a podcast aimed at providing a platform where by safety professionals can develop a pathway to enhance their cultural intelligence capability which will help them function more effectively when working in a multicultural situation. I'm Greg Dearsly your host and I have a range of guests lined up to talk to this year. We have people with experiences across leadership psychology, health and safety, education and of course cultural intelligence. All of our guests come from a wide range of different backgrounds across the diversity spectrum, including from different organizational context. In this podcast you'll hear stories aimed at helping you the listener enhance your cultural intelligence. You'll gain an understanding of how you can create trust when working in diverse environments and quite frankly, that's all the time no matter how homogenous the place you work, it might be, it's still full of diversity, people with different backgrounds, experiences and beliefs, all built on their figured world. So today I'm really excited. I'm talking to Mike Styles, Mike has been working in the field of dyslexia for more than 20 years. He's had a career as a secondary school teacher, and he's delivered adult community education in his area of specialty, which is horticulture. Mike now works to improve outcomes for people with dyslexia. Welcome, Mike. I'm truly honoured to have you as a guest on the show.

Mike: 1:38

Thank you, Greg. I'm delighted to be here.

Greg: 1:40

Obviously, really keen to talk about your work in dyslexia, but before we do that, I'm really interested in maybe just a bit of a story about how you came to be in the position you are today and what brought you here.

Mike: 1:59

Yeah, thanks, Greg. Someone as old as me, of course, there's been many steps along the way, so I was in secondary education for some time, and then I wanted a change, so I moved into tertiary education in the area of adults with low literacy and numeracy, which is a related but separate and very serious issue for New Zealand. And it's pretty much true for the rest of the OECD as well. But I worked in that field for a while and then I moved into a job with the Primary Industry Training Organisation, and I quickly realised that many of the literacy and numeracy problems there were down to undiagnosed and unsupported dyslexia. And so I was able to lead some interesting projects inside the primary ITO. We developed a wraparound support package. I was then fortunate enough to conduct some research projects around that, and then even more fortuitously, I got to present the findings of those research projects at various conferences around the world, at which I learned a hell of a lot more about neurodiversity dyslexia. In the process, ironically, Greg, I discovered once I became to be more aware about dyslexia, that both my father and my brother were seriously dyslexic Now ironically, in education, of course, in compulsory education, there's nothing really being taught to teachers around neurodiversity dyslexia, which is a little bit sad given that we are talking about minimum 10, maybe up to 20 percent of the population.

Greg: 3:49

It's a big number, isn't it? So I guess you've learned a lot around the world about neurodiversity and dyslexia. And I guess I'm given that that this episode is focused on dyslexia. I think it would be really interesting to hear about the experiences from as I put it, owners of neurodiverse brains and this is of course in the area of dyslexia and can you tell us a little bit about what it is and how it presents itself in people?

Mike: 4:20

Yeah, that's a very good question. So all brains are different. Even the brain, by the way, of identical twins differs a little bit. But within the normal population, brains that vary significantly, we call them neurodivergent or neurodiverse brains, and with respect to dyslexia, the dyslexic brain is wired differently to a regular brain. And I think the exciting part of the dyslexia story is that different wiring in the brain that produces the characteristics of dyslexia also produces a whole lot of exciting different skills. But coming back to the kind of the challenges of dyslexia, it's a challenge with reading, writing and spelling. And but it's not to do with intelligence. Now, Many people think it's to do with intelligence. It's not. Many people with dyslexia struggle in the school setting. And they, their teachers, and sometimes their parents are forced into the conclusion that their little Johnny is a little bit slow or can I crudely say thick and stupid? They aren't, of course. They are just wired differently and they find The whole acquisition of literacy skills very difficult. In particular, spelling. Now, with a lot of persistence, somebody with dyslexia can get to be a moderately good reader, but the writing and spelling thing will, in almost every instance, remain an ongoing problem.

Greg: 6:04

Okay and as I understand it, there are various other related I don't know what the right appropriate word is. I was going to say conditions, but I don't want to use that word, but I'm not sure what the alternative is.

Mike: 6:16

I think that word conditions is fine. So dyslexia is the biggie, that's difficulty with words. There is a related condition called dyscalculia, which is extreme difficulty with numbers. That's a little bit more than struggling to divide up the bill at the end of a restaurant meal. It's much more complicated than that. ADD and ADHD are part of that family. Autism Spectrum Disorder, Tourette's is part of that list, and Autism Spectrum Disorder and Dyspraxia. So there's quite a family of conditions, but by far and away Dyslexia is the biggest, is the most frequent and common. But you can't have more than one, that's another challenge. So many people with Dyslexia also have ADHD, or maybe another condition called Irlen Syndrome, which has got to do with visual perception.

Greg: 7:15

That was the one that fascinated me when when we met back in October last year and you talked about Irlens and how it seems that there's quite a simple solution to helping people that have got that condition. And as you presented, it was all around the colour of the paper that words are printed on. And it was just, it was a bit of a wow factor to understand that people with this condition struggle to read black text on white paper, which is what, 99. 9 percent of content is written on and simply by changing the color of the paper, maybe there can be some assistance there.

Mike: 7:56

Yes very big changes because, and as you said, black and white are the two most contrasting colors, and that's what people with Irlens struggle with, is highly contrasting colors. It's added to, of course, by densely packed text, small font, densely packed. It's also added to by things like fluorescent lighting. And some LED lighting makes it even worse. It's sometimes referred to as visual stress because it, it gives the person with it quite a, oftentimes quite serious headaches or makes them incredibly tired.

Greg: 8:35

As I say, we met back in October last year at an intimate little gathering at the Levin Library where you were launching your book, and we'll come back to the book a little bit later and one of the things that you mentioned in the book launch, which I know you've got a very passionate view about was that we seem to be quite well behind in New Zealand in terms of recognition of dyslexia and that actually the Ministry of Education didn't recognise dyslexia until 2007 in this day and age, how can that possibly be?

Mike: 9:09

Yeah, so it's a really sad story. You're right, they didn't. Sadly, they've done very little since. For example, young teachers coming out of teachers colleges of education still get no specific instruction on a condition that impacts on that many people. But their background story is really two fold. One, of course, what doesn't exist you don't have to fund so that was a convenient kind of civil servant perspective. But the other one was that there was another initiative to help people with literacy skills called Reading Recovery in Schools. And the leader of that program convinced the ministry that she could solve all literacy problems with reading recovery. But the important thing is, Greg, that while dyslexia shows initially as a reading issue, it's actually much wider, there are many non literacy features to dyslexia. And if you just see it through the lens of a literacy deficit, you're only really seeing half of the condition.

Greg: 10:23

Interesting, and just, to reflect on some of the stuff you've talked about on this podcast a couple of weeks ago I released an episode where I interviewed a health and safety professional a guy by the name of Tom Jones who resides in Wellington and works in construction. And he's a dyslexic person. And he's. been through the university system I think in the UK actually, but came out with a degree in media and communications, I think it was and I guess he had realized, early on that, that the dyslexia sort of opened up what was his creative brain. And he has also subsequently got into the health and safety space and is trying to, use that creativity to different effects in terms of what typically might happen in the health and safety world. But one of the other things that, that he said that struck a chord with me was when he was growing up, he still struggles to not refer to himself as being special needs. He was a special needs this and he needed a special needs teacher and a special needs support person, which is really, unfortunate and I guess that's the impact on psychosocial, psychological impacts on having that feeling. And as you said whether people don't feel like they're maybe as clever as as everybody else or they're a bit slow.

Mike: 11:51

Yes. So a couple of things, first of all, Everyone's heard of PTSD. There is a condition called post education stress disorder that's had university research papers on it. And basically what it's saying is that many people's school experiences were so traumatic. That it's left a lasting impression on them. And I've talked to people who've gone on to succeed in tertiary study, but still have, get a break out into a cold sweat when they talk about their primary and secondary education. But here's another ridiculous situation, Greg. Support in primary schools for children with dyslexia is very small, secondary schools, it's very small. But if people are able to survive primary and secondary education, the support in tertiary education, which probably explains your colleague in the health and safety industry, the support is much better in the tertiary sector. So if there's any parents out there, the encouraging thing I always say is actually, if you can hang in there, then things do get better. Sadly, however, a large number of people don't hang in there, they drop out by the wayside and drop out of school early. And that's a sad thing and it's a ridiculous waste of human resource.

Greg: 13:14

Absolutely. Wanted to move on a little bit and and talk a little bit about a section in your book where you talk about a chap by the name of Bob Charles or Sir Bob Charles. Sir. Bob Charles now? Yes. Yes. And and. Look, many people in New Zealand may be familiar with the name. If there's any people from overseas, you may not be familiar with the name unless you're a golfing tragic, yes, that's right. So Sir Bob Charles as many will know was a champion New Zealand golfer. And I didn't realize until I read the book, actually, he was actually predominantly right handed, but played golf Left handed.

Mike: 13:52

Yes. And that's true by the way, Greg, of many people who have varying degrees of ambidextrousness. So that if something's right handed and something's left, but in his case, the point I made in the book was, I think is a very compelling one is that when Bob Charles tried to play golf, the only way he could play was with left handed golf clubs. That's just the way it works. Now, nobody said to Bob, and listen here, Bob, if you're going to play golf, you play right handed or not at all. His difference, in his case, being left handed was accommodated. He was given left handed clubs and he went on to be very successful. I suppose my plea Is that for in the education world, but also in the world of work, we make the same accommodations and make available assistive technologies for people with dyslexia and those other neurodiverse conditions in the same way. We don't call Bob Charles disabled because he can't play golf with right handed golf clubs. We say he's a left hander and that's the sort of mindset. Dyslexia struggles a lot with mindset. People getting fixed mindsets in their mind like, Oh, this guy can't spell, therefore he must be ignorant or whatever, and subconsciously, this mindset permeates all of us to one degree or another.

Greg: 15:21

Yeah, I guess though, back in the day, and I don't know which day it was possibly as I was going through school, certainly some left handed kids. back then were even disciplined, for not writing with their right hand and wrapped over the knuckles with the wooden ruler and and told to, to, adjust their behavior, but obviously that change in left handed, right handed, I don't know, even nowadays, it's not even really, Certainly it's not a thing that I see out in the workplace as being something that people are marginalized for being left handed, as they might have been 40 years ago. And I guess that's what you're saying is, In some ways, left handed, right handed, dyslexic or not dyslexic were treated differently. And the dyslexic side of the argument is still, in some ways, still treated differently from everybody else. Point you are making is one of inclusivity and belonging. And it's a sort of a term that's gaining momentum around the world. This, you can now get a job as a diverse or a DEI practitioner, diversity, equity, and inclusion or various forms of that acronym. And so we're saying if, if you are dyslexic, it's just a different way of thinking. I think even the neurodiverse word is some people I've seen on social medias that, that might be, identified in that space saying that word is even pointing out difference.

Mike: 17:01

Yeah so the name, the whole naming and names around technology is, around dyslexia is very sad. Of course, the word dis refers to difficulty with. And there's been a pushback around that over time, and I think we've got a wee bit of progress to make around the language around this. I'd like to think of whatever term we use for it, that it's effectively the last frontier of Inclusiveness to break down. So we've made great strides on racial, gender, and sexual orientation inclusiveness. You've only got to look at a email from a, anyone from a government agency and they'll sign off their name at the bottom and they'll put after it their pronouns and that's all fine, but we haven't yet made the same amount of progress with regards to neurodiversity. It's the Cinderella of the diversities.

Greg: 17:59

It's interesting. You're probably the third podcast episode that I've recorded. In the area of neurodiversity, I interviewed a young lady right at the beginning who I think was ADHD my colleague who was, is dyslexic and they've been really popular episodes in terms of downloads, etc. I think there's a lot being done, particularly probably in bigger corporates that have got the resources that they, I guess they are working on their ESG agenda, with S being the social piece where they're working on diversity and inclusion and all of those sorts of things. But yeah, I think there's still a long way to go before everybody's just seen as another person. Rather than a person with.

Mike: 18:50

Yes. And you're right. Slowly, but surely lots of corporates are coming into the space and saying, yes, there's something we need to do here because we've discovered that, for example, with people with autism spectrum disorder, they're often 50 percent more productive in the workplace than regular folks. So these people are very skilled and talented. And right now, many of them haven't even been able to get into the workplace in the first place.

Greg: 19:18

Absolutely, I want to talk about a few things. Now if we, so we've learned a bit about dyslexia and what it looks like in New Zealand. Talk to me about three things. The technology that's available to help people with their condition.

Mike: 19:33

Yep. So the first thing, the technology is actually the very exciting part of the dyslexia story. There's an amazing amount of technology, some of it inexpensive, some of it even free, and it goes in price from zero dollars to maybe a thousand dollars. But can I put the price of the technology into context here? So some of the technology might be 300 or 400 or maybe a little bit more than that. But if, in fact, Someone accessing that technology makes a difference to how productive they are. I'm going to say it's probably quite a worthwhile investment. So in a different space, for example, there are many young. Apprentices just trying to finish their apprenticeship training can't pass the registration exam because they have undiagnosed and unsupported dyslexia. And that puts a glass, whether it's a glass ceiling or whatever kind of ceiling it is, puts a ceiling on their productive capacity, their ability to earn bigger dollars, their ability to be fully productive for their employer, etc. With the permission to sit their exam slightly different way, or maybe with some assistive technologies can literally open up their income to be increased by thousands of dollars per year and therefore potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars over a lifetime. The technology, as I said, varies in price from very inexpensive to from apps on your phone through to things like a reading pen that reads for you through to other tools that you can put on your laptop and they sit in the background there and help you with spelling, with reading, with writing text and everything else. So all those bits of technology serve to level the playing field enormously and I think they are an exciting part. Have to say to you, an old bugger like myself, however, I struggle with some of the technology, but even I've managed to adapt quite a bit of it.

Greg: 21:40

You were quite adept at showing us how it worked a few months ago with with some of those smart pens and smart readers and the dot paper and all of these things, which, I had really no idea about. The, you talked about the fact that one of the Difficulties that some people can have is writing and listening to a lecture at the same time. So there was technology with that dot paper and the pen to effectively record the session and then have it. read back to you later when you get home so that you can maybe take some time to do it a bit slowly if that's what you needed to do.

Mike: 22:19

Yes, and the other thing is we know that people with dyslexia are not short of ideas. The ideas are percolating around in their head, but sometimes they struggle to, Get those ideas into text form. And there are other bits of technology that help with that, which are very exciting, I think. And the exciting part about technology is one, that it's getting cheaper all the time. But secondly, new bits are being added all the time. It's a, there's a worldwide burst to make a difference for this 10 percent of the population.

Greg: 22:48

And clearly apps are probably pretty, easy to access, but what about the other tech? Is it pretty, pretty accessible in terms of you can go to Whitcoulls or online or whatever?

Mike: 22:57

There's a place in Palmerston North called Assistive Technologies. So if anyone was to Google Assistive Technologies they supply almost all of this to the New Zealand economy. It's not just for neurodiverse people, they provide it for all sorts of other people who need various kinds of assistance in order for them to function fully. They don't sell wheelchairs, but they sell the kind of digital stuff that goes on your computer or Hearing devices, I think.

Greg: 23:27

Yeah great okay. We might put a link to that on the show notes. So the other thing I want to get a comment from you on is the connection, if that's the right word, to te reo. And you talk about this in your book, I think, about, te reo and dyslexia and the connection there. Do you want to share that?

Mike: 23:43

So a number of points, Greg. The first one is te reo is a much easier language to master. In its written and spelled form, there's an English, because of course, Te Reo follows the rules. English is the ultimate mongrel bits of language ever invented, it's my only language, I love it to bits but it's a mongrel thing. There are so many contradictions, there are so many words spelt in ridiculous ways, and it goes on and on. Whereas Te Reo, it follows the rules. Now that's one exciting thing. There's a couple of other things that I think are pretty exciting. One, I'm working with a kura Kaupapa Total Immersion School over in the Wairarapa, to develop a screening tool to identify dyslexia. But written in te reo, the other interesting thing I think has happened quite recently is that Ngāi Tahu, the iwi down in the South Island, they are providing from their own hard won treaty funds a full blown diagnosis for any Ngāi Tahu children with dyslexia. They provide a full blown diagnosis and provide follow up tutoring for them. So they are doing what the New Zealand government isn't, but should be doing.

Greg: 25:04

And the last point I wanted you to talk about out of these sort of three areas you've been associated with this dyslexia friendly qualmark and, I guess health and safety people will be familiar with this type of thing. They've been used for various health and safety approaches where, organizations can go through an auditing process and get a a badge of honor, to say we've achieved ABC there's also one that was created a few years ago in the accessibility space. So people that are more physically challenged than others to get in and out of buildings and the like. And so you were associated with this dyslexia friendly qualmark. Can you tell us about that?

Mike: 25:45

Yes when I developed, I brought the idea back from the UK and we've developed a New Zealand version of it. And one of the people I sought advice from at the start was the SiteSafe Qual here in New Zealand, and there's another one called Qualmark, which is used in the hospitality tourism sector. Anyway, the Qualmark Ironically, at this moment in time, applies only to tertiary education institutions and other adjacent organizations who deal with young people of that age. But it's a set of 27 standards of best practice, it's holistic, it covers all the facets of an organization from board level through to senior management, through to budgeting, through to practitioner level, and very importantly, the way you write documents, because the way that documents are written is a very powerful thing, and I'd like to come back to this in a moment, but quite a few tertiary education institutions in New Zealand have been awarded the Qualmark. You've got to jump through a few hurdles but quite a few big players in New Zealand have got it, and many more are signing up to it. Now, it seems really stupid, like a lot of other things, that this is limited to the tertiary sector, where it really should be in primary and secondary schools. We've just received a bit of funding recently to extend it down into secondary schools, and there's another project underway to extend it into the workplace. Because of course dyslexia doesn't finish when you finish school. It's a lifetime condition and there's a lot of productivity loss. There's a lot of health and safety risk, ecetera, around undiagnosed and unsupported dyslexic people in the workplace. So there's a move afoot to extend it into the workplace. And I've given many presentations to workplaces around New Zealand on that, and I'm keen to do more because once again, it's a bit of a mindset change.

Greg: 27:56

That's really exciting to hear that you've got some funding and you're able to look at extending it. And the workplace, and I guess this is getting to the nub of this podcast is what can health and safety people do? We're known for being sometimes the creators of pages and pages of documents on, I don't know, how to hit a hammer with a nail or nail with a hammer or whatever. How to do a job and, there's all of these procedures and protocols and different acronyms that we use. What can safety people do really practically to I guess, make sure that any dyslexic people in their audience might be more inclusive or might be included a little bit more.

Mike: 28:47

Good. Very good question. This is something I'm very passionate about, Greg. First of all, somebody with dyslexia, almost certainly. Won't be able to read a lot of the health and safety documentation and therefore, by definition, they're not safe. Now, there are good ways to make a difference. First of all, look not just at the content of what you've written, but look at the font size, the font type, the background color of the paper on which you write it. All that stuff and there is guidance out there and I can send you a document at the end of that guidance because we've learned in the last decade or two that many of the challenges faced by neurodiverse dyslexic people in reading stuff is as much the fault of the writer as it is of the reader. So font type makes a big difference. Lots of densely packed font is a problem. So that's, so spreading out your text a bit. I know that's a bit of a challenge here because if you spread out the text, you change the document from being one inch thick to two inches thick. I completely understand that, but sometimes less is more. But the other big way to make an improvement is if your documents are online, you can. And the reader has access to computer functions like Read Aloud. They can be, and should be, encouraged to use those functions to have the text read to them. And another thing to think about, and this is increasingly a thing overseas, although not much in New Zealand yet, and that is on the website, that there are accessibility features on the website to, change the web change the font size, change the font type, change the background color, have the stuff read aloud, has stuff read aloud from the website so that it's there as a function on the website. Now I know there's some cost attached to that, but I think it's probably better than having dyslexic people being severely compromised. The other thing is, when you provide documentation, find an opportunity to present it in oral form combined with written form. So they should hear it as well as see it. So each one will reinforce the other.

Greg: 31:36

Now that's useful and super helpful and my man from Wellington, talked about, people with dyslexia being more visual and creative learners and showing people how to do things, having them physically do the task, rather than saying, Here's a document. It's 50 pages long. Once you've read it, sign this bit of paper and tell us that you have read and understood it. It's a pointless waste of time. For probably more people than just the dyslexic audience. So that's interesting. And One of the other things that you said reminded me of a webinar that the New Zealand Institute of Safety Management ran a few years ago when the old Covid hit the ground running. And it was a lady by the name of, Miraka Davies, and she runs a company called The School of Unprofessional Writing, and she talks about blaming, I guess the education sector and the legal fraternity for the. I'll use the word disappointing, she might use a different word, the disappointing way we write now and she says one of the key things to do is introduce your writing brain to your reading brain and, yeah so people write stuff generally for themselves without thinking about the audience. And the audience is more than just somebody who's like them. There's all sorts out there.

Mike: 33:03

Yes, very much and things that can help dyslexic learners is pictograms, diagrams, charts, and information presented in a different way than just blocks of text. So at least think about breaking down key points into bullet points is a good idea. Less is more. Give people an opportunity to talk about it. Don't just assume. And this applies to more than just folk with dyslexia. Don't just assume that because you've given them the document that they've read it. How many times have most people seen a long, dense document and said, Too long, won't read.

Greg: 33:46

Yeah, correct. Hey, just as we finish I've mentioned it a few times, your book, I've got a copy of it right here I know it's not the type of book you can just jump on to Amazon and get a copy of. Do you want to tell us a bit, a little bit about how to get that? It's called Congratulations, you have dyslexia. Great minds think differently. How can we get a copy?

Mike: 34:08

That's a good question. You can email me. It's available in some bookshops. It was available in Unity Books in Wellington. It's available there's a little bookshop in Otaki that sells it. I haven't put it through the main bookshops because they're not very keen on self published books. But if anyone emails me, they can get a copy, then the name of the book, by the way, is very important in that there is a terrible deficit mindset and a deficit thinking around dyslexia. And I. The aim of the book was actually to put a positive spin on dyslexia. And the second part of the book is, of the title is really important. So there used to be a mantra in the in the world of work that great minds think the same. I'm going to say that is absolutely bullshit. Excuse my coarse language. The really great minds are the minds that think differently. So Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, these are all highly dyslexic people. John Britton of the Britain Motorcycle, Richard Tate, workshops. Yep. Yep. All these people are people who have been successful, not because they think the same, but because they think differently. And that's, I think what we need to do in the workplace. The big players in the commercial world, places like the Boston Consulting Group and others are realizing that actually missing the skills and talents of dyslexic people is a big waste, not only from a health and safety perspective, but for more broadly a human resource perspective.

Greg: 35:51

Absolutely. So I'll put a I'll put your email address in the show notes. I'll put your website on the show notes. I'll put you said you would send me the guidance document. Yes, I'll do that. And is there a website for the qual mark? Yes, it will be Ako Aotearoa. Okay. I'll send that to you as well So we'll put all of those things on there. If anybody wants to get in touch they can use your email address. But it's really been an awesome chat Mike, and really appreciate you putting some time aside to to talk to me and I'm sure. That this episode will will get out into the social media world and will be a very valuable resource for people in workplaces. Hopefully more than just workplaces, but this is this is where we're aiming our audience. So in workplaces and in the safety field yeah, really appreciate your time, Mike.

Mike: 36:47

Great to talk to you, Greg. Thanks for the chance. Cheers.

Greg: 36:53

What a valuable discussion it was great to hear someone who really understands the depth and breadth of dyslexia and the impacts it has on those who are owners of brains wired to this particular form of neuro-diversity. There's so much to unpack in this conversation including getting to understand the tech that is available to people to become more included in society. It's exciting to to hear Mike's future plans to expand his education offerings into the workplace something really relevant to those working in health and safety. I encourage all of the listeners to take on Mike's challenge to really think about how we present information to our workers. A percentage of whom may well be dyslexic. I loved the analogy Mike gave about Sir Bob Charles and how being left-handed didn't create a barrier for the golfer as society broke that barrier down and created the left-handed golf club. What can we do to break down the barriers for the neurodiverse community? So I've come to the end of this episode. Thanks so much for listening, I hope you found something valuable that you can take away that might enhance your cultural intelligence. I'll add the transcript from this episode to the show notes and as Mike talked about, there'll be some other resources available as well. If you'd like to talk about cultural intelligence get in touch with me via LinkedIn. I'm posting content regularly so keep an eye on your feed and comment if you see something that resonates. If we aren't connected send me an invite. If you want to hear more about CQ you can follow and subscribe to this podcast I would really appreciate it if you did that. And keep an eye out for the next episode. Next episode's guest is Deborah Rhodes, Deborahs a rural advocate and dairy farm owner. She's doing some pioneering and groundbreaking research on health and safety in the dairy industry. Her Masters pilot study in 2023 championed safety climate as a lead measurable indicator of work, group safety perceptions, and New Zealand industry. She is now undertaking a PhD to address critical gaps using innovative methodology to shed light on work, relationships and safety challenges. Thanks for tuning into the Culturally Intelligent Safety Professional, Ka Kitei.