#211 – Mastercast: Finding hidden talents in neurodiversity (Part 1) w/ Jonathan Scripps (2026)

Full episode transcript: 

​Please note that transcription is done by AI and may contain errors.

George: Hi everyone. George here, the editor of the Sales Transformation Podcast just chiming in to let you know that this week's episode is the first of two parts. Phil sat down with Jonathan Scripps for our Mastercast series,

discussing his master's research into neurodiversity. It's a topic that's both fascinating and important, so it's no surprise that it ended up being a pretty long conversation. Therefore, we've decided to split this one in two. So don't be alarmed at the end of this one. And make sure you tune in next week for the second part.

For now, though, please enjoy part one of this masterclass episode with Jonathan Scripps.​

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Phil: Hi. Well, I just want to, to say, uh, a massive, uh, welcome to, to Jonathan to join us on this next episode of the Masters series within the, um, sales transformation podcast series that we've, we've got, and for those listeners who, um, don't know the significance of Master Series, uh, what we do here is we invite certain of our students who've been through the Master's programme to share with us the insights that they've gained from the final thesis research project that they did, which is enabled them to qualify, um, with the Masters in leading sales transformation.

And typically, we choose those who have come through the process with extremely high scores. And I can, I can say that Jonathan is one of the brightest students we've had, um, who've who've gone through the process and come out the other end with, with a Master's. Um, but, um, without going into the topic in too much detail, uh, perhaps we could ask Jonathan just to say a few words by means of introduction.

And it's super to have you with us. Jonathan.

Jonathan: Thank you for inviting me. No, it's an absolute pleasure to be here. So, um, so yeah, about me really. I started my sort of sales journey in my early twenties and I joined a company quite early on, um, called Speedy Hire. Um, so basically I were a, a hire company within the construction industry.

So that was my first sort of introduction into the sort of construction world. And as the years went on, I was, um, had promoted, I was promoted to sort of account management, region, account major accounts, et cetera, et cetera, and then eventually to business development director. Um, that's when my sort of journey did over the sort of 18 year period.

But during that, um, I started my level of seven apprenticeships with yourself, with Consalia, and that's when it really clicked for me, um, my journey really about sort of sales leadership and transformation. Um, because not only I learned obviously a lot more about leadership, I learned a lot about myself as well.

Phil: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan: And that kind of was the sort of groundings in the footings to where my MSC and my research led.

Phil: Yeah, no, it is, it is quite an incredible story. Um, and just for the benefit of the, uh, again, for the listeners, the topic, um, of Jonathan's final project is Neurodiversity Learning and Performance in Construction.

Uh, but the overall title of the dissertation is Unlocking Hidden, hidden Talent. Um, so, um. As we know, uh, as well as, as some of the listeners will know, is the masters itself is structured around a number of different modules and, um, covering all sorts of different topics. And the final module or the final project picks up on a particular interest that any one of our students have developed.

And Jonathan was sharing with me just before, uh, we've started to press record, you know, what, what was the key that's unlocked this particular interest? So Jonathan, I wonder if you could just talk us through where did the, um, where did the idea of this particular topic surface and why did it surface?

Jonathan: Absolutely. Now, while I was at Speedy, now at Pro Rail Services, I've a lot of work within various sort of large infrastructure projects. One being, um, which is the major, major, major sort of five year investment plan within the water sector. And one of the biggest things that they were screaming out was they're worried that they didn't have enough people or didn't have enough skilled workers within that sort of talent pool to actually use to deliver the projects which the government had set out.

And it was a big problem, and it still is, it's a big for, for example, research. It was 48,000 additional workers per year are needed and required in just that industry to, for, for the plans to happen, for the, for the government plans to actually happen. And that's a lot as a real, real lot of people. So.

Lots of recruitment, lots of people, lots of jobs, lots of opportunities available. But my, my sort of real theory is why are we not looking inside the business? There's a lot of talented people. Why are we, why are we having to go to recruit, why we are gonna have to do various different things? And then during the, during the sort of process within the apprenticeship level seven apprenticeship, I found out, um, that I, I had a DHD and for me, I was looking at various different sort of traits that had potentially locked me into sort of moving my career on as well.

Where little things where, when it comes to sort of processing information, uh, learning patterns, et cetera, where I had struggled in the past and not realised it. And if I hadn't have been for a particular module and a particular sort of, um, session on coaching that we had, um, with the sales field, it, I probably would never have known because it got me to ask the right questions.

And it asked me about myself and about leadership and about how to coach people the right way, asking the right questions, the what questions like the grow model. So where that led me onto really is, is someone actually said to me, and when, when the colleagues said, do you, I mentioned the word imposter syndrome because I was, you know, because we talk about mindsets and something that you're very, very good at as well, Phil, we talked about the growth mindset and the fixed mindset.

And before I started this journey, I thought, I, I, I knew I had a fixed mindset. 'cause I thought for me to do an MSC, I can't do that. I'm, I'm not gonna be able to do that, et cetera, et cetera. Um, I can't pass this exam. I, I, I expected to come in and be on these big sort of seminars and halls and, you know, learn and listen and read and write a thousand times.

Um, but then I knew I can do that. 'cause I struggled to do that. That was just the way my, my mind didn't process the information. So during that time, as I say, I just, I looked at neurodiversity and I looked at, um, various different traits that I was having where a lot of them are very similar. Um, for example, just a, a real quick example is I can hyperfocus, but I can walk into a room and not know where my keys are, for example.

So, or I can do things like forget things very, very quickly. But when it comes to put me in a room, let me focus in I can really, really focus on that. So where I felt, where's this holding back? So I looked at neurodiversity and I looked around how many people are actually classed as neurodivergent. So that could be a number of things.

It could be ADHD it could be dyslexia, it could be autism, dyspraxia, Tourette's, et cetera, et cetera. So there's about, oh. 11 key, um, traits. So, and it's a big, big point. It's a big, big umbrella. And from that I thought, well, I wonder how many people within the construction industry have this same problem, this same learning issue when it came to development.

Why are they, how many people were holding themselves back? How many people couldn't pass those particular exams to get them to that sort of next level so they could be the next leader, the next project director, et cetera, et cetera. But, and how many of them, they're holding them back, not because they're not, they can't do the job, it's just the fact that they have to pass a certain criteria in a certain skill set to get them from say that kind of onsite to that sort of project leader.

'cause construction's very, as you could say, safety led, safety led, very critical. It's very planning, it's very risk, et cetera, et cetera. So, and I looked really into it and I said, well, there is a lot of talent out there how many of those people that sit at that sort of, um, level, when I say level that sort of, you know, part of their career wanting to take that next step to take some of these jobs that are not, that are available, that people are screaming out for, but haven't put themselves forward.

Because if they've held themselves back because of learning alignment, because they, the way that they're taught and the way that they've learned is not designed for the way that their brain thinks or processes information. So that kind of, sort of started the real theme is why are we not looking at this 15 to 20% population within the construction industry?

And surely there's people that are, they're hidden. I say unlocking hidden talent within neurodiversity learning performance because, um, we could actually have an opportunity there to actually really focus on people that we can develop within that are, as I said, I know literally that are holding themselves back who want to push forward.

So that's when, that was the tie up, really. Yeah. The long, the long-winded version. And

Phil: it's a really, no, it's a really amazing story. And, um, it's so interesting that, uh, whilst you were on that coaching module

Jonathan: mm-hmm.

Phil: Um, which is arguably, um, enabling you to coach other people, um, you found yourself probably coaching yourself in that

Jonathan: I did, I did.

Phil: Through the, through the skill I guess, of the facilitators in, in some of the role plays. The fishbowl

Jonathan: Yeah.

Phil: Activities you began and it was great. Yeah. Sort of unlock, uh, unlock that idea of thinking. I'm interested in, in, um, this imposter syndrome that you mentioned earlier, because I recollect, if I'm not mistaken.

In the very first module. Um, when we talk about concerns, I, I, I seem to remember you using that word perhaps in that very first module when we, you know, we do the, uh, we do that, uh, personal shield.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Phil: Is, is that, is that correct, Jonathan? Because Correct. I, I, I, I seem to remember some sort of conversation that we had at the time, and it was a kind of almost wanting to legitimise the knowledge that you, you had around a, a qualification.

Jonathan: Mm-hmm.

Phil: You know, and, and the reason why you went on the journey.

Jonathan: That's, that's spot on Phil. And, and also as a leader as well, was as a sales leader, because my, my, my initial sort of module one was around that, and it was all about, I was worried that I was too nice to be a leader now. Um, basically the journey was, I was replaced by someone.

Um, because, um, I wasn't that kind of like, I was, I was more of a, you know, empathetic leader. I wanted to, you know, a lot more kind of like that side when, and some what the firm at the time wanted was someone that would come in there and be a bit more sort of, you know, get it done, get it this, get it that, and that didn't work for me.

And I was worried that people were, because I was nice and I was kind and empathetic. I was worried that people would take advantage and the, and then how I was looking, thinking, it was going through that sort of mindset going, I'm not good enough. I can't do this. I'll never be an md, I'll never do this. I'm too sensitive.

I'm, boom boom boom boom and all, all, all this sort of doubt came in. And what, what was severe, what was really, really nice is when we did that, um, that sort of, um, exercise, some of the senior people in my life I had seen within my coaching, and my mentoring and, and, and what over in my management had seen things in me that I'd never seen in myself.

Phil: Right.

Jonathan: Um, things like, um, you know, attention to detail and things like that and professionalism and, you know, and all these lovely words that, and I'm thinking, do people really see me like that? But me, um, I didn't have that sort of self-confidence. I, I just thought I'm just a nice guy that's done well because he's, you know, good at account management because he, I like people.

I like talking to people. I, you know, that, that and that whole sort of good stuff that you need to be in the, in the sales world. So, but it was that kind of, am I gonna be a good leader of people or am I too nice or kind or sensitive? So that, that was where it came. So that was where the sort of self doubt really came from.

And it took a good while to learn based on some of the exercises we did to realise actually it's not about that. It's it, you know, there, there's more to life than having to be this sort of bolshy Sales director.

Phil: Well, it's interesting. I, I think there are sort of stereotypes that one has, has in mind about, you know, about salespeople as well as sales leaders and mm-hmm.

Um, I think, you know, having seen so many brilliant people go through the master's programme, you do see a, you know, such a variety. You see people at all ends of the, of the spectrum. But I think one of the most important things that, um, that we address on the master's programme is, um, the sort of grounding of any kind of leadership comes from a deep understanding of who you are as a person.

And from that you can then build and, and, and I think you're a great exemplar of that. Um, but to actually, um, suddenly realise, so when, when it, when it surfaced on module three that you might be neurodivergent in some way, how did you get that sort of diagnosis? Did you, did you have a doctor talk to you or, you know, how, how?

Jonathan: Um, yes. So basically I thought it was, it was a case of sort of mental health anxiety, self confidence.

Phil: Yeah.

Jonathan: Um, that was the line that, that went down. Um, I did struggle, um, a little bit about, and I, I thought it was down to that. I thought it was, it, it was that. But when you look at A DHD and something I'll talk about again, there's a, there's a thing linked with A-A-D-H-D called RSD, which is a rejection, um, sensitivity dysphoria, which is very similar, which I'll explain to that in a second.

But answering your question is what I was doing in particular in that, and probably even the module before I was finding myself, um, very much, I remember a question I think I asked yourself or, or, um, Andrew at the time is I struggle to articulate things because it's in my brain. I wanna say it, I'm desperate to say it.

I wanna get it out before I forget it. And then it just comes out as not like, like to me, it just comes out of, um, a big mishmash of what I was trying to say. And I'll probably doing it bit now to be fair, but that's just part of one of the conditions really. But, but what I, what I find is, and I think I remember.

Having a conversation is how do I become more articulate? Because I was worried that, was it an intelligence thing? Was it this, was it that, am I, do I need to read more, et cetera? Do I need to do more studies of, um, world class speakers, et cetera, et cetera. Because I, I just literally, I didn't know about that.

The, the A DHD had these, these effects in it. Like I said, it's about regulating, um, that kind of, um, thought process.

Phil: Yeah, yeah.

Jonathan: Um, but yeah, there, the good thing is now, now I know more and I've learned more. There are more things that I can do within myself that can help me, you know, like, take your time, et cetera, et cetera, and all the good things that we, we would've learned.

But, but yeah. Yeah. So basically, um, I remember driving home that night going, I need to look into this. And I was actually listening to sort podcasts and books, and I always knew about it. I, you know, I always knew it. I knew friends that had had it. But growing up, um, you know, sort of in the sort of eighties and nineties, ADHD was, you were the naughty child in the corner if you had adhd.

And that's, that's all people knew. You know, that's what people, people knew and they didn't understand. It's no nobody's fault. It's just that, to be honest, it didn't really, the whole neurodiversity thing didn't really happen until it was coined by, um, a lady called Judy Singer.

Phil: Yeah.

Jonathan: And she's known as then, and one of the, the people I talk about, she's like the, the grandmother of new diversity.

Phil: Right.

Jonathan: And she was all about, um, the differences of, you know, they're a natural part of human diversity. It's, it's, it's, it's not you're one or the other. It's, it's, it's the, you know, it's joined, it's joined up that way. And, but that's only, what, 26 years ago when we think about it, that's no time at all.

When it, when, when people have been, you know, had these, these issues, um, well, I call, don't call 'em issues, but this, this other way of thinking. Yeah. And, and that's the, and that's the way forward. But, so yeah. So naturally I just went through the process, um,

Phil: right.

Jonathan: Went to the doctors. Um, the usual thing.

There's a two and a half year waiting list. Um, right. So I basically went and decided to do it and learn about it. But as I was studying it, I, and, and learning more about it, I'm thinking, I do that, I do that, I do that. So, yeah. So yeah, I, you have to go through a doctor and a psychiatrist, et cetera, and do an official assessment before they say you've got it.

Phil: Yeah. No, it's an, it is an amazing story and I'd like to come back to, um, the topic of different ways of learning, uh, you know, a bit later on, or it may get covered as we, as we talk about it. But Jonathan, that's been, uh, very helpful for you to kind of share the background to the story. And I think there's going to be an awful lot of listeners gonna be very interested in the journey that, that, that you've been on.

And actually, you know, within, within your paper, and we don't have chance to really share this, you, you have a very useful, like, glossary of terms.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Phil: Which I think was a very clever thing to do at the beginning because it helps those who may not be so close to the topic, you know, start to look at some of the, uh, language that's being used as you describe it.

And, uh, the umbrella that you described earlier on again, was, I had no idea until I read your document that there were so 11 different types of neurodiversity, you know, as, as, as, as we look at it today. Um, so, okay. Um, and you've also cited earlier on, you've mentioned it already, the challenges that it are facing, um, the, uh, work base within the construction sector.

And so you are starting to bring together an industry problem with something that's close to your heart as well.

Jonathan: Yeah.

Phil: With these topics. So your study was guided by three research questions. How is neurodiversity currently understood within the UK construction industry? What challenges do neurodivergent individuals face within learning and the workplace environment? I mean, what practical changes are required to support neurodivergent, indi, uh, individuals?

So three, um, three great questions. Um, so perhaps we could, you know, uh, sort of move on to having determined the research questions. Um, and perhaps this was influenced before the questions were determined, but what sort of reading did you do around the topic, um, which may be influenced the direction of your final research?

Jonathan: Think the main reading around it, um, a lot of it was mainly sort of article doctor led. It was mainly a lot of the, a lot of the work was what has been discovered so far. So when I was doing the literature view, I wanted to know what the pattern was, where we're, you know, for example, when it started, where we're at with it and the different, different ways of people have introduced different ways of thinking.

Um, I found someone like, um, a chap called, um, Dr. Michael Oliver. Quite interesting because he developed the social model of disability. So what he basically said is, it's not the individual, but it's the system of the actual, it's the systems, it's the environment, the barriers that are often created.

They're created by the systems and not the individual. 'cause a lot of people will look at the, so for example, if there is an issue when it comes to learning development, a lot of people go look at that person rather than the actual, the environment around them. And that was really, really interesting that that kind of, sort of led on from, you know, where we was learning about that.

Um, and then I, something very interesting is to say is a lady professor Amy Edmondson, and she, she, she wrote originally around psychological safety. And, and what I learned a lot about them is how important the psych, and this is one of the, the, the topics that has sort of one of my highlights as number one, and we, we mentioned it before around psychological safety is learning and development.

Without that, even in general in life, you know, if, if a, a manager or a or a company doesn't give you that feeling of psychological safety, forget it. Because you won't speak up, you won't ask the questions if you don't feel you're ready. So if you're in a classroom, even going back to a child, this is something that I, I imagined if you, if you're in a, in a say you inch in a class and you are learning a subject, even as a child that child might not feel safe enough to go, oh, sorry, I don't understand that.

Because they're getting a be be afraid to be laughed at by the children or patronised. Yeah. And that lives on in adult life as well. I think it still does. Um, and I think having that sort of cycle, and this is what, what, um, Amy Emerson was saying is to, to, to the foundation of learning. And it is so important to have that, to create those high functional and high sort of high teams.

Because had I. Had I not been able to ask the questions, I would've never have known and I wouldn't have been able to learn. So respect to your, your colleagues really for, for, for adopting that because that is how a learning environment when it comes to development needs to be, but not just in learning in everything, because that will keep you.

Yeah.

Phil: Yeah.

Jonathan: So I a lot of research and learning about, and so, and when I did my actual interviews, so you mentioned, as I say, I did, I did a survey and I did a survey out more about how a company understands neurodiversity within their workplace. Do they really know about it or have they just seen it? on a nice flyer and I, and, and I mean that in the nicest possible way.

Um, you know, we, we, we've heard of it. But do we really know what it means? And that was the biggest thing because I found that I've found a lot of people Oh yeah, I know what that is. Do you know what that is? You know what I mean? And, and it's people, as I say, like you said before, people have heard of it, people have heard of, of A DHD or autism, dyslexia.

But what does it mean? What does it mean for you? What does it mean for your company? What does it mean for your staff, your employers, et cetera, et cetera. So I did a big survey and, and some of the facts that came back there was about, I, I think about 50 people came back to me, Leon, which was incredible.

And these were people from CEO level all the way down to sort of, you know, any, any, any, any level basically. And it was a real mix of people as well. I wanted to tell what leaders did, but I also wanted to know what people like from hr, I wanted to know people from, um, operations, et cetera, within the construction industry.

Um, and one of the questions really, really, really interested me. And, and this is the first point, you know, how much do we actually know about it and how much are we aware of it?

Phil: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan: And if they honestly want to come and put their hand on their heart, a lot of 'em said, I don't really know John. I dunno a lot about it.

I, I, um, I don't, and when you looked at it, so many people, a lot of the scores were very, very low when it came to people's knowledge around, around the actual subjects. And one of the big things is, would you know how to handle someone or handle a situation who had this particular neurodivergent? What would you do?

And everybody points out, oh, would be an HR matter. It's an HR matter for me, it's not an HR matter for, for what I've learned from my findings, it's a management, it's a, it's a leadership. Mm.

Phil: Mm-hmm.

Jonathan: You know, you can't just, this is not something you can just go ask, but go to hr. Go to hr, because it's more than that.

And that's something that where a lot of leaders did feel it was more down to sort of that kind of HR route than it actually was their own personal leadership. So I opened up a few people's eyes, really, um, where, and there were a lot of people were quite shocked at the results of how little people knew and actually how little people would know what to do in a situation or how to manage or get the best out of their, their, um, colleagues that were neurodivergent.

So that was really, really interesting. But starting from the 0.1, and it's about Professor Amy Anderson, her psychological safety was huge. Huge, huge, huge.

Phil: Yeah.

Jonathan: Um. As we, as you sort of went on and something, which I found really, really interesting. This, this was probably the best thing I ever did, and I could not believe it.

So once I was, once I was ready to go and, you know, I was ready to do my subject and this is, and, and it, this really, really did overwhelm me. I put something on LinkedIn and said, this is what I'm doing. I'm doing this, I'm doing this Dissertate dissertation for my MSC. This is my subject, this is what I want to do.

Um, put it out there. Lots of different hashtags thinking, oh, I might get 1, 2, 3 people get back. Couple of likes like that. I must about three people, 300 people contact me.

Phil: Wow.

Jonathan: And, which was incredible.

Phil: Yeah.

Jonathan: I had literally, and I look at that still every single day because once you put it out there and, and I dunno what it is, more and more people in the world, and they're not just saying in the uk, they know more lots about it.

They want to talk about it. And it's almost like it's, um, once you start researching it, it's amazing what comes outta the woodwork. You know what I mean? Yeah. You know, and, and, and I remember it was, um, and I remember and I looked at and said, lots. So cut. Long story short, lots of people contacted me and sadly, I, I couldn't, I didn't have the time to, to, to talk to everyone, but I thank them all kindly.

And from that I kept in touch with a good 10 of them. And, um, we're still in touch today, which was lovely. 'cause they're, they're helping me, um, develop my next chapter of, you know, from, from what, what I've learned from the, from the masters. So they were really, really influential, really, because they were people a of autistic, they were leaders.

They were people in, um, compliance, et cetera, et cetera, governance. I had people in Australia, I had people in Thailand, I had people in America. I had people that were represented neurodiverse, people within, um, corporate law. Incredible, incredible, incredible. And it was like, wow. So remember, as I say, I had three months to, to do all this sort of research.

As I gave along, I was introduced to people like, um, um, Dr. Nancy Doyle and Dr. Nancy Dole, but she actually, she's a, she's a publisher and, and, and world famous doctor, um, within, within, um, neurodiversity. And as I was doing my, my previous module before the masters, the, the, the strategic business proposal, I brought her book and I read her book.

So I thought, do you know what? I'm just gonna take a, take a punt here and, and contact her and which, and now. And she came straight back to me. John, I love what you're doing, but do you know what was really nice? She actually said, she gave me some advice. You know, be careful, you know, when you put it out there, people are gonna be quite offensive.

People are gonna be, you know, want to try and, um, um, debate it with you, et cetera. But make sure when you look at it, look at everybody's different. And that's the biggest advice she said to me. If it, you know, when it comes to if you're male, you're female, you're young, you're old, or religion, it affects everybody differently.

So you can't just go, oh, that's one thing. That's neuro, that's autism. That's, that's that. It affects every single person differently. So my, my ADHD might be different from my colleagues. Yeah, it could be complete. And that's where these people have spent the last 20, 30, even 40 years studying this. So, so, so what, what was the, what was the best thing about that?

Um, some it was probably that real learned life experience, reading people's pages, paper papers, reading people's, um, you know, people were even sending me their doctorates and their masters and their, their, um, their books and just like, you know, have a look at that, have a crack at that. And then we were talking about them afterwards.

Um, so the learning really started to say, so I did the, I did the survey side of things to get me an idea of how much we actually, how much the industry actually knew about it. But the real, real information came from the interviews, and I thought that was probably the gr the best, what I enjoyed the most.

Learning from real people. Learning from people that experienced.

Phil: Yeah,

Jonathan: I, I, I've got one, um, one particular story. I, I interviewed this, um, chap with autism. He has two or three masters, if you can get that. I didn't even know you could, um, in various different things. Um, autistic, um, struggles, um, works for Oxford University, but he can't get a job.

And then he's really struggling to get a job. So I'm like, well, why? So he sent me again, he sent me his, his papers, et cetera, and I'm like, this is incredible. This is amazing. But what I found fascinating is he, he said one thing to me, and this is one thing that I will always take away and I still learn it.

He needs to be shown how to do something rather than told how to do something to. So, for example, one of the biggest things, and what I, what I really reflected and did some writing on it afterwards. It was the don't tell me, show me. Because that's how his brain work. You have, you know, and, and that's what I loved going back to sort of our, um, our sessions and our workshops and is with the master's journey, is we did that practical demonstration.

We, we did that inclusion, we did that involved because, and I'll be completely honest with you, if you and your colleagues or, or any of the, of any of the, um, people that I learned along the way just spoke to me and told me to write it all down. And, and I think, um, who was it? I think Mark, uh, Dr. Mark mc, Dr.

Mark, he said to me, he said, yeah, I, I completely get what you're saying because the whole talk and chalk thing just doesn't work. And you're, but there's timing, there's limits, there's as much information you've gotta get. And, and a lot of learning is like that. But that's where one of my other pillars came into about learning alignment.

Um, so what also this, this autistic, uh, man said to me is, he taught me how to talk to him. And he said, talk to me in the same rhythm as your heartbeat. So I had to do this, and I had to talk to him literally like that. And he got it completely understood it, and that's how he processed the information and understood it to go off and do what he needed to do.

But he can't get a job. But what he deals doing for it, which really fascinated me. He was writing for Oxford University. He was writing, um, job descriptions to actually suit the job rather than the qualification of the job. And that was really helping people because what he was saying is that 80% of things on the job description you will never do.

And this is where learning alignment came into it. You know, why we, we are, why we, we are learning for a career, were learning for a job, we're learning to do things, which 80% of the stuff we'll never do And that was where he sort of redesigned and restructured this way of getting the best people in because he wanted the people that could actually do the job rather than what looks good on paper.

And I found that fascinating, but it took his way of thinking and his brain to produce that. And I believe that was one of his, you know, biggest skill sets. So he could actually under understood the role, what was required of the role and what they needed from that individual. So it seems like that I just found absolutely fascinating.

Phil: Yeah. That's fantastic. So, um, just to help my understanding on that then. Mm-hmm. He was, he was at Oxford University, is that right?

Jonathan: No, he, he worked at Oxford University.

Phil: Oh, he worked at Oxford University trying to help students. Was it to

Jonathan: It was actually, no, he was actually helping the, the, the, the actual, um, administration, the, the,

Phil: the administration

Jonathan: to, to to bring in people,

Phil: oh, to bring in

Jonathan: people to work in the university.

Phil: Okay. Not to study, but to work at the university. To

Jonathan: work within the university. But what they were finding is the particular job descriptions were not matching actually what they needed to do for the job.

Phil: Okay. So they were getting a problem that people, yes, they may have passed the interview in terms of the job description, but when they turn up, they weren't able to do the job because Exactly.

They approached the job descriptions in the wrong way.

Jonathan: So, yeah. So it, it was really interesting. And, and, and that's when he said the, show me, show them how to do it. Don't tell them,

Phil: didn't tell me.

Jonathan: Yeah. Which is, which was really interesting.

Phil: It

Jonathan: is. I found, I found him fascinating, to be honest. I really did.

And,

Phil: but actually coming back to your research, I mean, it's uh. You know, the, the 300 responses you got and then the, the 10 or 15 that you've kept in close contact with, um, with them wanting to share their research and papers. I mean, I can see you had so much information.

Jonathan: Yeah, I, I you

Phil: were able to process, I mean, how you into your final thesis?

I don't know, but you must have had so much.

Jonathan: I, I, I did. And, and I, it was, it was, it was fantastic. Overwhelming. I was, I was actually really overwhelmed by people's generosity for their time, their passion, um, their time, even like, you know, talking to people, time difference in different countries.

Phil: Yeah. Yeah.

Um,

Jonathan: which is really interesting because I want, I did, I thought, well, do you know what, let's, yes, you know, we're in the uk, but let's hear other people's points of view. You know, is it different in other countries? Our people are better at it than other countries, et cetera. Um, I didn't just wanna learn about what it was like in construction.

And I think what was really important, there were a lot of, some very good companies and one company, um, SAP, um, who, as I say, we've got some wonderful, uh, friends and colleagues from the

Phil: Yeah,

Jonathan: they're really good at it. They're really good. Um, so what we found is like tech companies, um, consultancy companies happen to sort of really be up there and advanced when it comes to actually understanding and educating and building that kind of, um.

Framework to help support neurodiverse people. And I think that's fantastic. A lot of com, a lot of businesses are still catching up, construction being one of them, but there are companies that can do it. So it's proven, it can be done, can

Phil: be done

Jonathan: with time, research and investment. But, uh, and, and SAP are one of them and one of our, my colleagues on the cohort, uh, Michael, he was like, you need to speak to this guy.

Okay, I'll speak to this guy. And, and next thing you know, I'm having a conversation. And, and, which was lovely because even my, my colleagues in the cohort were, were engaging, we're all engaging with each other. And, and that's one of the beauties of it, I think is, is we all helped each other as well.

Phil: Yeah.

Um,

Jonathan: and when it came to sort of our own research for the, for the masters.

Phil: Yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan: But yeah, that, that, that was really interesting that, that, that sort of couple of months of meeting, learning,

Phil: collecting

Jonathan: data, research and collecting.

Phil: Yeah.

Jonathan: Um,

Phil: sorry Jonathan to interrupt.

Jonathan: Yeah, please, please, please.

Phil: But, uh, I just want to come back to a figure I think you mentioned earlier on, which is like 20%, was it 20% of the workforce has some form of neuro diversity sort of challenge Is, is, is that, am I correct in saying that

Jonathan: You are.

Yeah. So depending, again, this is when it gets, um, so statistically you can say it's between 15 and 20% of what we know about,

Phil: right?

Jonathan: So there's probably another potential 10, 15% that aren't even diagnosed. So, so that's, that's the thing is so, um, there are things that can help people that don't realise it yet.

And that's where some of my research had. But yeah, you're looking about 15 to 20%, um, of the population of the world is neurodivergent.

Phil: Wow.

 

 

George: Hi everyone. George here again, just to say I hope you enjoyed part one of this master cast with Jonathan Scripps, and to remind you to come back next week to hear the rest. See you then.