694: The Neurodiversity Edge in Organizations, with Maureen Dunne

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:00]:
We often don’t notice our deeply held biases, and there’s certainly bias against neurodiversity. In this episode, how neurodiversity can provide an edge for almost every organization. This is Coaching for Leaders episode 694.Production Credit: Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:26]:
Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is Coaching for Leaders, and I’m your host, Dave Stachowiak. Leaders aren’t born, they’re made. And this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom through insightful conversations. Today, a conversation about neurodiversity. Sometimes, we think about neurodiversity as a challenge. And yet, neurodiversity, like so many aspects of diversity, is an incredible opportunity for us, for our organizations, for our teams, and for so many of the people that we serve.

Dave Stachowiak [00:01:04]:
Changing our mindset can help us to be able to embrace so many of the strengths that neurodiversity brings into our organizations. And I’m so glad today to welcome an expert, Maureen Dunne. She is a cognitive scientist, neurodiversity expert, global keynote speaker, board director, and business leader with over 2 decades of experience helping organizations build thriving cultures. She has served as a senior adviser to some of the world’s top organizations, including the Lego Foundation, Cornell University, and to members of congress. She is the author of The Neurodiversity Edge: The Essential Guide to Embracing Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Other Neurological Differences for Any Organization. Maureen, what a pleasure to have you on.

Maureen Dunne [00:01:49]:
Hi, Dave. Yeah. It’s a pleasure to be here. I’m excited to talk to you.

Dave Stachowiak [00:01:52]:
Oh, me too. I was thinking about neurodiversity and your work and how some of our most harmful biases that we have both as individuals and as organizations and in our society are the ones that we don’t even recognize or ever think about. And I was struck by an example you give early in the book of how almost all of us tend to think about maps and the globe when we look at a picture or a globe of Earth that North is up. And yet, it isn’t necessarily quote, unquote true, is it?

Maureen Dunne [00:02:37]:
Yeah. I think there’s so so many, unexamined assumptions in our daily lives, and we never really even think about it, but there’s so many things that we just accept as the correct reality and don’t think more about, well, there could be value to, seeing things outside that lens or from a different lens. And it was funny. After the book came out, you know, and and I wrote that part, as you mentioned, and it was published. I was on a plane to Dubai. I was doing an event, a neurodiversity event with with YPO, young president’s organization, and I happened to be on a plane where I could, on the map, could, you know, could change where south was up and see and see where I was going from this different lens. And I, you know, I kind of then noticed things that I hadn’t noticed before. So yeah.

Maureen Dunne [00:03:32]:
So I just think there’s so many things like that where we get stuck in a mentality or a mindset that’s not always productive, and then we have a hard time seeing things from a a new or fresh lens.

Dave Stachowiak [00:03:48]:
One of the other examples you give early in the book is looking at colonies of honeybees and how they behave and how their diverse behavior actually serves the colony. Could you tell me a bit about that?

Maureen Dunne [00:04:06]:
Yeah. It’s pretty fascinating. So there’s, you know, researchers I mean, I’m not a bee expert myself, but there’s researchers that study, the behavior of honeybees. And one thing that’s well known is that there is basically, their most important social phenomena is the waggle dance. Okay? It’s this figure 8 dance, and it’s it’s performed to share information with other members of the colony, to communicate where already known sources of pollen are. So it’s very important to the honey bee colony, but there’s about a 5th, of the bees that don’t follow the waggle dance. It seemed to be randomly flying off into different directions. And, you know, if you you could see that mistakenly from what we’d call a deficit based perspective and just say, okay.

Maureen Dunne [00:04:53]:
Well, 1 out of 5 b’s are failures. They’re not following the waggle dance. Why are they not following the waggle dance? You know, we should try to force them to follow the waggle dance. But it turns out then others that have been examining this more closely that there’s advantages to the behavior of these divergent bees that they’re apparently responsible for, disproportionately discovering new sources of pollen that benefit the entire hive community. And so I think sometimes we get so caught up in examining value at the individual level that we could fail as well when you apply this back to our own organizations and to humans. We could fail to see things from a community perspective or an organizational perspective of the different roles and different types of contributions that individuals could have. And so from a strength based perspective, then even though 1 out of 5 bees are doing things differently, there’s still there’s a huge contribution that benefits the entire hive.

Dave Stachowiak [00:05:59]:
And yet in so many organizations, we look at that 20% and we label that as problematic or we need to work around that as a problem. And you made a really big distinction there between individual level traits and community level traits. I think there’s I think there’s something significant in that distinction. What is it that is significant?

Maureen Dunne [00:06:31]:
Well, I think that in my book a term that I bring up is one of the terms that I think is is helpful when you think about this is called neurodiversification, and then another is complementary cognition. And I think the point is that a lot of especially the larger corporations that, are at risk of stagnating, and, especially in the economic climate we have in front of us where innovation’s gonna is gonna increasingly be a huge premium. It’s so important to not make the mistake of hiring based on cultural fit, which you know, and not being examining your own assumptions, where you’re not bringing on talent that is able to complement others’, you know, employees that you have or skill sets you already have on the team. If everybody’s the same, if everyone is similar in their approach, or, or what kind of, perceptual, analytical, or experiential skills they bring to the table, there’s inevitably going to be blind spots, right? You’re gonna inevitably, miss risks that competitors may end up, you know, having more diversity on their team and and being able to spot it earlier on, and also missed opportunities for innovation. So I think it’s incredibly important, especially the future we have in front of us, to have, what I would call cognitive and experiential diversity on our teams, and make sure that there’s, what you know, complimentary skill sets, but we don’t all we shouldn’t all be the same. Right? There’s risks if your team members and your staff and your organizations have, everybody sort of cognitively and perceptually and experientially correlated.

Dave Stachowiak [00:08:17]:
Yeah. And we generally are there at least what we espouse in a lot of organizations when it comes to the things that I think many of us traditionally think of when we think of DEI, we think of race and gender and sexual orientation. And yet neurodivergence is something that a lot of us who are more neurotypical don’t necessarily think about as much. I’m just speaking for myself. Like, some of this language is newer for me, and I know for some of the folks in our listening community. I’m wondering if you could perhaps define, like, when we think about the term neurodivergence, what does that mean?

Maureen Dunne [00:08:59]:
Sure. Yes. So neurodiversity is a strength based concept, and it’s an umbrella term to really describe all the different and unique ways that people’s brains work. And if someone says they’re neurodivergent, that means that that person has a brain that works differently from the neuronormative majority. So that could be autism, that could be ADHD, that could be dyslexia, dyspraxia, synesthesia, hyperlexia. There’s a lot of examples that fit under the neurodiversity umbrella. But, yeah, generally speaking, though, it just is, you know, someone who has a brain that works differently from the from what we would call the neuronormative majority.

Dave Stachowiak [00:09:38]:
And it’s a huge part of the population, isn’t it?

Maureen Dunne [00:09:41]:
Yeah. I think a lot of people don’t realize, just the scale of neurodiversity. So, we know at minimum, it’s documented at 15 to 20% of the global population. There’s a lot of reasons to believe that the numbers are actually a lot higher. There’s also an interesting study. We’re all, sort of trying to make sense of where over 50% of, Gen Zers have reported to identify under the neurodiversity umbrella, either, you know, as being definitely neurodivergent or somewhat neurodivergent. So a lot of the some a lot of the younger generations are embracing their differences a lot more than we’ve seen, I guess, in the past. And so that’s something also employers should take note of.

Dave Stachowiak [00:10:27]:
Yeah. And it’s really it’s really interesting how, as a society, I think we, for some reason, we don’t often think about neurodiversity in the same lens that I think we think of a lot of the other D and I aspects. And one of the quotes that really struck with me from the book is you write, “the legacy framework for understanding neurodivergent people is generally known as the deficit based perspective or the medical deficit model, which still dominates how most people view neurodivergence at all levels of culture today.” And, I was struck that there’s a study in the UK you cite in the book. “A 2020 survey of UK employers revealed that a shocking 50% openly admitted that they would not hire a neurodivergent job seeker.” If that was about any other topic, if it was about race or gender or sexual orientation, we would all be horrified by that number. And yet, it’s fascinating how, like, we don’t think in our society.

Dave Stachowiak [00:11:34]:
We don’t think about neurodivergence in the same lens, do we?

Maureen Dunne [00:11:37]:
No. I mean yeah. And it it is horrifying, and one thing, you know, that struck me about that study is, right, if over 50% are openly admitting that they wouldn’t hire a neurodivergent person, you, you know, you’d assume that the real number is higher. Right? Yeah. Yeah. But I think, you know, one of the complexities is just neuro divergence is invisible. Right? And so it’s different. Right? And, and so then also, there’s it’s invisible and that’s why I think it’s and it’s also very misunderstood.

Maureen Dunne [00:12:14]:
And I think a lot of employers, you know, there’s a DNI perspective, but there’s also just the talent acquisition perspective. Like, you should want, diverse you know, a diverse team. You should and and then that gets into trying to redefine or reexamine assumptions about how you’ve been hiring because it’s invisible. It’s that much more important that you create healthy organizations and companies that everybody can do their best work, that everybody can thrive because you need to create the conditions where people feel comfortable even asking for what kind of support they might need to do their best work. You know, it’s invisible, so you can’t tell who’s neurodivergent by looking at it.

Dave Stachowiak [00:12:59]:
And I hesitate to mention this next thing because I know for some people in our audience, this is like such an obvious thing. But I know for others, it’s not just to the point we just made of, like, society has a very different view of this. You write “intellectual capability is entirely independent of the presence or absence of a neurodivergent cognitive profile.” Neurodivergence just doesn’t correlate to that like anything else would. Right? And yet, we do have the assumption in a lot of places that that’s the case. Like, you’re not as capable if you think differently. Right?

Maureen Dunne [00:13:32]:
Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s you know, I think on the one hand, one of the challenges has been that so many of the examples in the movies and the media, there’s been a you know, this has been a sensationalized in a way where we don’t see broad representation, especially in leadership roles. And yet, at the same time, because there is a huge stigma that, you know, it’s one of the things, one of my goals, hoping to get people to, understand this well enough to see it differently in a more nuanced way. But because, there’s still some of the stigma there there’s a lot of high level leaders I know in big corporations, even senior vice presidents, or higher that are neurodivergent, but just don’t disclose. And then you look at our history, right? You know, so many of our innovators and entrepreneurs and trailblazers were clearly neurodivergent or had strong neurodivergent traits. I mean, you think of Einstein, you think of Benjamin Franklin, you think of Thomas Jefferson, you think of, well, you know, Richard Branson, obviously. He’s very open about his dyslexia, so he’s been a huge advocate. But somehow, you know, I think, yeah, there’s so much more work to be done for people to really understand that neurodivergence it’s independent of intellectual capability.

Maureen Dunne [00:15:02]:
It’s a, it’s a, that’s sort of a separate thing. And there’s lots of people that are both gifted and neurodivergent. We call that population hoist exceptional. And everybody also, I think it’s important to realize that we all have strengths and challenges, right? And neurodivergent people just may, you know, may see it might be a little bit more uneven in some of their skills, but there’s, there’s so much there’s so many strengths that we sometimes fail to see, and it’s important that we include those strengths in our organizations.

Dave Stachowiak [00:15:37]:
And we had, talked a minute ago about that deficit based perspective that tends to be the view that a lot of organizations or society have. And you really advocate for a strengths based approach. What’s different about that approach?

Maureen Dunne [00:15:55]:
Well, I think if well, first of all, there’s what will a lot of times when you feel if you’re focusing on just the deficits, you fail to see how those same things that are being perceived as deficits could be strengths in a work setting. So like, you know, think about autism, for instance, like one of 1 you know, from a deficit based perspective, a lot of autistic people have what we call special interests. Right? And it’s restricted interest. Okay. But, you know, that’s also results in an intensity and focus that is very, a very big a very huge advantage. Right? If you’re, if you’re an entrepreneur, if you’re, you know, heading up an innovation center in a company and, or you’re a cybersecurity expert. I mean, there’s so many situations where that level of focus and intensity is such an asset, right? That’s an uncommon skill that you want on your team. Right? You know? And so I think if you fail to see the strength side of that, even in yourself, right, as a neurodivergent person, then you’re not going to, you’re not going to be able to thrive in the same way.

Maureen Dunne [00:17:20]:
And so when I think in organizations as well, if they assume they’re looking at things from, a deficit based perspective and they fail to understand that, okay, we’re this isn’t charity. Right? But there’s a lot of reasons why you should want and really strongly desire to hire neurodivergent people and seeing that side of it, you’re gonna miss out on that talent.

Dave Stachowiak [00:17:42]:
When I picked up your book, I initially was having one of many thoughts about what we would discuss in this conversation was some of the things about accommodation that I think a lot of people in organizations have at least thought of even if they haven’t done when thinking about neurodivergency. And I changed my mind on that pretty substantially after reading the book and thinking about it in that one of the real nudges that I hear you make in your work is that instead of maintaining a list of accommodative practices for, as you say, quirky people, moving the entire organization toward a norm where there’s a wide ranging system of universal accommodations that work for everyone. And I’m wondering if you could tell me a bit about that distinction because I think oftentimes we do approach, especially from an organizational leadership standpoint. We think about accommodations for one group of people versus of thinking of the entire system.

Maureen Dunne [00:18:45]:
Right. Yeah. And to be clear accommodations and and support is is hugely important, but at the same time, we have to if if our organizational cultures don’t grow to a point or evolve to a point where there’s genuine valuing of different kinds of minds. We’re not gonna get to you know, we’re you know, we’re not we’re not gonna create organizations where we’re maximizing everybody’s happiness and productivity, in general. And so I guess the difference is if you to the extent that it’s possible, if you can follow what we’d call universal design principles, that’s gonna benefit everyone. And, and then there’s very simple things employers can do that are inexpensive, don’t take a lot of time, but could make a huge difference in the productivity and well-being of all your employees. Many which, you know, may be neurodivergent, like just normalizing simple things like, you know, it’s hey, ifyou need if you’d like to use noise cancelling headphones, if you wanna make a request to, you know, where an open floor plan is not gonna be where you’re gonna be most productive.

Maureen Dunne [00:20:06]:
Do you know if you want a a corner office, or if, you know, just normalizing more flexibility, I guess, in the workflow, and, and how work is being done, and focusing more on results. And under that model, you’re gonna have employees not only that are already neurodivergent and aren’t disclosing, but also you haven’t you know, everyone has employees that are neurodivergent and maybe haven’t been diagnosed yet or haven’t even realized it themselves. But what they do know is that they’re struggling in some way. Right? And so I think to the extent you can optimize systems where everybody has access to tools that will just make them feel like they they are supported and have options to be more productive in the way that’s gonna work best for them, that’s going to be really, really helpful. And then, you know, there’s, there’s there there may be other types of supports or accommodations that might might might be needed. I mean, it’s always case by case, but I think the most important thing is if organizations can move towards universal design. That’s the ideal, because then we’re normalizing just the fact that we’re all different, and, you know, we all have strengths and weaknesses, and we don’t need to be the same. We shouldn’t be the same.

Maureen Dunne [00:21:29]:
We bring different things to the table to our organizations, and it’s normalizing that it’s, you know, it’s okay if if someone needs to use yeah, things like headphones or fidget spinners or just, just the mentality. I think the mindset with that I think is hugely important, especially to make neurodivergent people feel like they are at an organization where they’re valued.

Dave Stachowiak [00:22:02]:
Yeah. Indeed. And the big distinction I’m hearing as you say that is that, yes, this is great for folks who identify as neurodivergent, and it’s also great for everyone else too. Like, it’s not that we’re yes. The accommodations are important and it but it’s not just we’re just doing this for one type of person in the organization. We’re doing this for everybody. And for those who have not thought about that in their organization or have never done something like that, what’s an example maybe of, like, universal design that you have seen an organization start with or do that speaks to that? That’s something that really does serve everyone.

Maureen Dunne [00:22:47]:
Yeah. I mean, the you know, a classic example of universal design is ramps, right, where initially, it was perceived that, okay, this is for people in wheelchairs, but it you know, the idea was, yes, it makes it, what’s essential for some benefits all. And obviously there’s so many examples of people that benefit from the use of ramps, right, that aren’t in wheelchairs. You could be, I don’t know, a mom using a stroller or, you know, a blind person with a cane, an elderly person. There’s just everybody knows or just people that for one reason or another, it’s just a better experience or easier, than stairs. Soit’s a different kind of example, but that’s usually, you know, a classic example of universal design at work.

Dave Stachowiak [00:23:46]:
I know you support a lot of leaders and organizations and helping them to think about the bigger why, their mindset behind this. When you see organizations and leaders start to shift and think about this less from deficit and think about this more from a place of strengths. What are those leaders doing that helps them to make that shift?

Maureen Dunne [00:24:12]:
Yeah. I think, there’s a couple things. I think, I think one of them is that, they’ve taken the time to understand neurodiversity in a way that allows them to, in their own organizations, be an advocate and talk about it through a strength based lens. Most people don’t hear all the stories of the strengths of neurodivergent people and, why it’s important. And so I think when you if you’re, if you’re, if you’re in an organization and your CEO is sharing positive stories about the neurodivergent employees or people that he or she knows, I mean, like that changes the culture, right? That starts to, you know and, and something I bring in my book is, you know, we don’t have time to elaborate here, but it was called the 3 C’s, Codification and Conduct Drives Culture. And the idea there is, like, I’ve worked with organizations, we could change and update policies, right, to make them more neurodivergent friendly. But if the day to day conduct and how people behave don’t, you know, reinforce or are in alignment with the values that that company says that they value, you know, then that’s gonna affect your culture. Right? And so I think the greatest success is I’ve worked with a lot of companies and organizations and, you know, and and directly with the CEOs.

Maureen Dunne [00:25:40]:
And I think having the CEOs onboard, like truly onboard, really getting it, and, being willing to, be vocal, right, within their own organizations that, yeah, this is something that we value. You know? We value diversity of all kinds, and we are, you know, looking to hire and support neurodiversity as well. Like, just the that I think has been a really important part of it.

Dave Stachowiak [00:26:10]:
And such a big part of getting that support from top leaders is being able to demonstrate in addition to the important and critical human and values pieces behind this, also the results. And there’s a ton of research behind this. What does the research look like as far as organizations and their results when they really when they really move in this direction toward that strengths based approach?

Maureen Dunne [00:26:37]:
Yeah. Well, there’s a number of studies that have looked at also just, you know, the benefits of diversity more generally speaking. I know there was one with, you know, McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group. There’s been Deloitte. There’s been several studies that have, there. But I think in terms of neurodiversity in particular, there’s a lot of emerging research now looking at just, the productivity of organizations increasing, dramatically. Also, there was this JPMorgan and their pilot program with autistic employees. They found they had not only a 99% retention rate in their program, but their autistic employees were 48% faster and a 140% more productive.

Dave Stachowiak [00:27:26]:
Wow.

Maureen Dunne [00:27:26]:
Than the neurotypical employees hired in the same, in the same position. And then what I’m finding, I’ve been, in my research and and work, with consulting with lots of different types of companies and organizations, there that there’s just, in terms of preparing for integrating you know, preparing for the future work, preparing for, AI taking over more cognitive work than maybe we’ve seen, you know, throughout in history. I’ve been encouraging the CEOs I work with to make sure that we’re not neglecting the human resources side of that equation. Okay. Yes. Yes. Let’s make sure we’re, you know, integrating the right technologies, understanding AI, but understanding the implications of where things are going. That that changes the human resources equation.

Maureen Dunne [00:28:18]:
And I I found that the companies that are, that I’ve been working with as well that are, you know, internally, you know, there’s an increase in terms of their R and D and their patents and their innovation in terms of their evaluations, it’s because they’ve made this shift of trying to be, more supportive of diversity, cognitive and experiential diversity, and that is leading to more innovation. And that innovation is just hugely important, right? Especially where we’re at now with these, these accelerating changes with technology.

Dave Stachowiak [00:28:56]:
Yeah. Indeed. And it’s one of the reasons I wanted to have this, you know, more of a big picture, the mindset conversation that we’ve been having. There’s, of course, so many detailed things, tactics, and the book is a master class in being able to think about at all aspects of the organization. The why, the tactics, the what’s next, the strategies, the research. So I hope folks will hear this conversation. And if you, your organization, haven’t yet thought about this much, I hope that you’ll use this as an entry point to begin that thinking. And, Maureen, I’m curious as you have put this book together as I’ve been doing all this research.

Dave Stachowiak [00:29:41]:
I’ve been teaching people about how to do better through your work. In the last year or so as you’ve been doing a ton of that, what, if anything, have you changed your mind on on this?

Maureen Dunne [00:29:53]:
Yeah. It’s an interesting question. I think when I’ve been doing this type of work in in order to see for a long time. And I think if we go back some years anyway, I was a little skeptical of things like value statements. You know, do they really change anything? And, it’s been interesting, to see you know, I’ve I’ve changed my mind on that for a couple reasons. So one is I I’m the former president of the Illinois Community College Trustees Association and worked even in that role, worked with a lot of, employers, you know, trying to build, partnerships with community colleges and employers, those opportunity pathways. And we, as an organization, as a state organization, was the first to approve a neurodiversity inclusion statement, across you know, we had support broad support from all of our representatives across the street. And then that actually led to, some, new legislation.

Maureen Dunne [00:31:00]:
It’s it was a house resolution in the Illinois House of Representatives that was encouraging all the Illinois colleges and universities to adopt a similar strength based statement so that, you know, it basically said like, we value all students, you know, neurodivergent and neurotypical alike. And the original statement included beyond students, like faculty, trustees, staff, just encouraging, wider acceptance. And what’s been interesting to me to see is that, the colleges and then I’ve you know, have since then have worked with a number of corporations and smaller companies and nonprofits too that, wanted to adopt a similar type of value statement. But seeing how getting that buy in from the board of directors, or the board of trustees, and the CEO, or the president, and the cabinet, you know, like at the highest level of leadership, that it actually does change things, or it could. You know, I’ve seen great examples where that level of buy in and seeing it’s very visible, right, that it has led to conversations, more open conversations internally about, you know, what more could be done. Like, well, why aren’t we, even more talking about the budget, what you know, it’d be it seems like it would really be to everyone’s benefit if we had a sensory friendly room, right, which would benefit everybody, not just neurodivergent people. And so that’s been kind of interest it’s something I’ve changed my mind. And I guess I I started out thinking, well, is that does that really change anything when you do a value statement? And in and of themselves of itself, it doesn’t.

Maureen Dunne [00:32:38]:
But I’ve seen in the right conditions and with buy in from top leadership, that it actually is pretty important, you know, because because then it changes the mindset and the kinds of conversations people are comfortable happening at all levels of that company or organization.

Dave Stachowiak [00:32:57]:
Maureen Dunne is the author of The Neurodiversity Edge: The Essential Guide to Embracing Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Other Neurological Differences for Any Organization. Maureen, thank you so much for your time, and thank you so much for your work.

Maureen Dunne [00:33:12]:
Thank you. I’ve I’m I’m so glad you invited me, and I enjoyed this. It was a great conversation. Thank you.

Dave Stachowiak [00:33:23]:
There are certainly a bunch of things that fall into the category of things we don’t talk enough about. That’s the inspiration for 3 other recommended episodes that I think will be helpful to you if this conversation was useful today. One of them is episode 594. How to begin difficult conversations about race? Kwame Christian was my guest on that episode. The host of the Negotiate Anything podcast, has done incredible work on helping so many of us be better negotiators and to handle all kinds of difficult conversations. That episode is focused on beginning the difficult conversation about race when that’s a factor in a conversation. And the framework that Kwame talks about in that conversation, 3 steps, also very useful for starting a difficult conversation about anything. A very helpful starting point, something we don’t talk enough about, episode 594, a beginning point for you.

Dave Stachowiak [00:36:31]:
Also recommended episode 639, supporting return to work after maternity leave. Dana Greenberg was my guest on that episode. We talked about her work and expertise and research looking at supporting women in particular in returning to work after a baby and what that looks like, what it looks like for them. And, also, the thing we don’t talk enough about, what it looks like for the manager that is supporting her, what it looks like for the rest of the organization, what it looks like for partners and spouses, and so many others who are involved in helping a family to expand both the professional and the personal side of that. Episode 639, a helpful listen there. And then also recommended is episode 675, how to be a better ally. Lauren Wesley Wilson was my guest on that episode, and we talked about the good intentions almost all of us have of being able to support those in the workplace and in our lives more broadly that are underrepresented, and how do we do a better job at that? And perhaps more importantly, how do we take the good intentions and place them in a place where it actually results in a positive impact? We talked through that in episode 675 and some of the beginning points to actually show up as a better ally. All of those episodes you can find on the coachingforleaders.com website.

Dave Stachowiak [00:37:21]:
Many, many years of conversations around not only diversity and inclusion as we’re filing this episode under, but so many other topics as well. It’s why I’m inviting you to set up your free membership at coachingforleaders.com. It’s gonna give you access to the entire library of episodes that I’ve aired since 2011, plus a bunch more inside the free membership. And one of the resources that’s available inside the free membership is my book and interview notes. I spent, a whole bunch of time preparing for the conversation with Maureen and thinking about what I was gonna ask her. Also, some of the things we didn’t have time for in our conversation that I’ve documented, highlighted from her book and also many of the books in recent years. And all of those are available in book and interview notes. So when you set up your free membership at coachingforleaders.com, you can go over to the book and interview notes section.

Dave Stachowiak [00:38:05]:
You’ll see alphabetical, all the books that have been featured, at least most of them on the podcast in recent years and the highlights, the key things I found in the books that I think are most critical, my interview notes. Again, some of the things that come out in the conversation, some of the things we don’t have time for, all of it’s there for you as a resource to support your ongoing learning and development and your skill development. All of it is part of coachingforleaders.com. Just set up your free membership. And if you’re looking for a bit more, I’d invite you to discover Coaching for Leaders Plus. If you take a moment to go over to coachingforleaders.plus, you’ll learn all about the additional benefits that are inside of coaching for leaders plus to support you. And one of those benefits is a weekly journal entry. This past week, I wrote a journal entry on the importance of seasons in our lives.

Dave Stachowiak [00:38:22]:
You know, there are some things for all of us that are lifelong commitments. For me, marriage, parenting, right at the top of that list. For most other things in life though, there are seasons. There are things that come to an end, good or bad, that tend to close out over time. And the challenge a lot of us have is that we think about our commitments, all of them, as lifelong, when in fact, many commitments are seasons. And the key question is, when does that season come to a close? I wrote about that, in the past week on Dave’s journal inside of Coaching for Leaders Plus. If you’d like to get access to that, plus all of the benefits inside of Coaching for Leaders Plus, just go over to coachingforleaders.plus for more.

Dave Stachowiak [00:38:08]:
Coaching for Leaders is edited by Andrew Kroeger. Production support is provided by Sierra Priest. Next Monday, I’m glad to have Mary Murphy on the show. We’re gonna be talking about team collaboration that supports growth mindset. Join me for that conversation with Mary, and have a great week.