“When you look at a hidden condition, you have to ask them how do you experience this? How do you cope with noise? How do you cope with smells? How would you like to work? What flexible working works for you? Then almost come down to this set of agreements that says, well, we understand how you work and we’re going to enable you to work in that environment.”
Dr Emma Jane O’Leary, Director, P&G
Dr Emma Jane O’Leary, Director at Proctor & Gamble talks openly about her experiences as a working mother of a neurodiverse child and how those experiences have sparked her passion to change the way P&G recruits, onboards and supports their neurodiverse employees. Listen on to this exciting episode to learn more about;
- How can leaders and work cultures best support neurodivergent colleagues?
- What specific support do managers of neurodivergent employees need?
- What are the practical ways you can create an inclusive recruitment, onboarding and progression process for neurodivergent employees?
- How can you create a neurodiverse-friendly workplace where people can thrive?
- The challenges a working parent / carer of a neuro diverse child can be vastly different to that of a working parent of an A Typical child. What can organisations do to support this group of employees?
Watch the interview
Or read on for the transcript
KK Harris: Well, hello, Emma O’Leary. Thank you for joining us on Talking Talent’s podcast. My name is KK Harris. I’m one of the Executive Directors at Talking Talent and happy to say a business coach psychologist as well and it’s wonderful to have conversations with people who are in that diversity space and have come into it in a different way that’s quite personal. So, it was nice to have been asked to interview you, Emma. You’re working at a fabulous company. Everybody knows the name, Proctor & Gamble. You’re a Director in the Grooming Incubator team, which I’m going to need you to tell the audience what that actually means, what that entails. Today’s conversation is one that speaks to my heart.
I am a neurodiverse person. I recently, as an adult at my assessment for ADHD which was a big eye-opener on so many levels because I’m such a champion of diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging and I think that is what led me to go ahead and get my assessment. I always knew there was some explanation for certain types of strengths and weaknesses, someone might say, but I should just say differences it was nice for me to make that jump and learn why. It has affected me, and I should say one of the reasons I went ahead and had my assessment as well else is because I needed to be able to explain to my previous bosses what was going on with me? Why was this dynamic personality but yet I couldn’t do something that others might have seen to be so different, so easy, not challenging but it was something I couldn’t do? And ultimately, I did leave that organization because I didn’t feel that the support was there. But enough about me. Let’s talk about you. I did your introduction, but please introduce yourself to us and what brings you here today? How you feel and why you said yes, let’s have this conversation.
Emma O’Leary: Yeah. So, I’m Emma O’Leary. I’m a Director at Proctor & Gamble. So, I’m a manager of people and in my role, I work in very upstream innovation. So, grooming incubator is one of those organizations. Because it’s upstream it’s very much about you might say invention or blue-sky thinking, thinking differently, approaching problems differently. That’s something that P&G really grounds itself in is having a really strong innovation program. So, it’s a fantastic place to work. It’s very creative and it’s quite different, which kind of then fits with some of the things that then subsequently happened to me. I have a son, he’s autistic, and he’s amazing. When he was four, he showed signs of being able to problem-solve. So, I’ll tell you the story. He’s in the bath, and I’m milling around, and he said, “Mom, mom, mom come and have a look.” And he’s got a little toy boat in the bath and he’s making big waves in the bath and the boat kept tipping over. “It tips over mom,” and I’m like, that’s nice dear and I’m milling around. “Mom, mom, mom I fixed it.”
So, I went into the bathroom, and he has modified this boat and essentially, he’s created a keel and now he’s testing it again and he’s making the waves and it doesn’t fall. “It doesn’t fall over now, mom, ” and I was like, that’s so amazing. It must be because of the way kids play and I was thinking how do you get people in my work environment to innovate problem solve in a different way and I thought it was how kids play. He, later on, went on to get a diagnosis for autism, and then subsequently he’s also severely dyslexic and he’s a fascinating problem solver and I was like, oh, this is about autism. So, I started to then do the research around autism, and I was like, this is an opportunity we are not making the most of, and that kind of started the program at Proctor & Gamble.
KK Harris: Thanks. I want to hear about that program. If you could explain to the audience what program you’re talking about because now you’ve just given the condensed version. When we had a chat originally early in the year, we went really in-depth. It was like an interview outside before an interview. Before we go to P&G, I’d actually like to talk about that because you had a struggle with your child. You had a struggle with mainstream school, with getting him the support he needed so he could really flourish. Can you give us a little picture that paints that because I think it has such influence on what you then achieved over at P&G when it comes to neurodiversity? So, give us a snapshot.
Emma O’Leary: It was a huge battle. So, he was in a mainstream school, and he was starting to struggle in school, and they’d always described him as your son is on his own agenda. At the time I didn’t realize that that’s teacher speak for we think he might be autistic…
KK Harris: Okay.
Emma O’Leary: …because they don’t like to say that to parents and that had been happening. So, I think it was in year two as we started that process right at the beginning of year two because they called me in and in that, I was like do you think he’s autistic? Because I’d started to get some suspicions. Now at that time, I didn’t know anything about autism at all. I’d seen “Rain Man” and that was pretty much the limit of my knowledge. So, actually then to suggest that and then to really agree and go, oh. They were so relieved that I had said it. So, we then started a journey. Now over the next year, he had support in place. He had to have full-time support. He’s very capable. He’s very articulate but he struggles to focus in a mainstream environment. There are too many pupils in the class. It’s too noisy. It’s too fussy. There are too many distractions. Really, really struggled to maintain focus and learn in that environment.
He had a very good teacher at that time and then at the end of year two, as he moved into year three, they took away all his support. He had a change in headteacher, a change in Sanco, a change in everything, and then the battles really started. As part of that, I was going on the journey so that I could equip myself and be ready to have those discussions, and to fight his cause I needed to know absolutely everything about autism. Neurodiversity being neurodivergent, what it meant, how it manifested itself. I went on courses, conferences, everything to really ensure that I had the right tools to fight his cause. He’d gone from being in full-time school to in one academic year the most he ever attended in one day was three and a half hours and the least was half an hour. I mean, it was a horrendous time.
KK Harris: It was a horrible one.
Emma O’Leary: After battling for that year, I succeeded in getting him into a specialist setting. So, a new placement where they only cater for individuals with autism…
KK Harris: Okay.
Emma O’Leary: …and he went from barely attending school to not really loving school holidays because he’s not in school. So, it was a huge dramatic change from I can only do coloring for half an hour a day to actually I can engage in every aspect of school. I have loads of friends, getting them in. That is really important in the workplace too because the moment his setting was the right one where he was understood and they had all the effort and right elements around, he went from not performing to performing and that’s what we have to do in a working environment.
KK Harris: Let’s go there. Thank you. You said you go from not performing to performing and that was related to the support that was in place and that makes me think about neurodivergent people being in an organization. One we’re quite often in the closet because we’re ashamed or we have a certain stigma in our minds or what society is put there. Then another is that we may not get the support that we need and that’s a shame. There’s support that’s needed for the neurodivergent person and then I feel that there’s also support needed for the management and to understand you’re just not managing that person you’re managing the team around this neurodivergent person. So, there’s lots of understanding. Can you talk to that part, that management of it?
Emma O’Leary: Yeah. So, as we started to bring in more neurodivergent individuals, it has become necessary to ensure that we create an entire support network around them. That includes training managers, training supervisors, training the whole team and also providing them with a support group. So, there is a fabulous, and it’s kind of bubbled up more recently, maybe in the year and 18 months is that there is now a global neurodivergent support group and it’s all aspects of neurodivergents, not just autistics. It happens to be run by three autistic individuals and that is probably my favorite meeting because every time I sit in there, I learn something new about how we manage and enable individuals, what struggles they’re facing, how we can incorporate those in making sure we give the right adjustments.
We also provide everyone with an adjustments document. It’s called the I Will document. It’s essentially a set of commitments again so that the individual knows what their commitments are. The team knows how they need to be treated. The manager knows what’s critical and we have company elements in there such as providing flexible work hours or a quiet space where they can go and be. Those things are then built around an individual. The key thing is every one of those plans is worked with the individual and based on that individual because as we know, everyone in that neurodivergent community has different and unique needs and so it’s important that we work together to give the individuals the support they need and that’s really enabling.
KK Harris: Right. Right. Can you talk to us now about the program? Just for the audience, this isn’t something that you have been paid to do. You do an entirely different job but yet you’ve taken on this because you’re so passionate about it. Can you tell us about what you helped to implement at P&G, so the audience understands why you have all this information?
Emma O’Leary: I went to one of these conferences and I saw this brilliant guy present. He’s normally non-verbal, but he stood up and he talked, and he actually works with the BBC. He clearly really understood his topic and he’s in programming. I thought we are not recruiting that individual in science and engineering, and this was my inspiration. How would I recruit the science engineering version of this guy? So, that set me off on that. I work in a creative organization where we have a little bit of flexibility to explore different approaches, to drive innovation and so I started a neurodivergent recruitment program focused on autistic individuals. We started that with the National Autistic Society because when we kicked that off, we really needed support and now we run it on our own and it was about getting autistic individuals not necessarily with an educational background, something they could prove they could do it. But people who had a passion area around science and engineering. Then we had them have an opportunity to see what does the workplace look like. What types of equipment and facilities do we have? How do we think about problem-solving and they’re given a chance to demonstrate how they think differently? We were looking to recruit individuals that think differently about challenges, not necessarily get it right…
KK Harris: Yeah.
Emma O’Leary: …but think about the problem-solving in a really different way. So, it’s a day assessment and then from that, we bring in some work experience individuals and we all also have our entire apprenticeship and internship program. So, we can then put them through those programs and that started us on full-time hiring. We’ve had employees come through this. We’ve also had individuals who have gone on to be diagnosed because of their training. So, they’re like that’s me, I recognize the and then they could suddenly completely unmask who they are, and actually, the program’s gone global. So, there is recruitment, and we recruit differently depending on what the needs of the business are. So, if you’re recruiting for a legal job, for example, you wouldn’t do it in the same practical way we would do it in an innovation space.
KK Harris: Okay.
Emma O’Leary: But it’s all over the world. I mean, it’s a pretty cool program, even if I do say so myself.
KK Harris: That’s fantastic. I want to ask the question. So, that’s P&G. You can create inclusive recruitment, onboarding, and progression process. What are some practical tips for someone listening in on this and wants to share that with their organization?
Emma O’Leary: So, once they’re in, there are quite a few elements you could do getting them in. They really need to work with external agencies. If you are not used to doing this, I think just going in and doing it would be quite challenging.
KK Harris: Okay.
Emma O’Leary: We set it up as a pilot and we worked with the National Autistic Society. Once we’d done that, we knew what we were doing, and we could then put it on ourselves. But the key thing is that you need to bear in mind is to make everything you do explicitly. So, we will give them welcome packs. In that welcome pack is a photo of what the entrance looks like. What does security look like? What are the forms they might have to fill out? What information do you need to have to give to the person at the desk? Where will they go? What room will they sit in? Who will they be talking to? What will the program look like?
So, anyone that comes in, we give them a whole pack so that they can picture in their minds what that environment is going to be like and what to expect. So, that massively lowers anxiety and that’s the key thing you are looking to do when they first come in is you want that to be a completely non-anxious experience because they will be able to give far more. We do not interview them in that first session. What we do is we get them to demonstrate what they’re good at. We are not there to test them or challenge them. We are there to see how they think about problems. So, that is another way of thinking about it. If you are looking, you won’t get the full benefit of having neurodivergent employees if you tell them what you want them to do. If you see what they’re good at and then see where they’re fit, then you can start to then help them into a working environment that meets their needs and yours.
KK Harris: Right, right.
Emma O’Leary: Our program’s not. There’s a philanthropic benefit but the reality is there are amazing people out there and if we don’t recruit in the right way, we are missing out on them. Once they’re in the company then there are some very simple things you need to go do. One is how does your autism affect you or your neurodivergent condition and what would you need to really enable you? That is the simplest thing to do. I think if somebody’s in a wheelchair, we know they might need ramps, you need bigger doors. You need to make sure that the lift is working.
KK Harris: Yeah.
Emma O’Leary: But when you look at a hidden condition, you have to ask them how do you experience this? How do you cope with noise? How do you cope with smells? How would you like to work? What flexible working works for you? Then almost come down to this set of agreements that says, well, we understand how you work and we’re going to enable you to work in that environment. But we have spaces where we have reduced noise, or we have a non-interruption space. I mean, there are so many digital tools now. There’s the benefit of the pandemic is that now everyone’s used to using digital tools. If someone’s non-verbal, you could just use so many different chat environments. We can enable them to do what they’re really good at without having expectations that sit in a place that might not work for them.
KK Harris: Right. You know I was just thinking about that. I was just thinking about that, and you mentioned your training. Everyone’s being trained, there’s this holistic thing going on and it just made me think of what challenges have the team faced, or have they felt challenged working with a neurodiverse person? What has come up? Should I guess managers or HR be prepared to hear about it? Are people willing to be honest and say I’m uncomfortable with these neurodiverse people or I don’t know how to speak to them? Are there any challenges you’ve seen around for the team?
Emma O’Leary: Yeah. There have definitely been, not necessarily in my organization but I’ve certainly been approached to be a mentor for people in other organizations…
KK Harris: Okay.
Emma O’Leary: …where maybe the team wasn’t fully trained. So, in those circumstances, one thing I usually do is I go and run training with the manager and for the team and have the neurodivergent as part of that training. So, I talk generically about autism and how it might be perceived by a person and I have them say, well, for me, it looks like this.
KK Harris: Yes.
Emma O’Leary: Or those things I’m okay with but these things really bother me. Now that is hugely enabled just as a starting place because you are already embedding based on the individual. But some of the things I teach is you need to speak up. The neurotypicals need to speak up. If you have a neurodivergent person that, for example, when they come in first thing in the morning, you say, how are you and they start to overshare their personal life, which they can do you need to have trusted people around where they can say, whoa, that’s too much information. You don’t have to share that. The reason why that’s important is that they often afterward will reflect on what they’ve said and become anxious that they went too far and then it’ll start to worry them and stress them and I have seen this happen.
So, if you can get a team together who are going to go, we’re just going to be consistent and honest and trust each other. When they then know that they will be told if they overshare or if the thing, they’re talking about isn’t appropriate or they’re talking too much. If somebody knows actually that person over there I know is going to speak up and stop me, it makes them more confident. So yes, there are challenges, but everyone needs to be open, honest and understand that we’re all different and we all have different needs no matter what aspect of inclusivity it is, and just enable that in the workplace so everyone can be their best and be frank and open.
KK Harris: Fantastic. I want to take it over to the working parent that you are of an autistic child. We work with a lot of working parents in our coaching as well. My sister has a son and he’s been diagnosed autistic at the end of maybe about October or something, which was a relief because we had answers and she could then get him into the programs. In America where she lives in Texas, she’s got him two fantastic schools. He’s speaking, he’ll be six in the next couple of weeks, and his language, his speaking skills are coming on and so we’re very hopeful. But that comes with a certain set of challenges for my sister. He echoes a lot. He repeats. He loves to go to Chick-fil-A or something, chicken and fries. So, he gets in the car, and she’ll often phone me, and he is repeating this over and over. Mom, chicken and fries, chicken and fries. Yes, we’re going. Chicken and fries. I mean the impact. I always just encourage her to tell me what it’s like from your end to working parent, autistic child challenges. What is that like? How has that been? How has that affected you?
Emma O’Leary: So, there was obviously that whole year where he’s not in… Now, I’m a single mom.
KK Harris: Okay.
Emma O’Leary: That was then a huge amount of management required. It’s a good thing about being somewhere like P&G where they value your personal life as well and create a work-life balance. So, I was basically told you do whatever you had to in this period of your time. So, I was then able to do what I needed to do. Sometimes it was working from home and that wasn’t really a thing. Other times it was working with other people to get him picked up and make sure he was safe, and at the same time, I spent every evening sending emails and battling the system to get him into the right placement. I can’t really demonstrate how bad that was and that’s quite a few years.
I mean, he’s about to turn 14 and this was when he was seven or eight years old. I could say I now give my personal time to other parents because I know how bad it is and there’s no better person to understand how bad it is than other parents. So, I now advise other parents and help other people who reach out to me to make sure that they have the support that they need. So, it was a very, very challenging year. From then he’s obviously really blossomed in his new school. He is in school full time. He got transport to and from the school. So, there are elements of that, that we are in a really, really good place and that’s what was worth the fight. But more recently, he’s now a teenager, and teenagers, if they’re neurotypical can be challenging, so you can find that with autism and it’s like an extreme version. So, he can be aggressive, violent, and he’s the same size as me and his language can be very floral.
KK Harris: Floral.
Emma O’Leary: That challenges. Yeah, it can be immensely stressful. I’ve no idea. Sometimes you don’t see the trigger coming and he’ll just go boom and sometimes it’s because he’s frustrated with himself. Right. There are times when I’ve had to go and lock myself in rooms in the house, because I know I’m going to make it worse if I’m in the same room. So, I need to leave him alone, wait till he’s calmed down and then he’ll go, mommy, I’m really sorry. But you know that he’s still learning to manage his…
KK Harris: Like any teenager. Yeah. But with 10 times.
Emma O’Leary: It’s really hard, It’s hard being a teenager, it’s harder being a neurodivergent.
KK Harris: So, you speak so lovingly of that, and the understanding is there. So, how does a mom and then a single mom on top of it? How do you go to work the next day? Are you putting on this façade like the world is okay and everybody’s singing peace and sunshine stories? I mean how does that impact you at work? I know if my teenager, she’s struggling with her peer group or something. That affects me coming into work, but we’re talking about something different. We’re talking about something big. How do you handle that at work?
Emma O’Leary: So, there have been times where I’ve just needed to put it into a compartment in my head and get on with my job. There are other times when you just can’t do that, and I’m a talker and somebody that, as an extrovert type personality gets a lot from sharing with other people. There are trusted people within my organization where I can go in and go, it’s awful this has happened, and they will just listen. I mean, we’re quite a lot of like mental health first-aiders and they’re trained to listen. I’m a mental health first-aider as well and the thing is I can then reciprocate by doing it for others. But there are times when you just have to let it out and that might mean, and it’s okay to do this, you just cry. Just let it out.
I feel that where I work is a safe place where I can just let it out and go, I’ve just had enough. Also, we have quite a lot of wellness programs and if you’re having a hard time and you need to take time out and go for a walk then people understand particularly when they know your background and they understand you. I talk about my son very actively at work because he’s a brilliant example of how managing him at home I can then reapply elements of that in the workplace.
KK Harris: Okay.
Emma O’Leary: So, it’s really a mix and it depends. But there have been times where his language and the abuse, the stream of verbal abuse has been right before he leaves for school because there’s a stress of a transition of leaving the house and getting into the car. Now, within five minutes of being in that taxi, he’s completely fine, but that moment could involve damage to the house, slammed doors, language that definitely would make you cringe. This is what I do. You just have to go; I love you for who you are and just let it go. You just have to do that.
KK Harris: Right. What can you do?
Emma O’Leary: Otherwise, you hold it in and you’re just going to explode. It’s not helpful.
KK Harris: Has it been times as a working mother, working single parent of a neurodiverse child where you just couldn’t go into work, it was all too much?
Emma O’Leary: Yeah. There have been those times and actually, the pandemic has helped because as he’s turned into a teenager, that’s been during that pandemic. where we had a lot of digital facilities to work from home, but I also have very understanding managers. There have been times where I just go, I just need to take time out. Obviously, during part of that, he was at home not at school. Right. So, that was a huge challenge because there is no way he’s self-motivated enough to go and do his schoolwork online like others are doing. I think his school would really understand. They’re going don’t make you anything. So, I would have to then make choices and that’s no different to most other people who are at home with their kids and going to work. So, what I did was I allowed him to watch educational YouTube. We had a bit of an agreement and negotiation is definitely the best approach.
KK Harris: Okay.
Emma O’Leary: So, we would negotiate. Yeah. You can watch YouTube, but you need to include the following people in your YouTube watching and some of them are engineers. There’s a guy called Colin Furze who’s an inventor and an innovator. My son is like, okay, I’ll watch Colin Furze and he was just like… Before, you know it he then now understands mechanisms around cars and ratchets and pinions and things like that, that he can then apply to other things. But once they’re in his head it’s done. So, I had to agree on a different parenting approach during that time and be okay.
KK Harris: That’s beautiful. That’s beautiful. That’s really beautiful. I want to know what advice could you give one- a you, an Emma who going through the same thing. So, she’s in the early thing, maybe she’s what one would term an introvert, maybe she doesn’t share often, and yet she’s going through those early years. What would you say to her, and work as it pertains to work?
Emma O’Leary: I think the key thing is just to do your best. As a parent, you’ve got to balance both elements. You need to earn money and be in a work environment and feel like you have a good career and that’s part of who I am. But I’m also a parent and I need to make sure that my son feels loved, that he has time, that he gets attention from me. So, the key thing is creating structure around that. My son’s called Jason. I’ll say, right, I have meetings from here to here then I have a gap. During that gap, we will play Minecraft. That’s the thing he loves to do. Even if that’s only 15 minutes committing to something where you give him some attention is a really valuable thing to go and do to ensure that you invest in that relationship. But then I have lots of other hours in the day where I can make sure, and he understands. Sometimes he’ll pop into meetings. He’ll just turn up at the back and he’ll look on the screen and he’ll wave at them and then he’ll walk out again because he’s fascinated by what I do. I go oh, this is Jason and then the moment I introduce him, he’s legging it out the door as fast as possible.
KK Harris: Right. Right.
Emma O’Leary: I think the thing is just to do your best and create a structure where you can give attention to both of the aspects of your life.
KK Harris: Yeah, and there’s something around the idea of being really authentic at work and letting people in. I have people say, no, no, no, that’s my private life. I don’t share too much. But it seems to me maybe there’s a little bit of change that you need to be willing to make within oneself. Change, be more open share.
Emma O’Leary: Yeah. You can’t expect someone to be vulnerable without being prepared to be vulnerable yourself because everyone goes through challenges, no matter what it is in their lives. Everything from divorce to moving house. We know that those are huge, stressful things. But if a manager just goes, I just need to cry for a bit, I mean, then they go, oh, these people are real, and I could do that. The moment you give them a place where they can be safe to talk about challenges or problems or their mental health or difficulties, they’re facing you make everything more inclusive. I’m a huge believer in just listening to people and enabling deep meaningful conversations because the moment you do that, you build a relationship and respect and inclusivity that transcends just I’ve done some training. It’s all about people and individuals.
KK Harris: Right. Right. I love how your training is just everyone being in that training from the manager, from the neurodivergent person, the autistic person, or what have you to the team, to everyone really being part of it. That’s really what we’re talking about inclusivity, inclusion. You’re bringing everyone along the journey, and it sounds like it’s taken off what you’ve created and you kind of initiated at P&G. Could you have imagined your input at this major brand helping to change things? I mean, what does that feel like?
Emma O’Leary: Whether it’s in my professional life or my personal life I did have a mission going. I’ve been through a really hard time and lots of people help me, whether in the system or, I shared with actually someone who reported to me. I’m going through this awful time. She gave me a piece of advice from a friend of hers and all those people are like, I’m listening to you and I’m giving you a piece of advice. Some of those things really helped me and my payback was I have to do something positive with what I’ve learned. I have to try and change the world just a little bit. I couldn’t imagine it would become as exciting as it ended up being, but I did have a mission to go I have to give back because so many people were there when I needed them.
KK Harris: Right.
Emma O’Leary: That now is the time when I have to be there for others.
KK Harris: It’s so interesting and I really hope those that are, and I use the term in the closet that, from this podcast, from your meeting people like you, that they come forward and they feel that they’re safe, you know? Because I think that’s what this is really all about. It’s a conversation around you can feel safe to come and be who you are, and companies need to accept that there is so much difference but there’s so much richness in the difference.
Emma O’Leary: I think it’s not just in the workplace. I personally feel like there are some cultural shifts towards more and it’s not. There’s still a big journey to go on.
KK Harris: Yeah. Yeah.
Emma O’Leary: I do feel like people are starting to embrace that, embrace people’s differences and allow them to be who they are, and I will do everything to continue.
KK Harris: Right.
Emma O’Leary: Striving on that journey and helping others to see the benefits…
KK Harris: Wow!
Emma O’Leary: …of working with different types of people and appreciating them for who they are and allowing them to bring their own passion areas and their own strengths into the workplace or into personal lives or whatever because there’s so much richness in having that diversity of people.
KK Harris: Right. Right. I like how you mentioned that you’re seeing that change, you’re seeing changes take place societally. I was having a conversation and I was talking about how in America, I’m based in the UK, but in America, it was the civil rights laws that had changed for black people and then that began to usher in other changes for other people. For the LGBT community, I think it was two years ago now, Jesus, so quickly. But you can no longer fire someone because of their sexual identity and that’s beautiful. Change takes place and when I think of this neurodiversity being a part of the conversation over the last year, 18 months I’m taken back to the horrific murder of George Floyd and then how Black Lives Matter really ramped up.
Then it also said, hey, what about us too? And this group and that group and it takes these big pivotal moments in a society where it’s just beautiful. It just spreads out like all these little veins and threads pumping from the heart and everything. I think it’s just wonderful. I’m just so happy to meet someone like you Emma, and so happy to hear that Proctor & Gamble the people, whoever you spoke to, to help influence this change that they heard you and they were willing to take a risk and also to set things up in a way that having people, neurodivergent people, artistic people at the organization is a benefit and not just a tick box exercise. Before we close, is there something else you would like to say? Then I want to ask you a question. Is this anything else you’d like to share either as an employee, on that side, or personally?
Emma O’Leary: I would like to share one thing. You mentioned Black Lives Matter and one of the other things I did was actually set up a series on race to grow an understanding about different ethnicities and backgrounds and things like that. I don’t think that inclusivity is one particular pillar. It’s all about I want to know the individual and understand their background and learn about individuals and see them as individuals. That goes across all aspects of inclusivity, and I think because there’s also an awful lot of intersectionality in the neurodivergent community. There are a larger number of LGBTQ+ individuals than there are in the neurotypical population. So, you have an awful lot of intersectionality in there. Intersectionality is something that we need to not separate elements of inclusivity but combine elements of inclusivity and think about it as inclusive is about people. It’s just about knowing the people and caring about individuals. So, that’s one thing that I think crosses both my personal and my professional life and I have a real mission to just hear people.
KK Harris: Yes. Right, right. One day maybe not in our lifetime, but maybe one-day people will look back and say, what was this whole thing about people being divided? What was this whole thing? Why did they need to talk about diversity? Wouldn’t that be nice to live to see something so powerful like that? I would say that that younger generation is really striving for that, and I hope that they carry that on for many, many years to come. I do want to ask you a question. I think we might have talked about this book. This book is called “Neurodiversity at Work” And we had Theo Smith in on the conversation, the show here, and everything. I was just wondering if I could get you interested in a conversation, like a little nice fireside chat with Theo Smith and myself. Yeah, I would love to have that.
Emma O’Leary: I have met him. He actually managed a conference where I was one of the presenters, so I have interacted with him before. But since that interaction and since seeing your podcast, they’re looking to do a series of talks from external people within the company and I’ve put Theo’s name on that list as I would love to see Theo Smith come in and talk…
KK Harris: Oh!
Emma O’Leary: … to the P&G community. So, I’m working on that, but I am very happy to meet up with you and Theo because honestly, I think the room would get so excited with the possibility.
KK Harris: I know! I know!
Emma O’Leary: Actually, I think it would be hard to get words out because we just be like yes, yes, yes!
KK Harris: And say let’s change the world! Let’s change the world! Well, you are changing the world. You are changing and literally on a global level, your input at P&G and whoever else you are coming in contact with, you are changing a part of the world that the world needs. I just want to just say thank you so much for giving us your time here at Talking Talent and being a voice that we felt needed to be heard. Girl, it’s a pleasure to speak with you. With my ADHD, I get super excited and I’m wringing my hands the whole time and I’m thinking, I’m forgetting that I’m on camera, but hey, this is my neurodiversity, but yeah, I can’t wait for the three of us. I’ll reach out to Theo as well and say, let’s just have it. Let it be on my thing. So, I can’t wait to see you again, speak with you again and just keep up the good work. You’ve been such a wonderful guest and I can’t wait to speak to you again.
Emma O’Leary: Thank you so much for helping change the world.
KK Harris: Yes. Yes. You are welcome. See you soon.
