What is mental diversity?
Mental diversity, in a nutshell, is the idea that we’re all different.
In Monty Python’s “Life of Brian”, Brian stands at his window and says to the assembled crowd.
“You’re all individuals.”
And they reply back in unison, “Yes, we’re all individuals.”
He says “You’re all different.”
And again, they respond in unison. “Yes, we’re all different.”
Then one lone voice pipes up: “I’m not.”
The concept of mental diversity is more scientific than that, although admittedly not quite as funny.
Mental diversity grew out of the concept of neurodiversity.
Neurodiversity teaches us that we’re all different. But the way people use the term refers to those who are autistic, dyslexic, dyspraxic, dyscalculic and/or have ADHD. The minority. The “special needs” people.
Which means that we’re boxed into two different things.
The neurodivergent and the neurotypical. The “different” and the “normal”.
And here’s where it gets interesting.
Neurodivergent people exist. I know this for a fact because I’m one of them, having been diagnosed ADHD autistic in my 40s.
But neurotypical people do not.
That “normal” that we design for, that “average” person, doesn’t exist. They’re a myth. And yet our society, our workplaces, our systems, our processes, our environment – all of these are built for normal people.
For others, the outliers, the neurodivergent, the edge cases, we do one of two things.
We expect them to adapt.
Or we make adjustments for them.
The second is obviously better than the first, but what if we just started creating places that included everyone?
Making workplaces with different spaces so everyone could do their best work?
Having interview processes that didn’t rely on people having to perform a certain way?
Giving people the options of breaks so they could not only take them when they needed them but they could do it in a way that didn’t make them feel stigmatised?
This is what mental diversity is about. Understanding that everyone is different, everyone has different needs and – crucially – accommodating said needs shouldn’t be difficult. It doesn’t require pages of policy. It doesn’t have to be time-consuming. And it certainly doesn’t have to be expensive (in fact, most of the things I talk about don’t cost anything at all).
Approaching inclusion through the lens of mental diversity has a number of other benefits too.
One is that neurodivergent people can do their best work without having to ask for stuff (usually) and without being made to feel difficult or weird or like an outsider.
It means they’re less anxious, more productive, and empowered, which can lead to more confidence.
And for those who are not neurodivergent – well suddenly they’re getting their needs met too. You don’t need to be autistic to want to know the context of a particular task. You don’t need to have ADHD to feel the benefits of a walk and a stretch in the middle of the day. You don’t have to be dyslexic to appreciate a video explainer instead of a wall of text.
When I’ve been training or auditing, I have found that every time, the non-neurodivergent people absolutely love the accommodations we include. We have them because we understand the needs of neurodivergent people (for example, an ADHD person might absolutely require a fidget to concentrate but for someone without ADHD, it’s a nice thing to have which helps but isn’t essential).
This is why it works: neurodivergent people have everything turned up to 11. So when you design a workplace, process or training session that accommodates those significant needs, you automatically make it better for everyone else.
As Magda Mostafa says: You design better for the centre when you learn from the margins.
Interested in learning about mental diversity? Book a no-obligation discovery call.