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SEAN ACKLIN GRANT: Welcome to a special episode of the Ivey Academy Presents-- Learning in Action, your source for insights, research, and expert advice on critical issues in business. Every year, Ivey Business School invites Canada's top HR and talent leaders for a one-day forum to discuss the evolution of work and the impact of these essential trends on organizations.
During the 2024, Ivey Talent Leaders Forum, we explored neurodiversity in the workplace, featuring Ivey Professor Rob Austin, along with a range of expert guests. Forum attendees discussed ways to advance neuro-inclusion and reshape the way we think about talent. In this episode of Learning in Action, listen in to a live panel during the forum with Rob Austin, professor and chair for the Evolution of Work at Ivey Business School, Musi Lee, Director of NeuroInclusion Strategies at JPMorgan Chase, and Moish Tov, autism advocate and CEO at JoyDew.
ROB AUSTIN: Maybe each of you, and Musi, I'll start with you, I want to hear briefly how you came to this topic. What is of particular interest for you in connection with this topic? And then, Moish, I'll have the same question for you. Over to you, Musi.
NYAMUSI LEE: Thank you. Thank you, Rob. I have been with JPMorgan, it's going to be 20 years in November. But it was four years into JPMorgan that our youngest child was diagnosed with autism. That was in July 2008. If you'll remember that it was in the midst of the global financial crisis in the housing market. And so back then when we googled autism, the computer just spewed a plethora of challenges and information about what children may never get to do, never overcome, never achieve. And so that was disheartening.
And being from a Black community, also Christian, this was not a topic for discussion. And so fast forward in 2017, in April, here at JPMorgan, it was autism inclusion month. And I'm sitting at my desk watching the Signature Event that year. And there was a panel discussion about JPMC Autism at Work program.
And I'm like, wait, what? And I was just blown away because I couldn't fathom that embedded in the mission statement of this significant global financial institution in the world, that we were going to hire individuals with autism into meaningful roles that are qualified for those roles. It was all about talent.
And I was blown away because for nine years after my son's diagnosis, I went through a dark period there because I thought, OK, I'm going to cause him to be autistic. I either didn't do what I was supposed to do when I was pregnant-- any moms in the room-- or I either forgot to do something or I did something that I shouldn't have done. So I bear that weight of it was me.
And I remember after that Signature Event, I sent out an email and I said, hey, I want a role to be aligned to your book of record. At that time, it was James Mahoney who was running the program. It was both for me to say that, but 2018, I got the interview. But I remember one of the interviews, one of the managing directors asked, why do you want this position? Why do you think you'd be effective? Why this and all the whys?
Certainly, I probably didn't fit the bill, but it was about my son. It was about the other minority kids. It was about the 1% of the global population that's autistic. It was about the 85 unemployment rate. It was about getting the weeds and really working for this demographic.
And so 2018, this is 2024, I've had the privilege of learning from autistic colleagues here at JPMC, changing certain strategies, getting a lot of no's before I get to a yes, not necessarily traveling, but also being in places and spaces like now, talking about the work that we've done and the massive work that's ahead of us.
ROB AUSTIN: Thank you, Musi. Thank you. Moish, same question for you, kind of how do you come to this? What's your passion right now? I think we got some passion from Musi there.
MOISH TOV: I do have two sons, both of them are on the spectrum. Now they're young adult. Any parent that have someone on the spectrum going through a very brutal journey to deal with a medical condition that we don't really know what it is, we don't really know how to address it, and the one thing that we hear a lot is about everything that these people cannot do. And after looking into the future of my kids, I couldn't find anything that I would accept as a place that I want to have my kids.
My British company, the last title that I held was global. So actually I did a survey of over 26 years in 26 countries, with a naive idea that I'm not the only dad or mom that have someone on the spectrum. And I was sure that someone already found the solution. What I saw is that no country in Europe or other places, and even in the US, different states that I visited, there is no real solution.
On the other side, I look into my kids and I saw a lot of intelligence, a lot of talent, and a lot of desire to get the same opportunity, the same that anyone in their age is getting. My kids don't talk. They don't speak. And about 80% of the population with autism do have communication issue.
Actually, my belief is communication is the major issue that we have to address with autism. We find a way to get them to communicate by typing on an iPad when there was 14 and 16, and you just-- anyone that is parents, you can think about it, OK, for 16 years I didn't have communication with my kid. And then one day they start to type. And actually they type pretty fast and very expressive. And they know exactly what they want to say.
And suddenly I do have a conversation around the table with my kids, and asking, what is your view on your future? What do you want? And they said two things. Number one said, we want to have the same opportunity that anybody else has. That is one. Second, they said, we want friends.
People with autism when they grow up, and we'll get into it later in the discussion, they're pretty much isolated, some of the families. But hearing that, and with my experience as an entrepreneur, I hasn't seen anything that can be done. For me, the natural decision was, OK, you have to build it.
So I sold my company. I started to design a company for people with autism, the idea was give them solution for life and address all different areas in life that they need to. And we started with employment. JoyDew is a startup. We are going to be seven years old next February. We have about 40 employees, and plan to double it in the next year.
The passion to do it is to the future of my kids. And my kids told me clearly, don't do something for me. We want friends. We want to be in a community that we can feel and have friends. We don't want to be isolated anymore. And that led me to this journey that I'm doing now, which is building something that is new, a lot of innovation.
I think that Rob will agree with me that it is not easy to explain JoyDew in 20 seconds. But we do progressing and we have very unique approach to autism. Actually, we're trying what we're doing with redefine autism. And we look into the unique abilities of people on the spectrum.
And people on the spectrum do have unique abilities, and these unique abilities make them a talent. And this talent is very much needed in the world today, where technology is changing everything and the world is changing very fast. So here I am, small organization, not big, as big as JP, but with a big vision.
ROB AUSTIN: And this, of course, is the reason we talk about this. I mean, we've got a social innovation factory. We've got an organization that could pick things up and scale. That is why we're talking about this future right now. So what I want to do with the panel today is I want to be optimistic, but I also want to be realistic.
And so I'm going to start with realistic because I don't want to end with a downer or something. So I'm going to ask you each to come up with maybe one or two things that you see that are standing in the way of us being more optimistic, of getting to a better place with neurodiversity employment. What are the barriers that still are before us? And I'll start with Musi.
NYAMUSI LEE: First off, just having both Rob and I on the panel, there is always that passion that fills us in what we're doing. But we need you all in the room as allies to take back this message to your various organizations, whether or not it's 50 employees, 500 to the 320,000 employees at JPMorgan across the globe. But it's a combined effort.
So to answer your question, I'm trying to gather myself up after just hearing Moish's story because it is what we face every day. JPMorgan, it's a global company, so that's number one. Just the fact that it's large is a challenge because when you think about the footprint over 60 countries worldwide, the most recent was early this week in Kenya where we opened up an office. It just adds to that challenge.
So if we're thinking about scaling and neurodiversity employment in that perspective and in various countries. For example, there's countries that are now implementing disability hiring quotas and just establishing the baseline requirement for business. And so there's a need for companies to meet and go beyond the minimum standards of hiring and retaining employees with disabilities, neurodivergent employees, which also include autistic individuals, and meeting those quotas.
But when you think about the disability culture in certain ethnicities or certain communities or certain countries and stuff that I talked about, that's not a discussion they have at the dinner table, let alone coming to talk amongst in the HR organization or hiring managers or your one on one. And so if it's uncomfortable at home at a familiar section, how comfortable does it get when you're talking across your manager, your boss?
And so how then can we develop creating a disability-inclusive culture that is supportive for not just new employees, but existing employees? So think about all that cultural stigma or the cultural dissonance that is a massive barrier in some of these countries. So for us, that's number one. And then it forces us to look at our operating model very different, from end-to-end process, from the hire to retire.
Where can we adopt certain practices to better fit the employment laws of a certain country? When you have the systematic governance and controls, how do we ensure that support is awarded? What does accommodation look like or adjustments look like in order to create this neuro-inclusive, this conducive environment, what does that look like?
A sense of support for one person would be different for somebody else. And when we talk about autism, you see one person with autism, you've seen one person, you haven't seen another. There's a spectrum there, which also ties to a spectrum of accommodation, a diverse of need of requirement. And so that's the second thing. So how do we scale and model to fit a certain country, certain processes, employment laws and all that.
So if you're drilling down from the macro to micro level, at JPMorgan, we have 55,000 managers, and every one of them either needs training, they need support on how to provide that conducive, inclusive, accessible work environment.
And just being cognizant of this challenge, not as a barrier, it forces us to now really partner with our internal stakeholders, our own JPMorgan ecosystem. You think about the health and wellness. You think about employee assistance program. You think about, we have a global accommodation team which has a global accommodation budget. You think about all the managers. You think about the BRGs, Business Resource Group.
One of the things that we've done, and I'm super, super proud of where we're at right now, and this is not because we're a big company, this is more of now, how do we create that conducive environment, is that we have a disability executive forum that is a global consortium of senior leaders from the managing director level, who have self-ID'ed to either have a disability or a part of the neurodivergent community.
And so this forum serves as a senior collective voice for employees with disabilities and neurodivergent employees here. So what they've done is create a community that helps build a culture of trust, respect, empathy, allyship where even people, employees, whether or not it's a disability that you see, they're able to bring their whole selves to work.
The other thing I want to point out is, besides what the forum has done, where it's also assisting in career development, career advancement, how then do we push that needle, what does it mean for mobility experiences, but when you drill it down now really to the person who's right there across the hallway from me, across the office from you, going to sit by you, what are some of those challenges that your neurodivergent employee, your autistic employee may face?
Most common one is the work environment. And as managers and leaders, we have to be able to ask, OK, wait a minute, if you're not getting the expected outcomes from an employee, think about the workplace environment. What is that in the environment that could be impacting the outcomes, or what is that in your offices that is actually creating barriers to success?
Think about if it's noise. This can be distracting for somebody who's autistic, somebody who has a sensory stimulation. And so what we do here to alleviate that problem is, hey, get assigned seating. Maybe that individual wants to have a huddle room somewhere, away from the hustle and bustle of the incoming traffic of people walking to the restroom, to the coffee station, taking a break and all that away from the lighting and all that.
And so that ties into all the training that is awarded to our managers and team members, training that also focuses on the workplace challenges that some of the employees may face when neurodivergent. It talks about communication. It talks about social interaction. It talks about executive function skills. It talks about the sensory stimulation. So that's part of the training that is awarded.
When you look at from the macro down to micro, it takes the allyship of your senior leaders-- the leading with empathy. What does it mean to create a conducive environment? What does hiring folks in Singapore-- how different is it from hiring folks in Argentina or down the street in Dallas somewhere here in the US? And so we look at things different, but ensuring that you have the systematic governance and oversight, and as well as trying to tackle some of these policies, which we talk about, Rob, but that's all I have now.
ROB AUSTIN: Moish, same question. What are the most significant barriers that you still see out there that are getting in the way of the world that you would like to see?
MOISH TOV: I think that the number one challenge is the mainstream look into people with autism as people that have no brain and they will stay the same for the life, and there is no reason to invest in them. But on the other hand, it's a money maker because the government pay for accommodate them.
And this mainstream, because of making a lot of money of this, they want to keep the situation the way it is. They don't want to change it. And they don't want to look into someone who has autism and say, I see talent. What they see is all the weaknesses that they have, and they want to keep the weaknesses as it is.
So if you want me to summarize this challenge, I will summarize in one word-- greed. People want to make money on the back of my kids. So this is the number one challenge that I want to bring to the table.
Second, over the last 20 years, we saw progress was movement that looked into the strengths or the unique abilities that bring these people in. And actually this movement started to grow. But at some point of time, and I think that it was just before COVID, the autism change to neurodiversity. And that is a big challenge because autism is, although that we don't know what it is, it's pretty easy to a parent to look in someone and say, OK, I know that this person is a spectrum.
And the change from autism to neurodiversity began to be another challenge, because under the umbrella of neurodiversity, which, by the way, it's not a medical definition, not a legal definition. So the definition that anybody can look into it any way they want.
And they can put under that a lot of different other people with either disabilities or with some medical conditions. But these people, this group of people under the neurodiversity, like the ones that have ADHD or dyslexia or OCD, or whatever you want to put into it, it's much easier to employ them. They don't have the sensory issues. They don't have a lot of issues.
Then people that-- company that want to say, OK, we employ people with no diversity, they will go to the easy part. And the easy part is not the autism definition. The transition from autism at work to neurodiversity at work create new challenge and put the autism again on the back seat.
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ROB AUSTIN: As you look forward to the future, what do you see that makes you optimistic? If we look 10 years, 15 years into the future, if we can address these barriers, if we can go to a better place, what does that place look like? And we'll start with Musi again.
NYAMUSI LEE: I'm optimistic in a way that, first off, the education and awareness, not just at companies like JPMorgan, or any of the companies out there or the companies represented in that room. But let's just take it to once you all leave whatever you all are at and go home into your communities, we all have a responsibility. And what do I mean by that?
There's this thing called empathy. When we think about or rather, when you see a physical and a visible disability, somebody who's a wheelchair user, it doesn't matter what-- as a human being, we always rush to open the door. We provide more grace and accommodation because it's a disability that you can see. And we automatically think, oh wait, this person is probably struggling challenges that help.
What we don't do for those people with, quote unquote, "whether invisible to the naked eye disability," for those of us that are parents, we can tell that kiddo is either autistic or that kid is just being a brat. Even as we look at the way the communities are now, slowly but surely, embracing the way people think differently, how their kiddos may have an exceptional ability to certain talents, have a high acuity of memorization.
My son couldn't-- for the first six years, we didn't hear a word from him. And I was told that I needed to learn sign language. The only sign language I remember was more. And I said, this is foreign to me. I got a voice, Musi. I talk all the time. And so through therapy and all that, he talks 100 miles an hour. He's always calling me every hour. And I'm like, Amani, I'm on a call.
But all to say that his exceptional ability is being able to play any musical instrument by ear. But his reading capacity is very low. So as much as the broad spectrum, how then do we tailor that skill set into either meaningful role, have a strength-based approach. And so a lot of that education looks-- and that's what I'm saying I'm hopeful in the sense that thinking about how do we best remove those barriers and allow for people to think differently, regardless of whether or not they choose to self-ID.
I don't have to self-ID to be able to get whatever accommodation. Let it just be the accommodation is that I choose to use it. Here's the skill set, here's the role, and matching those strengths based approaches. We look from the community, all bring it back into your industry, your company.
And then the other thing is, even as we think about this the education, the awareness and what have you, ensuring that accessibility should be by design, not an afterthought. When you think about folks that need assistive technology, you heard Moish's story with his kiddos. And so being able to ensure that, yeah, we can communicate it could be different. And ensuring that you have productivity tools, assistive technology, whatever tool you have to ensure that that individual is thriving at their job. So accessibility is necessary for some but beneficial for all.
And then last but not least, when I look at what we're doing here at JPMC, and this is, by the way, my 2024, 2025 book of work, is Musi, look at your processes, JPMorgan process, whether you're attracting talent, recruiting, interviewing, onboarding. When you bring them in, how you retaining them, advancing, supporting, and promoting, all that. Look at it with a new inclusive lens in mind.
A homework for y'all-- go google or look for a job at JPMC. We have 7,000 jobs open. Look at the description. The very first paragraph has like 40 sentences about JPMorgan. Oh, it is $1 trillion company, da da da, all that fluff. And then it has like 10 requirements of this job and then another 15 of the responsibility. And then it has a little blurb at the bottom-- oh, we're an equal employment opportunity. We don't discriminate about this. That's very important information.
Part of that is flip it. I don't have to be at the bottom. Just start on the equal employment opportunity, ba ba ba ba ba ba ba. Here's a job. These are the three important skill sets we're looking for. Oh, and by the way, click the bottom. What do you want? Do you want a 30-minute interview? Do you want to show your work? Do you want an in-person? Like, make it universal.
If you need an entire paragraph about JPMorgan, then you probably don't know who JPMorgan is. But anyway, does it matter that somebody is not making eye contact? This is the only community, when you think about autism, that we're providing training before. We provide training to the hiring managers. We provide training to recruiters. We provide training across the board. We have training over 50,000 employees in EMEA.
And so there is autism there in the sense that now we're beginning to have folks talk about this at the dinner table. We're having managers that are maybe from a different various ethnicities that are like, Musi, I don't know, this person just disclosed what do I do? And so that conversation is happening.
ROB AUSTIN: Moish, what makes you optimistic?
MOISH TOV: We coined JoyDew as autism 3.0 company. What we try to do by that is to say there is the future. And the future is if you look into autism in a different way, if you presume competence, if you accept the identity, if you provide them a tool for expressive communication, if they have community of friends. And most important, it's a strengths-based approach.
So we call it a 3.0, so it's going to be different from what I talk about before, the challenge of the main which we call them 1.0 because they don't presume competence. The 2.0 is the companies that see the strengths, but they're looking to the strengths together with low support. So yes, we want to find people with strengths for the talent, but we want to have them in a low support.
What is he that can move us to the future is-- and what makes me optimistic about it-- and by the way, I'm optimistic. If I weren't optimistic, I wouldn't start a company. And what I see, it's I hope that a lot of other people will see. So number one, the companies that already saw what we call autism 2.0, I see some of them are moving toward the 3.0.
And that is big companies with big resources that really believe in this. They don't do it just for the PR. They're doing it because they believe in the talent. And that makes me optimistic. The second is that the 1.0, because of the awareness and because of the more people are seeing the strengths in the autism, we'll get smaller. And young parents will see it earlier so their kids will get into the age of employment better ready for that.
But we need innovation, and the one thing that we need in innovation is a new employment models. And we need to innovate employment models that provide the environment for people on the spectrum or other groups, and provide them the environment that they need in order to provide the talent that they have. And I see this kind of change start to move forward, and I see more people that believe in this. I see more young people or young parents the pushing it.
The other thing that makes me optimistic is for each kid on the spectrum, there are parents. So I would assume that a company like JPMorgan, or any company that any one of you working with will have 3.5% parents, or people with autism. And parents are the one that are the ambassador for change. When you give them the opportunity to be open about it and to talk about it and to explain it, and actually to be the champion, the business champion for that, that will start to make things moving forward.
But I think that when we look in the future and be realistic, as you said before, we need to understand under the umbrella of neurodiversity, that different groups. And different groups need different type of accommodation. And it is not like one group that you can put everyone in the same way. JoyDew is a company that employ only people on the spectrum, give them the environment, give them everything that they need to learn the learning very fast.
And we are working with big companies, either as a partner or as someone that get a project. And we have more and more companies that interest in that, because by the end of the day, what they are getting, the talent is not charity. I'm not looking for charity. I'm looking for companies that I can show them that my employees can do better than the other employees.
And I see that more and more people are looking into it. I think that change will come for the community of parents. We're going to be there are more parents, they're younger, they understand it, and they're pushing. And we together are the parents, play in the area of autism, can make the change. And yes, it will take 10 years. And we have to move the needle. And we have to move the needle from unemployment of 85% or 90% to 70%. And we have to work together.
And the last thing that I will say about why I'm optimistic, companies like Chase or like Microsoft or like ASAP, they know that in order to get innovation, they have to either partner or to acquire startup that came with the innovation. And there is a lot of startup. JoyDew is not the only startup that there was autism or other areas of neurodiversity.
And as a startup, I hope that other companies will look on us and say, OK, you are the one that brings the innovation. We want to partner with you, or you want us to be part of us in any shape or form, so we can be the one that brings the innovation to these companies and help them create the environment or create the different things that need to be there in order to get the employment more effective, more visible.
The last thing is that I think the people, especially on the spectrum, are the one that do understand everything that happened in the 21st century. And there will be the one that will adapt to the technology changes anything much faster than others. So I am optimistic about it. I know that they have challenges into it. But if you talk 10 years from now, I think that you will see that the needle moved.
SEAN ACKLIN GRANT: Thank you for tuning in to Learning in Action. We'd like to thank our guests-- Rob Austin, Musi Lee, and Moish Tov. Learning in Action is produced by Rachel Jackson, Joanna Shepherd, and me, Sean Acklin Grant. Editing and audio mix by Carol Eugene Park.
If you liked this episode, make sure to subscribe. You can also find more information by visiting IveyAcademy.com, or follow us on social media @IveyAcademy for more content, upcoming events, and programs. We hope you'll join us again soon.
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