The Dyslexic Advantage (33 page)

In this chapter we'll focus on three things that individuals with dyslexia should do to maximize their chances of thriving in the workplace: find a job that fits them well, take steps to make that job fit even better, and obtain the support and advice of other individuals with dyslexia. We'll also discuss the difficult issue of whether or not to disclose one's dyslexia to employers or co-workers.

For individuals with dyslexia, good-fitting jobs have several common features. First, they
engage strengths
and
avoid weaknesses.
As we've discussed, many individuals with dyslexia excel in big-picture reasoning, or the ability to see the overall features, “contours,” or implications of objects or ideas. The occupation or position in which they best display this ability depends upon which MIND strengths they possess, but as a general rule, jobs that fit individuals with dyslexia well stress problem solving, troubleshooting, fixing things, coming up with new ideas, thinking about what's missing or not being addressed, or telling stories (e.g., sales, counseling, coaching, advertising, entrepreneurship). We list the kinds of jobs that often are a good fit for individuals with dyslexia in Appendix B.

In contrast, individuals with dyslexia often struggle with fine-detail processing, mastering routine procedures to the point of automaticity, or rote memory. As a result, they often find that jobs that stress repetition, efficiency, consistency, attention to details, use of procedures, application of fixed rules, or routine processing tasks (especially clerical tasks that involve the manipulation and use of written symbols) are a poor fit.

Individuals with dyslexia may also have other strengths that they can use to find a job that fits them well. Although they may struggle to build academic credentials, their practical, “real-world” strengths can help them build other credentials, like a portfolio of work, a list of references, or a set of professional or personal connections. These skills and experiences can be gathered while working at entry-level jobs, in the military, or with volunteer organizations. Individuals with a strong interest in a particular field can also volunteer their services to a potential employer for a trial period or internship, then work their way into permanent employment by demonstrating skills on the job. Personal connections, like introductions from previous teachers or employers, or even family businesses or contacts, can also be helpful in finding a good job.

A second key feature of jobs that fit individuals with dyslexia well is that they
engage interests.
While everyone works better on tasks they find interesting and enjoyable, individuals with dyslexia are often especially dependent upon interest to produce their best efforts. In contrast, when tasks fail to engage their interest, they often struggle to perform well and remain focused. This is largely because many of the rote or automatic skills needed to perform routine tasks require more focused attention for individuals with dyslexia. This need for heightened attention can be difficult to sustain unless there are things about the job that are especially interesting. When work heightens interest and mood, dyslexics typically respond with greater creativity and performance.

Job-related interest can be of two types: intrinsic interest, or interest in the job itself, and extrinsic interest, or interest in the things the job can lead to, like money, status, or reaching personal goals. Either kind of interest can help to build focus and engagement in a job. Ideally, individuals with dyslexia should look for jobs that combine both kinds of interests. As entrepreneur, billionaire, and dyslexic Richard Branson observed of his own career, “I set out to create something I enjoyed that paid the bills.” The results, to put it mildly, speak for themselves.

A third key feature of jobs that fit individuals with dyslexia well is that they
focus on results rather than on methods.
Many of our interviewees mentioned that they often perform tasks in unconventional ways—frequently of their own devising. For example, more than half told us that they solved math problems differently from how they were taught by using unconventional methods that made more sense to them. This is also a frequent finding among the individuals with dyslexia that we see in our clinic. A preference for doing things atypically is one key reason that jobs that stress uniformity of method are often a poor fit for dyslexics. (Recall Sarah Andrews struggling with her boss, who expected her to perform creative work using creativity-stifling methods.)

In contrast, jobs that allow flexibility can open the door to success for dyslexics. It's often while devising new methods for routine tasks that dyslexics come up with innovative approaches that save time, effort, and expense and improve outcomes for everyone. Learning expert Dr. Angela Fawcett commented, “I think one of the benefits that dyslexics experience from their difficulty mastering procedures is that they have to rethink tasks each time, starting from fundamental principles, instead of having the steps entirely automated and ready to be performed without thinking. Because they can't rely on these automatic skills in a mindless fashion, they're not limited by the rules, so they can think
outside
the rules. I think this helps them think more creatively than if they were, in a sense, trapped within the rules.”

Similarly, individuals with dyslexia often find that jobs with flexible task assignments fit better than those with more rigid and fixed task assignments, because they allow them to focus on the things they do best. Sometimes smaller or newer companies offer greater flexibility. Disabilities rights advocate Ben Foss told us, “In general, large corporations deal with consistency, but small corporations deal with variations, so it can be harder to break the norms in larger corporations. You can sometimes find flexibility in a larger company, too, but only if that company has a system in place to deal with variation, which allows it to be flexible and adjust to people's needs.”

There is evidence that this kind of flexibility is often more easily found in positions very near the top or the bottom of the structures of large organizations but in shorter supply in the middle. Professor Julie Logan has found that although many large corporations have CEOs with dyslexia, fewer than 1 percent of middle managers in such firms are dyslexic.

This doesn't mean that it's impossible for individuals with dyslexia to advance up the ladder in a corporate system, but it does mean that they are less likely to do well in midlevel corporate positions unless the companies they work for take special care to make their jobs a good fit. Ben Foss stressed that each potential employer must be evaluated individually regarding its ability to provide the flexibility necessary for an individual with dyslexia to survive in its corporate structure. Some large companies, like his former employer Intel, manage to maintain their flexible attitudes despite their size. Douglas Merrill also told us that supporting this diversity in thinking styles was one of his primary goals as chief information officer at Google. Douglas worked hard to give employees the greatest possible flexibility in choosing the work habits and technologies that allowed them to be their most productive. When a company shows this kind of flexibility, it's likely to be a good fit for individuals with dyslexia.

Of course, there's no employer that can provide more flexibility than oneself, which is one reason why so many dyslexics start their own businesses. But with regard to working with established companies, we've observed in general that individuals with dyslexia experience more success with smaller, younger, more flexible, and more creative companies.

After choosing a job that seems to be a good fit, individuals with dyslexia should work hard to optimize that job environment by
being proactive
in pursuing opportunities,
self-advocating
with supervisors and co-workers,
building partnerships
,
pursuing leadership opportunities
, and
using technologies
to maximize their productivity.

Many individuals with dyslexia are especially good at spotting opportunities that others have missed and then aggressively and proactively taking advantage of those opportunities. Professor Julie Logan cited this ability as one of the most common characteristics she's observed in the dyslexic entrepreneurs she's studied.

We've also observed this ability in many of the individuals with dyslexia we've interviewed—and not just in business. Astrophysicist Matt Schneps told us, “One thing I'm very proud of is that I'm very good at taking advantage of opportunities. If I see something I think is useful for me, I think about how I can make the most of it and take advantage of that.” Because of this ability (and strong self-advocacy skills like those we'll discuss later), Matt has been able to enjoy four entirely different careers over the past thirty years, all with the same employer.

Author Vince Flynn provides another great example of how individuals with dyslexia can find and aggressively pursue unusual pathways to success. He was so convinced that his first novel,
Term Limits
, would appeal to a large reading audience that even though he'd received over sixty rejections from publishers, Vince decided to self-publish two thousand copies, then sold them all himself at a booth in a shopping mall. Only after this put him on a local bestseller list did Vince land a contract with a big New York publisher. Not long after,
Term Limits
went on to become the first of Vince's twelve consecutive bestsellers.

When individuals with dyslexia emerge from school with an appropriately positive view of themselves and of their futures, these individuals are often remarkably resilient and confident in their abilities to achieve what they set out to do. Professor Julie Logan commented on these traits in the entrepreneurs with dyslexia she's studied. “Learning to cope with and solve all the problems they face in school gives many dyslexics this ‘can-do' approach that they bring to all sorts of new situations. They just know they can make things work.”

However, before individuals with dyslexia are given the chance to prove that they can accomplish things, they must often convince others to give them an opportunity—and this requires self-advocacy. Self-advocacy is the ability to say, “Here's what I do well—here's how I think I can best contribute.” Self-advocacy involves persuasion, negotiation, and the ability to tell a convincing story about yourself. Many individuals with dyslexia have been advocating for themselves since their earliest days in school, so they often excel in self-advocacy—frequently without realizing it. Professor Logan commented, “I think many dyslexics aren't aware of how good their people skills are. Even the dyslexics in our mentoring program [which we'll discuss in a moment] who haven't been all that successful in their careers are often really good at getting their mentors to do things for them—even when the mentor wasn't expecting to. They often have this amazing ability to get others to do things for them. That's something they should really learn to use.”

In fact, many of the individuals we interviewed emphasized the importance of learning to work well with partners or teams. Douglas Merrill told us, “It's really critical to surround yourself with diversity. There's lots of evidence—including research I did—that diverse teams tend to yield better outcomes.” But he also stated that forming good working relationships isn't always easy, and it requires careful communication. “At RAND there was a researcher who wasn't so strong with long-term vision but was really outstanding at working with details, and because we were good at different things I tried to build an ongoing research relationship with him. Unfortunately, I ended up offending him because I wasn't good at describing the positive things he did; so he sort of heard me saying, ‘I'm smarter than you,' which really wasn't what I was trying to say. It's important to make sure when you're working with partners that they hear you saying, ‘We're good at different things, and that's fine.'”

When appropriate, individuals with dyslexia should also be willing to take a leading role in groups and partnerships. Professor Logan found that many of the dyslexic entrepreneurs with whom she works possess interpersonal skills that make them particularly well suited to leading groups. “Business is actually mostly about managing people, and managing teams, and dealing with the unexpected, and those are things dyslexics do every day of their lives. They're always having to negotiate their way around difficulties, or having to make new plans because they lose things, or going to the appointment on the wrong day or turning up at the wrong time. So over time they develop a lot of skills, like the abilities to delegate, manage, and inspire people—all of which are important leadership skills.”

Finally, individuals with dyslexia can optimize their fit at work by using technologies to increase their productivity. Of particular value are devices that help them with organization, reading (text-to-speech), and writing (speech-to-text and special dyslexia-friendly word processing programs). We list these devices in Appendix A.

Relationships with dyslexic peers can also be tremendously helpful for individuals with dyslexia. There's a large body of research documenting the feelings of inferiority and isolation dyslexic individuals often experience due to their challenges in school. These feelings typically persist as long as individuals with dyslexia remain cut off from others with similar experiences.

Ben Foss shared the following story from his experience at Intel. “A graphic designer came to me when we had just started working on the Intel Reader [a portable text-to-speech reader], and he said to me very secretively, ‘I just want to tell you—and you can't repeat this to anybody—but I'm dyslexic.' Now, I found this to be absolutely mind-blowing because this designer is paraplegic, and he's been in a wheelchair for the last twenty years. Yet the reason he was afraid that other people might think he couldn't do his job well was because of his dyslexia rather than his paraplegia. When I talked with him about it, it turned out that he had failed third grade because of his dyslexia, and he was still incredibly embarrassed about that, despite the fact that he was a very successful designer at Intel. Fortunately, having the chance to talk this over with a dyslexic co-worker was really helpful for him. However, I cannot overemphasize how strong this feeling of isolation can be for individuals with dyslexia.”