What if the key to a more innovative, compassionate, and happy workplace lies in embracing the minds we often overlook? In this episode, we explore the transformative power of neurodiversity—how honoring different ways of thinking can lead to richer collaboration, stronger leadership, and more inclusive company cultures. Our guest, Dr Matthew Zakreski from The Neurodiversity Collective brings deep clinical insight, personal experience, and a passion for reshaping how we see intelligence and authenticity at work.

From inclusive hiring to leading multinational teams, this is a no-fluff, soulful conversation packed with practical advice on building happier, more human-centered workplaces.

More information about The Neurodiversity Collective here.
More information about Dr Matt here.

Transcript

*Please note that the transcript has been automatically generated and proofread for mistakes. But remains in spoken English, and some syntax and grammar mistakes might remain.

Elisa Tuijnder: [00:00:00] What if the key to a more innovative, compassionate, and happy workplace lies in embracing the minds we often overlook? In today’s episode, we explore the transformative power of neurodiversity, how honoring different ways of thinking can lead to richer collaboration, stronger leadership, and more inclusive company cultures.

Our guest brings deep clinical insight, personal experience. Experience and a passion for reshaping how we see intelligence and authenticity at work.

Before we dive in, you are listening to The Happiness At Work podcast by Management 3.0 where we are getting serious about happiness.

I’m your host, er, happiness Enthusiast and [00:01:00] Management 3.0 team member. In this podcast, we share insights from industry experts, influencers. And thought leaders about what it takes to be happy, motivated, and productive at work, so that loving your job becomes the norm and not the exception. We’ll be publishing every fortnight on Friday, so be sure to tune in and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Today we’re thrilled to have Dr. Matt Zakreski with us, a distinguished psychologist, keynote speaker, and advocate for neurodiversity. Dr. Zakreski is the co-founder and lead psychologist at the Neurodiversity Collective, where he provides a wide range of services to support neurodiverse individuals and their families.

His work emphasizes the importance of embracing diverse minds in every aspect of life, from education to the workplace, and we’re really excited to talk about that workplace. So [00:02:00]welcome, Dr. Matt. I will pronounce that like, or go from here with, with your beautiful last name, but, uh, to, to get a bit quicker.

So how are you today? Thank you for coming on. 

Matthew Zakreski: It’s my great pleasure and thank you for having me. Um, yes. My last name is very tricky. It’s why I go by Dr. Matt. It’s easier for everybody. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Oh, my last name is even trickier, so yeah, 

Matthew Zakreski: you’ll notice I haven’t even tried. I’m like, yep, there, there it is. There’s a, there’s a lot of words, a lot of letters 

Elisa Tuijnder: that don’t exactly.

Hey, I’m really excited to, uh, dive into this topic, which I, I, I, I, I’m loving that it’s getting a bit more attention, but we’re far away from where we need to be, so I’m very excited to talk to you about that, uh, in what we can learn from it and how we can sort of support it more in the, in the workplace.

But we can’t really fully start our podcast without our signature question, which is, what does happiness mean to you? 

Matthew Zakreski: So happiness is the ability to. Easily access things that bring you joy, [00:03:00]right? And the key words there are easily, and you, right? Because yes, if I am, if I find joy by eating this at this one restaurant, but it’s in Rek, right?

I mean, then I’m not gonna easily be able to access that. Like I’m at there once a year maybe, right? Then you is the key part is because happiness is a un is a personal journey. I think a lot of what we run into, especially as neurodivergent people, is the things that bring us joy are often not things that bring other people joy.

And there’s a, there’s a tension between, it’s like, well, other people are supposed to like the opera and I don’t like the opera. I wanna watch, you know, reruns of Dragon Ball Z. Well, if that brings you to joy, the key word there is you. So, you know, happiness is an easy [00:04:00] ability to find things that bring you joy.

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. I also think with non neurodivergent people, there might be things that they prefer that there’s, that it’s less pronounced, or they might find it easier to slot into the things that other people very much enjoy. Uh, or like, you know, it’s. We’re able to kind of pretend that it, that is also something they enjoy.

Um, whilst, whilst I think all of us are individual, obviously, and, and yeah. It’s, it’s what, what do you think about that one? 

Matthew Zakreski: Yeah. Well, I mean, and I think that you’ll hear me say this a thousand times. Yeah. I think the best is for neuro neurodivergent people are just the best practices. Yeah, 

Elisa Tuijnder: yeah, yeah, yeah.

Exactly. Of course. Yeah. 

Matthew Zakreski: Yeah. Education, we see that in mental health and we see that at work, right. If you follow those practices, you’re setting more people up for success and allowing more people to tap into happiness. Absolutely. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Hey, like, let’s dig into your story a bit. We always love to understand, um, who you are, [00:05:00] where, how you got to your story, your why, basically.

So. Why neurodiversity And, and I think there’s a very special, already I’ve read there’s this, a very personal connection. So I’d love to sort of have a little bit of a, a mini synopsis of that before we dive into it a little bit further. 

Matthew Zakreski: Yeah. Uh, so I am a, so I grew up as a gifted kid, uh, and I was identified gifted in, uh, in second grade.

Um, and then I was identified as a DHD in high school. So I am a very neurodivergent person. I, you know, have been supported by that. I have been knocked on my butt by that. I had the whole experience. So for me, this work is personal and professional, right? I really want to put myself in the situation to give other neurodivergent people, not only just an advocate, but an advocate who gets it.

Who understands what it’s like to be smarter than your teacher or smarter [00:06:00] than your boss to be in a job that is boring to you because you’re, well have so much more, but you may not have the skills to get that kind of job where you could get so much more. So that’s a lot of what I do and you know, and it’s really cool to see things very slowly starting to shift to be a little bit more neurot affirming in the world.

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. Been far away from it. And obviously neurodiverse, like you just said as well before, like, you know, it’s one, it’s not, it’s a catchall term for a lot of different people, for a lot of different abilities, for a lot of different styles, for all these kind of things. So it always comes back down to awareness and, and just, uh, yeah.

Making sure that you make room for everyone. 

Matthew Zakreski: Yeah. 

Elisa Tuijnder: So, yeah. Reflecting a, a little bit back on, on, on as your, on your personal journey there and what you’re helping people with. One of the things I also always continuously keep preaching to leaders is how [00:07:00] important that is to stay authentic. How important it is to, to kind of stay true, even if you think you’re not appealing to the wider masses, or that’s probably also a very good thing.

What lessons did you learn around authenticity and then staying true to who you are and that that’s okay and that it’s that you don’t have to be around. Square p in a round hole. It’s what’s he saying? 

Matthew Zakreski: Yeah, you’ve got it right. Yeah. Uh, yeah, those, uh, those idioms in different languages, always tricky.

Yeah, 

Elisa Tuijnder: exactly. That just shift those small things though. 

Matthew Zakreski: Um, so, so the idea is that 80% of the world is neurotypical, right? Mm-hmm. That means 20% of the world is neurodivergent. That’s a lot right? I love that that was your response to it. ’cause a lot of people were like, wow, that’s like, there’s a lot more of us than you think, right?

Because everybody feels very siloed, right? Like a DHD kids and the dyslexia kids and the OCD kids and the autistic [00:08:00] kids, and it’s like sure. But all of those things have in common a world of difference, right? Yeah. And when we can speak a language of shared difference. Then we are pushing back on the model culture.

We’re pushing back on. Well, this is just the way things are. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. I’m not asking for you to give up anything. I’m asking you to give me the thing I need. Right. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s like if you had a dinner party. Right. Just make sure you’ve got meat for the people who eat meat, veggies for the people who eat veggies.

Yeah. Gluten free for the people who eat gluten-free. I mean, that’s not, that doesn’t mean I’m vegan. You can’t have chicken. Yeah. It just means can there be vegan? 

Elisa Tuijnder: Mm-hmm. 

Matthew Zakreski: And, and I think that what we’re starting to see is that neurodivergent people are asking for what they deserve. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Mm-hmm. 

Matthew Zakreski: Not asking anybody to have any [00:09:00] less.

Elisa Tuijnder: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. 

Matthew Zakreski: Right. I think that, you know, pushing back down that initial fear of like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold. What do I have to give up to give you what you want? No. Like keep your structures, keep your systems, do what you gotta do, but can you tweak these things so it’s easier for those of us who don’t work that way to continue to maintain these jobs.

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And it’s always, I mean, it’s a. People are fearful of change or not just people, everyone, uh, is, uh, is fearful of change and yeah, but it really is that what, what does it matter that if I, even with vegan or vegetables or what if, what if it, if it doesn’t, if I don’t like beef, but that there’s a chicken option, like, you know, every wedding has, has a multiple choice kind of thing, right?

And, and that doesn’t feel that fearful. And when we just sort of enhance and then make it a little bigger. That it just accommodates so much more people. And as we both know, more diverse voices means [00:10:00] also more complex problems can be solved, more robust solutions, more innovation, all of those kind of things.

So maybe let’s dive, dive into, into that side of things a little bit. So you obviously emphasize the importance of, of, of leveraging diversity, especially in decision making. And that I, I fullheartedly support that. How do you, how do you explain this to people? Uh, what do you think really what neurodivergent individuals can bring to, to bus?

Let’s sort of stick to businesses because I know this is applicable to a lot of things, but since we’re happiness all work, how does it lead to better outcomes you think? 

Matthew Zakreski: Well, the diversity of thought, the diversity of experience. It naturally enriches conversations and it keeps us from falling into that echo chamber.

Absolutely. Yeah. You know, I find myself being more aware of the words I’m using because, you know, I’m approaching this from an American perspective and you are clearly not, right. So yeah. [00:11:00] So I’m like, okay. Right. What does this mean in a different country with a different language, with different norms?

And I feel richer for this, rather than just be like, American talking to America. Like capitalism, capitalism, capitalism. Hooray, right? Yeah. Um, I actually think of an exercise I did. Um, I used to teach a class at a local university and I would always ask the kids, what would you change about this university?

And, uh, the students who had started there and stayed there, they had very sort of. Smaller in scope ideas, right? Like we need to change the seats in the cafeteria. Right? Yeah. Because that’s important. The kids who had transferred in from other colleges brought wholly different experiences, like, well, at this university we have all these things.

Mm-hmm. They had experiences of different size organizations with different kinds of resources. Like, why aren’t you guys doing this? ’cause we [00:12:00] have this other place. And that always enriches the conversation. But my last year teaching there, we had several international students. Uh, they were all on the soccer team.

Elisa Tuijnder: Mm-hmm. 

Matthew Zakreski: And I kept asking ’em like, what does it look like back home for you? Like, what does that look like in Sweden? What does that look like in Austria? What does that look like in lg? And those were the richest conversations ’cause they were saying, they broke the idea of what Americans think university is.

Why do you charge this much? 

Elisa Tuijnder: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Matthew Zakreski: Does it look like this? Why don’t you encourage people to live off campus and work? Why is this a full-time job for four years? And you could see all the light bulbs going on over the heads of the American students. ’cause they had never thought to ask that question because you don’t really.

Realize your bias until somebody challenges it. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah, absolutely. And 

Matthew Zakreski: I learned a lot from that conversation and, and I was sitting there taking notes. I’m like, man, this, this is some good stuff. [00:13:00] So if you work in marketing and you only ever hire people who have marketing backgrounds. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Mm-hmm. Yeah. The same school or school.

Right. 

Matthew Zakreski: I’m not saying you’re not gonna do well because talent, you know your job well, but Yeah. Yeah. But if you are trying to break some paradigms or you’re trying to shift the way we do things, then hiring someone with an outside perspective is vital. I mean, if you’re going to pitch a product to neurodivergent people, you should have a neurodivergent person on your steering committee.

Mm-hmm. Because they’re gonna tell you things that you never think of. Like no neuro divergent person is going to be able to overcome their sensory needs enough to use that product. Because the free stuff there is terrible. And you know, a lot of the easy open containers you’re seeing is coming from the neurodivergent community.

Elisa Tuijnder: Mm-hmm. 

Matthew Zakreski: You, I mean, why wrap [00:14:00] something up in seven pounds of like hard plastic? Which first off terrible for the environment. Yeah. It’s very ableist. Right. So what if you could set that up in a way that. Pe more people could access the product more easily. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Oh. 

Matthew Zakreski: And that’s not a question that an able-bodied person would have to think about.

Elisa Tuijnder: Mm-hmm. Right. 

Matthew Zakreski: Real. If you’re, if the world that you’re coming from makes it an issue for you, and that’s the, that’s the richness of diversity, because you don’t know what you don’t know. Mm-hmm. The only way to do what you don’t know is to find somebody who does. Mm-hmm. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Absolutely. And I think the richness for me, often, I, I’ve seen this a lot happening in, in, in, when I’m working with people.

The richness also comes from the discussion and the conversation that we’re having. Because it doesn’t mean that, for example, to take your, your university, uh, example, like it doesn’t mean that Austrian universities might be, they might be better, they might [00:15:00] not be better, or they might have some right ideas.

They might also have some wrong ideas. The fact that you’re bringing together those voices and that you’re having these discussions. That and potentially creating something new that is taking the best of both worlds. And that applies to all of these kind of situations gives, is there’s so much richness in that ’cause if you have all people from the same background, from the same ability, from from the same patterns, yeah, it’s gonna be very quick.

Yes. Because you’ve all seen the same problem and the solution. If there’s a solution that’s being, that’s being given that seems plausible, it’s all gone. Like, okay. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, that sounds like the right. The right path forward. And if you don’t have anybody with another background or another vision that goes, Hey, but if I have to do this like that, I feel that doesn’t feel very comfortable.

Or you might be, you know, you might be excluding somebody, but with this, and it’s not necessarily ill will, it’s literally just like you said, it’s, it’s a bias or it’s an unconscious thing that’s happening or something that you just haven’t encountered or thought about ever. Um, and so just bringing [00:16:00]all of that to the table is, is.

So much richer than, than, yeah. Just having this homogenous, um, playing field, I guess. Yeah. 

Matthew Zakreski: Well, and, and what you just said, I think is really important for all the business leaders and owners that are listening to this podcast. It’s like, just because your place could get better doesn’t mean it’s bad.

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah,

Matthew Zakreski: absolutely. One of the things I talk about a lot in my consulting work is the concept of top down versus bottom up thinking. Mm-hmm. Right. Top down thinking is it should be perfect, and anything less than perfect is bad. Bottom up thinking is the default is do nothing. Anything you do is value added.

Mm-hmm. Now, not saying that if you need to make a hundred pages of copy to send out on an advertising campaign and you make three that good, three is more than zero. And if we find things that help people do three, then we can in [00:17:00] theory, help them do 10, 15, 27, 45, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Mm-hmm.

Right? But if you, one of the best ways to lose your employees, especially your neurodivergent employees, is to be a deficit detective rather than certain restraints you were supposed to do under these, you did 98 of them. Where are the other two? You’ve lost that person forever. That person’s gonna be like, um, I did 98 things.

Yeah. 

Elisa Tuijnder: In a short amount of time or with the constraints that you gave me or, yeah, exactly. Mm-hmm. 

Matthew Zakreski: Right. Yeah. And I, I find that, you know, I find that we default to that language so often, which is why I always try to push back against it, because you’re unwittingly damaging your relationship with your staff, with your team, and then you might set up a situation where they’re, they would have a harder time working hard in the future.

Which can set up a downward spiral. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And at Management 3.0, [00:18:00] we, we often sort of even, even make that even further broader, uh, saying like, we kind of manage, or we do leadership, or we manage organizations for like the few bad apples. And I think there’s studies that say like, 96% of your employees are, would never do anything or would are always doing something out of, out of, you know, thinking for the goodness of the company.

But we often manage. For those few things, for those people who are really trying to rig the system. Uh, and actually that is costing us a lot of time and energy to do it like that as well as the demotivation and sort of your sunken costs on that is, is massive, but you just don’t see it because it’s very hard to calculate it.

And that’s the same. Right. You know, like just. Don’t be a dick about that, basically. Absolutely, yes. That’s really what it’s is. Don’t be a dick dick to, to say it really is sort of straight up, but that’s just have a thing there. Like what, what did people manage to do [00:19:00] with that time and, and with those resources and, and that goes, that goes across the board.

And what we often hear from, from especially more established companies is, yeah, but you know, we’ve done it for this long and it’s this hard and it’s worth like this. And then I’m almost like, yeah, but there is a lot of change possible. Uh, and you, you have to move on, otherwise you’re just going backwards technically.

I, I, I’ve seen some really good examples recently with this as well recently, over the last few years. And I think one of the, one of, for me, one of the good ones, for example, with Neurodivergence is, is the, is the, is Microsoft and how they change their recruitment strategies and how they manage to really get ahead of the pool there.

So I wonder whether you wanted to talk a little bit about, you know, what you do in your consulting work and also at the Neurodiversity Collective. How do you guys talk about recruitment? How do you recommend organizations sort of tackle this? 

Matthew Zakreski: Recruitment has traditionally been single stream. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. 

Matthew Zakreski: You apply for a job in [00:20:00] one way. You put on a shirt and tie or a nice blouse and a skirt, and you go to the office and you sit there and you wait for a while and you answer some nonsense questions and then they decide that they like your vibe and then you get the job. Absolutely. I had a job once to be a psychologist.

They were only asking me stuff about like, what I thought about the political situation, and you know what, what about, you know, what would I do to find more clients? And I’m like, do you guys even care if I’m a good therapist? Hmm, yep. That would seem to me to be the, sort of the crux of the job. And the person was like, well, I can tell you’re a good therapist from talking to you.

I’m like, Hmm, okay. Right. It it’s icky. And you know, and you know, you mentioned authenticity before. I mean, one of the challenges of being neurodivergent is that we are incapable [00:21:00] of inauthenticity. Right. We, 

Elisa Tuijnder: yeah.

Matthew Zakreski: We a strong radar for that stuff. Right. And job interviews traditionally have asked us to be very inauthentic.

Mm-hmm. Himself in five years. Not at this job, but I’m, because I knew the job. Right. It’s wild to me. So, 

Elisa Tuijnder: yeah. It doesn’t actually check whether of you’re actually good at the job. Uh, 

Matthew Zakreski: absolutely. It, it, it tests whether you can be an extrovert able-bodied white person essentially. Right? Mm-hmm. And, and you know, this is where I check a lot of my privilege as a relatively able bodied 

Elisa Tuijnder: mm-hmm.

Matthew Zakreski: Cisgender, heterosexual male with a doctorate and you know, very privileged. Right. You know, I could walk in and be like, hi, I wanna be the manager of this ING store. They’d be like, well, you, you’re a doctor. There’s 

Elisa Tuijnder: a badge. There you go. Job start 

Matthew Zakreski: on Tuesday. And, and [00:22:00] so talking to companies to say, hire people for the job that they’re, that they’re fit for based on metrics and.

Tools that show they can do the job you want. Mm-hmm. Like if you’re hiring somebody to work in it, you wanna see if they can code. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Mm. You 

Matthew Zakreski: see if they can fix a bug. Right. It doesn’t matter what their five year projection plan is for their career. Yeah. When 

Elisa Tuijnder: they can hold up a conversation at dinner or something like that, or 

Matthew Zakreski: Yeah.

You were in a sinking ship like, like. For a lot of neurodivergent people, that kind of abstract thinking is very stressful. It’s very 

Elisa Tuijnder: difficult, 

Matthew Zakreski: right? So it’s like I now I’m freaking out and interviews are hard enough. EI tell, I tell companies, even if you move the interviews to zoom like that is, makes it more accessible.

It makes it easier, it makes it, the person can be more themselves. You [00:23:00] know? I think that professionalism matters, but I. I also think that, that it doesn’t make sense to make sure everyone wears a shirt and tie and a jacket. Mm-hmm. I don’t think that’s necessarily what we should be asking for. Right. Like being put together can look a lot of different ways for a lot of different people.

Absolutely. Mm-hmm. Right. And you know, and you also get to some financial privilege. They’re like, do you have the money to buy those sort of clothes? Um, you know, one of my friends is a professional speaker and. And he was speaking for a very fancy client and like his manager said, you wanna wear something very flashy, you wanna have like a $10,000 watch on.

And he’s like, oh God. Yeah. What do you think I do for a living? Like, do you think I have a $10,000 watch? Right? Yeah. 

Elisa Tuijnder: And if you really, 10,000 watch will be very, very flashy, like Swiss banker, flashy sort of thing. [00:24:00]

Matthew Zakreski: I think you could take every piece of clothing I own and I don’t think $10,000 I at the, I would come up on the other side of it and, and it’s just, it’s like, what are we really focusing on?

Right? So having performance interviews, like having a task driven interview. Can you do the code? Can you fix this? Give somebody some copy and say, how would you improve this? 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah.

Matthew Zakreski: Right. Um, one of the teachers I know, you know, she was pushing back on the idea that chat, GBT can write your papers for you.

She asked chat GBT to write a paper for her high school students. I said, fix this paper. What would you grade it as? And they were like, this is a D plus C minus paper. She said, check GBT is not good at this. Mm-hmm. You’re good at this. But I felt like what a great exercise for someone in advertising or copywriting or editing.

Like give them, give them a thing for what they can do. I was a bartender for [00:25:00] many years. One of my best bartending interviews, I lived in Australia, make a cocktail, make for me a pint, and I All right, here you going. He’s like, you pour a good pun. I was like, yes, I do, sir. He is like, all right. He’s like, so you can do the physical part of the job.

Now let’s talk about the personality part of the job. And then we moved into that. So, but you, 

Elisa Tuijnder: yeah, you really hit the nail on the head there as well. Right. You know, like what is needed for it to be, for it to be a bartender, okay, you need to pour a pin or make a cocktail or do, uh, do all these things.

That’s the one part of the job and that’s the technical skills that you need to have. And then it’s really important that you’re not incredibly shy or anything like that as a bartender, and that you’re able to be customer friendly. And that’s really a requirement of the job. But often, like we talked about.

A lot of the times people don’t even think about what is actually the requirement of the job. They’re going for a vibe or they’re going for, you know, there’s, there’s not even a check around this because there seems to be a paperwork that says, 15 years ago I did a coding degree or something like that.

Um, and. [00:26:00] That’s, that’s not, that’s not how we should be recruiting anymore. Recruit for what you actually need. Don’t recruit for people. And love how doctors always have to do these things where they, um, my si my sister and my and her husband are, are doctors in the United States and, or, or, and yet they have to always go to these dinners all the time to get attendings to do, to be an attending, to be a resident, to be a desk.

And I’m like, that’s. Really zero part of the job, at least for the doctor part. You still have to, for certain, for certain, for certain, um, uh, specializations at least, you have to have a social component and you have to be patient care and all of these kind of, uh, things central. But there’s a lot of jobs where these things, requirements are there that people, especially neurodivergent or are not able bodied or, or anything like that will fall over that.

Or a hurdle that is nothing to do with their job in, in essence. So really thinking what is needed. Um, and how do we, how do you find a fit for that? Is, is is so [00:27:00] important. It’s so incredibly important. And then I hear off of people like, yeah, but we actually, we actually only do this for like cultural fit and cultural.

That doesn’t actually mean what cultural fit is. Cultural fit is not checking what are, they are white middle class and, and, and so finding a new definition around that would, would, would be my suggestion in on that side as well. 

Matthew Zakreski: It’s like culture doesn’t mean comfortable. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. Right. Exactly. Or same, 

Matthew Zakreski: right?

You want people to challenge it and, and I, I say as a psychologist, it is easier to teach a person to go along, to get along than it is to teach them to do a skill that you don’t, that they don’t have. Right? Like I, I, listen, I’m literally a doctor, right? I’m a gifted adult. I am known internationally for what I do.

And if you asked me to make the CodeMonkey turn around and CodeMonkey, I couldn’t do it. I am not good at that job. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Mm-hmm. 

Matthew Zakreski: Right. So you wanna put me in positions that play [00:28:00] to my strengths and avoid my weaknesses, everybody else. Right. My, uh, my father-in-law was a, was a tremendous IT professional. Uh, he worked for at and t and he sort of carved out a role within their company framework where he kept rising up the ladder in terms of like his abilities.

He was really good at what he do. But at some point, at at and t, they’re like, well, if you’re that high up, you need to manage people. You need to have a team. 

Elisa Tuijnder: It’s such a difficult thing to say. Yeah. If that doesn’t, if you’re not comfortable with that, mm. It’s a different skillset. Right. Absolutely. It should also be a different skillset, right.

To do it well. Mm-hmm. 

Matthew Zakreski: It’s amazing how many doctoral level people they hire to teach university classes who cannot teach those classes. Also, that 

Elisa Tuijnder: concept to me is baffling really. Right. You’re great at your job. You’ve written three books, so now you have to teach kids basically how to do it, and that’s not part of what they wanted to do in the first place.

Yeah, right. 

Matthew Zakreski: It, it’s so wild to me that mm-hmm. That these [00:29:00] are the ways we approach things and it’s it, I don’t like the word lazy. Mm-hmm. It reeks of shortcuts. To me it’s a lot of shortcuts. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. And then these people also have to do a hundred things at the same time, right? Like they can’t focus on their, on their actual research anymore.

And Yeah, but you’re good at this, so you should be teaching the next generation. That is the shortcut there, right? Like, yeah. But maybe let’s get somebody in between that, right. That knows exactly what they’re doing when and how to teach kids and how to make a good course or module or put it together and.

It’s horrible ’cause everything gets done. Half, half them, in my opinion. Does your workplace feel stuck in a rut? Are silos and outdated leadership styles stifling creativity and collaboration and management 3.0. We understand these frustrations. That’s why we offer tailor made training programs designed not just to enhance skills, but to [00:30:00] transform entire organizational mindsets with our expert guidance and vision or workplace where barriers are broken down and everyone is empowered to contribute their best.

And leadership not only manages. But motivates and inspires ready to create a thriving workplace culture, then visit our website@managementthree.com and see how we can help your organization build a happier, more productive workplace.

Matthew Zakreski: Yeah. One of my, one of my favorite exercises to do, uh, when I’m consulting with businesses is say, all right guys, here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna plan a theme party. Everybody in this room, we’re gonna play the theme party, right? So what should our theme be? So I’ll ask you, what should the theme for our theme party be?

Elisa Tuijnder: Uh, the Olympics. 

Matthew Zakreski: Okay. We’re gonna do an Olympic themed party. Okay. Now, what would you like to bring to the party? What would you like to do? 

Elisa Tuijnder: A cocktail making class in [00:31:00] a and we, we get like, um, topics from, or sports from the Olympics that we have to sort of turn into a cocktail or something 

Matthew Zakreski: clever creative does.

Does that feel like it fits your skillset? 

Elisa Tuijnder: Uh, I think the creative part, probably the actual skillset, the, the mixology around it. No, but I probably could find some cocktails or something flavors that the, that might mix together. So 

Matthew Zakreski: there you go. Right. So we started with creativity and then it’s like, okay, how do I fit that into a party?

Now I could maybe put you on decorations or you charge our web blast or something creative, right. But the way the world works is, I arbitrarily said, okay, you’re working in the door. You gotta take everybody’s 10 year note when they walk through the door. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah, exactly. While the kung fu specialist is in the back doing something really that he is really not happy with.

Matthew Zakreski: You get the Michelin star chef blowing up balloons like, are you me? Like, and, and so it’s, I mean, it’s asking people [00:32:00] what they’re best at and putting them in the closest place to them as you can. Right. Yeah. And then also acknowledging that some people don’t wanna go to the freaking party. Yeah. Like some people are like, I can I just bring like some paper towels and leave?

Yes. You do not need to do it like everybody else does it. There are people who like, I’m gonna get there early, I’m gonna stay late ’cause I love parties. Parties are great. I love practice. I’m gonna do bye. Bye bye. Right. Right. That person, part, 

Elisa Tuijnder: people that are already stressing for a week, like, oh my God, I have to talk to people that I don’t know or I have absolutely.

Like they’re higher to go or, yeah. 

Matthew Zakreski: Yeah. So silly to me that, that that’s the case that we, you know, to arbitrarily assign people roles. And, you know, in this sort of, we can tie these two metaphors together is the onboarding process of hiring people, giving them different ways and is important, the interview process is important.

And then once they’re there [00:33:00] building and maintaining an infrastructure that keeps them there. That is, it’s a, it’s a problem that we run into a lot is that people work really hard to get that diversity higher, whether they’re neurodivergent or racially, ethnically, sexuality wise, they diver, you know, D diverse and then there’s nothing to support them within that.

And you know, I mean, if you can have an ERG about queer employees at your workplace, then you’re it. They have something. Then we can build that out strength and that get support from the top of the chart. And because it is, it is genuinely speaking, not enough to hire someone and not support them moving forward.

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. Or worse if the culture is sort of against it and throwing them out in the wild. Where, where, where people are all of a sudden sort of openly hostile or working against them. And I’ve seen that a lot happening. Like, okay, we have to make sure that [00:34:00] we hit these quotas and then. People sort of, they’ve been queer washed I image and then, or anything they can, this happens with, this happens with so many things, uh, from, from being Washington to Earth, Washington to, to, to, to neuro diversion, washing.

And then they come and then there’s absolutely zero in place. Even for worse, a hostile environment towards it. Then it doesn’t work. It, it, they, they add, it’s bad for everyone in Evolve and you, nothing will change in the end. 

Matthew Zakreski: I had a company I consulted with and they had a gentleman who worked there who was in a wheelchair, and the manager’s office offices were up three stairs.

Difficult. Yeah. And, and, and he was like, I can never be a manager. He was like, oh, of course we poor you. We want you like, no, no. Literally. You can, there’s no lift. There’s no way I can get there. No way I can get up this here. And I’m sitting there in this meeting talking to their head of e head of HR and [00:35:00] their CEO and this guy.

And finally I’m like, guys, I, I’m not an attorney, but, but this is a civil rights, this is a dis disabilities issue. Like, build a freaking ramp and let’s move on with our lives like it. And they’re staring at me. I’m like, you’re gonna spend either $5,000 to build a ramp. Or have a lawsuit in a lawsuit, you tell me what you want.

Right? Yeah. I, like I said, I’m not an attorney. Yeah. And, and it’s just, to me, it’s this idea of the most dangerous word in language is we’ve always done it this way. Mm-hmm. Well, you know what? We wrote on paper tablets before we had typewriters, and then we worked on computers when we didn’t have typewriters, and now we have tablets and smartphones and.

You have grown along with every other technology. We don’t work by candle light anymore, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, so yeah. Would we not adapt and, [00:36:00] and evolve in these other spaces? And I will acknowledge that it’s hard and I will acknowledge that it takes work, right? But that’s why people like you and I exist to, to grease those skids, to make those things easier for people.

You, I tell people all the time, you don’t need to know how to educate neurodivergent people. I know how to do that. That’s why I exist. Yeah. Right. My job is to take what I know and you take what, you know, when we meet in the middle and we create something that helps everyone. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Mm-hmm. 

Matthew Zakreski: And you know, and, and I think that’s, we talked about authenticity before.

I think a big part of authenticity, what keeps a lot of people from being authentic is that to be truly authentic, you need to be humble. You need to have humility. Right? Yeah, absolutely. And you were humbled just a few minutes ago when I asked you like, do you actually wanna make cocktails at the party?

And you, you were like, well, I mean, I, I can figure out how to do it. Yeah. Maybe that fit for you. Yes. But you have [00:37:00] humbled to own that, to make space for it, right? Yeah. So I get to sit and be like, yes. Right. Come on. That’s when I create an environment where you can be the authentic version of yourself then.

I know more about you so I can help you better, and everybody comes in that situation. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah, and that’s really the crux and the nexus of happiness at work, right? So when you’re allowing people to work in the skillset that they have, that they think they’re good at, we’re allowed them to explore that, make the, make it better.

Whether that it’s from narrow diversion perspective or just from like, you know, from a preference or from what you’re good at or what you enjoy doing. You’re gonna do it better, you’re going to turn up with way more gusto than you do for anything else that you don’t like doing. And you’re, so, your organization is also really gonna benefit from it because you’re gonna have engaged, uh, employees, you’re gonna have motivated employees.

You’re gonna have those that don’t believe or, or, or turn up sick or, or, or go on on the sick leave or all of these kind of [00:38:00] things that, that come with working in places that you just don’t really like to work. And. Workplace culture for that is really important, and making space for that is really important.

And also knowing your employees and the connections, right? Uh, you can’t make space if you don’t actually know what people want or are good at. And, and that is a lot of work that goes into that and a lot of work that isn’t always very clear. Um, because I think that’s one of the big problems with workplace culture, with making space and making like the ramp is very easy.

Right. That’s, that’s very clear. That is there. I. A lot of other things are way more nuanced. They’re, you know, they, they, they’re, they’re things you can’t always put your finger up or you can’t just put a quota in it. And that’s really hard for businesses. Things that are invisible, they find very, very hard to gauge, uh, unless there’s data.

Matthew Zakreski: Yeah. And, and I think that’s why you have to trust the people you work with, right. Because I mean. There [00:39:00] are things that can’t be quantified that still matter. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Absolutely. Right. 

Matthew Zakreski: And you know, I mean, it’s, it’s funny, like we’re having some construction work done on our house right now and we have a, uh, we have a sump pump in the basement and I should draw water out.

Um, and every house in this area is required to have one ’cause it floods a lot. And this fa the people who built this house put the sum pump in the highest part of the basement. Not the lowest part. I’m not a civil engineer, but even I know water runs downhill. Right? So they’ve checked the box that they have a sump pump, but they put it in the dumbest possible place.

Mm-hmm. So it’s inefficient, right? Yeah. And that’s the thing. It’s like, well, okay, well, like you guys said, you wanted a coffee machine on the second floor, so I gave you one. It’s like. You gave me one that brews one cup of coffee at a time and you put it in the far left corner. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. It takes forever. Yeah.

You use your hand, 

Matthew Zakreski: right? 

Elisa Tuijnder: It’s, [00:40:00] it’s ticking boxes again, it’s like, okay, we have to, yeah, we have to have this amount of people for this or that, have that disability and you know, sometimes this positive discrimination is important and it has a place. But let’s go further than that. Or let’s think about it and let’s give people the right space in the right time and, and the support network around it.

Otherwise, it also falls into nothingness than it is literally a tick box. Tick box exercise. 

Matthew Zakreski: Yeah. I mean, going back to the, uh, the theme party for a moment. Like if we had a hundred people coming and you had a hundred slices of pizza, add enough mood. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Uh, probably not. Um, most likely not to know, depending on how small the children are or whatever.

What, what’s the parameters of these people? Uh, but yeah, no, four, 

Matthew Zakreski: so you’re gonna have to buy more than likely, more 

Elisa Tuijnder: than likely. Also some one, some will drop on the floor, some will be, be, be burned a little bit and won’t be eaten. And, and that’s the thing, right? Yeah. 

Matthew Zakreski: Yeah. That’s the, that’s, I mean, gosh, like.

So it’s the [00:41:00] idea of understanding that just because just because you’re missing things doesn’t mean you’re bad at them. Yeah. It just means it’s a improve, right? There’s value that is quantifiable and qualitative, right. That we just, sometimes it’s just about feel 

Elisa Tuijnder: absolutely 

Matthew Zakreski: right, but most importantly, our companies are as good as the people that work there.

Because the people make the product, the people make the coffee, the people make the drinks. The the culture cars, the culture, 

Elisa Tuijnder: the everything. Right? Yeah. The, the whatever, whatever you’re doing 

Matthew Zakreski: mm-hmm. Is right. And that to me is what we need to remember. ’cause when we invest in the human part of human resources.

Everything else improves. You know, there’s, we talked about this idioms before. You know, we have an expression, rising tide lifts all boats. Mm-hmm. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah,

Matthew Zakreski: absolutely. It really increase the culture. You raise everybody up, right? 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. And in ways you don’t [00:42:00] even quantify or understand sometimes. Yeah, 

Matthew Zakreski: absolutely.

Right. You know, and that to me is what makes this so powerful, is that these solutions, they’re not easy, but they are also simple. Yeah, they could, they don’t cost much. Well, 

Elisa Tuijnder: yeah, they’re not that costly. They’re not your new billion dollar IT system. They’re not like, honestly, they, they, they’re harder and they sometimes take a little bit longer for the ROI to show, or you might not actually see the ROI very clearly, but it’s there.

Oh, I really wanna keep talking about this. But we are really getting to, to, to a point, uh, where, where we are gonna have to sort of, uh, pull it to, to, uh, to where we have to round it off. Uh, we really like to leave our listeners always with, uh, some kind of tangible practices. Um, something that they can start practicing with or something that they can just kind of implement on the go within their teams and don’t have to have the buy-in from the whole C-suite.

So, do you wanna give us a practice or a [00:43:00] mindset or something that you’ve seen that’s proven to be effective and that is sort of easily, uh, doable as well before we close off? 

Matthew Zakreski: So there are, there are two things. So companies are great at listing and writing down the explicit rules, right? You need to work this many hours a week and this is what you’ll pay, will pay you, and this is what your insurance is and these are the things you have to do.

Companies are not great at. Codifying the unwritten rules. And every company, every organization has unwritten rules. Yeah. Right. And what you have here is unwritten rules are easy to pick up if you’re neurotypical, because unwritten rules tend to be written by neurotypical people and they just, their, their brains communicate that stuff well.

Right? Hmm. [00:44:00] You, when you can make the. Unwritten rules written you, you allow everyone to play on the same playing field. They don’t, it’s, you’re not setting some people up to fail, you know, let’s just say arbitrarily that I don’t, you know, you know that, let’s just say that you don’t like to interview people for your podcast.

You are wearing blue shirts. Yeah. Right Now if I didn’t know that I’ve stepped into a beer trap. Right? Yeah. Arbitrary. Pick a shirt. You’re like, oh, look at this guy 

Elisa Tuijnder: blue again. 

Matthew Zakreski: Yeah. Oh, this idiot. Right. I have an 

Elisa Tuijnder: unconscious, no, a conscious bias against blue people. I’m just blind right 

Matthew Zakreski: now. If you tell me, Hey, listen, it’s a weird thing I’ve got, but don’t wear a blue shirt for the interview.

Then it’s he adapt to that rule. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. But if the 

Matthew Zakreski: rule is unspoken, you’re setting me up to fail. Yeah. And just about your anger. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah.

Matthew Zakreski: So write down your. Your written rules and you’re on written rules. If there’s a rule in your company that like you don’t leave early on [00:45:00] a, on a beautiful day, then you make sure you write that rule down.

The second thing is that, or vice 

Elisa Tuijnder: versa, it’s okay to like not come to work when you are ill or it’s okay to like leave a little early because the day’s great or your kid has soccer practice and you need to pick it up or Yeah. Yeah. Stuff that is not codified, but is very important within a culture of a company.

Mm-hmm. 

Matthew Zakreski: Because then if it’s not written down, some people get it, some people don’t. And that breeds friction. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Absolutely. Yeah. 

Matthew Zakreski: And like, you know, it’s like, well, why does Johnny always get to leave early? Like, it’s not my fault that he has got kids and I don’t have kids. And it’s like, listen, the rule, you know, if it’s, if it’s over 30 degrees, you can leave after 3:00 PM or whatever, whatever the thing is.

Elisa Tuijnder: Or it doesn’t even have to be that rigid, like, you know, like, but yeah, just some kind of, yeah. Understanding around these things. Mm-hmm. 

Matthew Zakreski: So that’s the first thing. And the second thing is we can always seek to educate [00:46:00] ourselves. Right? And education is not a finish line to cross. It is a journey, right? And.

This gets us outta that box checking mentality we talked about before, because like, oh yes, I’ve hired a neurodivergent person. Good job, I’m done. You like the really, once you get ’em into the company, that’s actually where the work starts. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Mm-hmm. 

Matthew Zakreski: Absolutely. Because you have a dedicated HR person for neurodivergent people.

You wanna have a support group, you wanna bring in speakers and professionals that allow us to continue to serve these people. Not just because it’s the right thing to do, though I obviously think it is, but because that person is an untapped asset for you. Mm-hmm. If you, if you have an autistic employee who gets overwhelmed and shut down by all the sort of social office stuff you gotta do talk all or cooler, right?

The lights, all that stuff it like, and if that person can work [00:47:00] from home when they need to, that person is gonna be as close to maximized in value in that ROI. As as they can be for a simple shift of don’t come in if you can’t. Well, that’s easy. Yeah. Everybody can do that. Right? And it’s not just hiring them, it’s building systems to support them and facilitate your growth growth.

And that is absolutely a place you’ll see your ROI, because the more you can focus on the thing you’re here to do, the more you’ll do it and the better you’ll be at it. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yep. I’ve never understood forcing people to sit in certain, uh, certain offices on very uncomfortable chairs. And like we’re at, we’re constantly updating our systems here, there, left, right, and center, and then people just have to suck it up.

And that’s just not how it works anymore. I, I don’t think it ever worked like that to be fair, but, um, the, with the way, especially with knowledge workers sometimes, but also anywhere else, just making things, why are we making, or like cashiers in the United States not being [00:48:00] able to sit down. Just, what is that all about?

Like what is that all about? Let, let’s make them uncomfortable. So what? They work less or not as fast? Like, uh, that’s not the point of them. It’s not a contest. They just need to do the scanning and be nice to people. Anyways, that’s all different ball game, I guess. Uh, Dr. Matt, if people want to find you, if people wanna find the neurodivergent collective, where can I find you?

Where can I follow you? Where can they see what you do in, in your day-to-day life when you’re not chatting with me? 

Matthew Zakreski: Um, the Neurodiversity Collective is the name of our therapy practice. Um, we see people from, you know, all over the US and then we do consulting and speaking engagements all over the world.

So if you’re like, oh, this guy, you know, is for American, he is very, you know, on the ball, then, um, you can reach out to me@drmatzakresky.com. That’s where we, I book my speaking and consulting gigs. Uh, you know, I’m on Facebook at Dr. Matza Kresky as well as Instagram. I have very unique name, so if you [00:49:00] punch me into Google, you’ll find Yeah.

Yeah. 

Elisa Tuijnder: We find you. 

Matthew Zakreski: Yeah. You’re very at the top of the charts there. But it’s, you know, I am lucky that I love what I do and I am lucky that I’m allowed to travel all over to get that done so everybody could benefit from this sort of stuff. And even if it’s simple as that, you ask me like, Hey, do you have a PowerPoint on this?

I’ll send you the information I’ve got ’cause I want you to know what I know. And then we’ll have a conversation about how to do this better downstream. And everybody wins. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Everybody wins. Society wins, people win. Organizations win. Uh, now we have to convince people of that, and that’s our mission, uh, on, on all levels.

So thank you Dr. Man, for coming on. I’ve really, really enjoyed our conversation and I hope to see each other again in a, in some kind of capacity, some kind of. Another podcast, this podcast, uh, or, or some kind of, uh, conference, uh, at some point. So thank you again for, for coming on. 

Matthew Zakreski: I would love to come back, so I’ll anytime you just let me know.

Elisa Tuijnder: Great, thanks. [00:50:00] Bye. Bye.

You’ve been listening to The Happiness at Work podcast by Management 3.0 where we. Are getting serious about happiness. Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and if you enjoy our shows, don’t be shy. Write us a review. Share the happiness with your colleagues, family or friends. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn under Management three.

Oh.