Posted in PR and Communications,
October is Dyslexia Awareness Month. For me, it means two things: building understanding of what dyslexia really is, and celebrating the strengths it brings.
This month I have been helping the Worshipful Company of Communicators with a campaign called What my brain brings. I have had the pleasure of talking to communicators from across our industry about how their brains work. What is their secret sauce? How have they turned dyslexia, or their wider neurodivergence, into a strength?
Think Popeye and his spinach, rather than Superman and his kryptonite. Not something that holds you back, but something that, with the right fuel, makes you stronger.
As a young dyslexic, I would never have pictured myself in communications. Writing, spelling and grammar sit at the heart of good comms. They were also the things I found hardest.
Yet here I am. I co-founded The Work Crowd, a network of communications and marketing freelancers, and I am part of the Hanson Search Group. It was an indirect way into communications, but my whole working life is now spent in and around this industry.
Having found it, I can see why communications is a strong career choice for people with dyslexia. Good communication is so much more than correct spelling. It is about understanding people, finding the story and connecting the dots. A dyslexic brain can be very good at all three.
It works the other way too. Communications is about understanding and representing the public. Between 15% and 20% of the UK population is neurodivergent (ICAEW), so up to one in five people. If we want to speak to the public, and for them, we need those minds in our industry.
There is one caveat, and it matters. A dyslexic brain needs the right structure and the right environment to thrive.
Everyone I spoke to gave a different answer. But the same themes kept coming back.
Suzanne Edmond, Founder and CEO of Moxy Communications, says her dyslexic thinking brings creativity, intuition and influence. She sees possibilities others miss, tells stories that stick, and builds trust through people rather than processes. When Suzanne became Group Communications Director at the Department for Transport, she wrote openly about being a dyslexic head of comms. A coach helped her see she had got there not despite her dyslexia, "but exactly because of it."
Dan Holden, Communication Consultant and Coach at All Things IC, says his dyslexic brain lets him see the bigger picture, step back, connect different elements and treat communication as a whole. Dan was diagnosed at university and has written about how the ways of working he built to cope have become a strength he now draws on with clients.
Nik Govier, CEO and Founder of Blurred, puts it beautifully. Not seeing the box means she has never been constrained by how things should be. Instead, she can see round corners to how things could be. Nik has also spoken about school reports that wrongly labelled her lazy and careless, long before anyone recognised how her brain worked.
Sarah Wait, Director of Global Partnerships at Onclusive, loves a problem: the more complex, the better. She retains huge amounts of information and has a fascination for detail and connections. That has served her both in building and delivering data, and now in her work as a Local Councillor.
Frederick Russell-Rivoallan, International Relations Delegate at Fondation du Patrimoine, brings a different lens. His strength comes from autistic cognition: systemising and strong pattern recognition. He holds the whole system in mind while tracking how tiny details ripple through it.
And me? Dyslexia means I think in connections, not lists. It helps me read people, see the whole picture and bring the right people together.
Put those answers side by side. The bigger picture. Connections. Seeing what others miss. Stories, people and trust. These are not nice extras. They are what our industry is built on.
Different brains, different needs
Suzanne made a point that has stayed with me. Dyslexia, ADHD and autism are very different. They bring different strengths, different experiences and different needs. Frederick's systemising and my connections are not the same thing, and we should not treat them as if they were.
I also spoke to Reena Anand, Director of Being Inclusive, a neurodiversity consultant, coach and speaker. Reena works where neurodiversity meets race, ethnicity and social mobility. She told me that many organisations do lots of good work on neurodiversity yet still don't see it make a difference. Often it is because they forget that not everyone experiences their neurodivergence in the same way.
Culture, background and money all shape who gets a diagnosis, who gets support and who feels safe to speak up. If someone already feels on the outside at work, they are unlikely to share something that could give people another reason to exclude them.
Reena also made a point every leader should hear. Even if you are not neurodivergent, and nor is anyone in your family, some of your colleagues will be, "whether or not they know it."
That is a useful challenge for a month like this one. Awareness is the start, not the end. The real test is what we change once October is over.
This campaign has also made me think about my own work, and why someone with dyslexia ended up doing it.
As a recruiter, I need to understand people. I need to see the big picture, get under the skin of a company's culture and values, understand the problem it is trying to solve and picture the person who will fit. None of that is a tick box exercise.
I said I think in connections, not lists. In hiring, those connections are values and motivation. What drives this candidate? Does it line up with what this company needs right now?
Take a business moving from start up to scale up. It needs someone who can handle a scrappy start up: work with agility, wear many hats and get stuck in. But it also needs someone with the desire and ability to bring structure, cadence and rigour, so the business can grow.
A list of skills and sectors will not find that person. A good recruiter looks for it. A dyslexic recruiter looks at the whole person, in the round and at the connections that will link the candidate to the company.
AI is changing our industry fast. Earlier this year at The Work Crowd we wrote about this. AI is quick at work that follows a formula: the press release built from a template, the social post that mirrors last months. What it cannot do is think sideways, find the unexpected angle or make the connection nobody else has seen.
I saw this again this week at a workshop on thinking differently, run by Gonz for my colleagues at The Work Crowd and Hanson Search. One line stuck with me: our first idea is everyone's first idea. We practiced three techniques to get past it. Inversion: plan the perfect disaster, then flip it. Lateral thinking: find what nobody else will tell them. Reframing: put yourself in the other person's seat.
For many neurodivergent people, going sideways is how our brains already work. But the workshop also showed the other side. Different thinking needs the right set up: time to think, a clear structure and a room where it is fine to be wrong along the way.
As a dyslexic, that was my biggest take away: time and space to think. My brain can be whirring with ideas. Having the time to sort through them and shape them can be the difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary.
I have three.
Encourage more neurodivergent people into communications. Role models matter. As Reena said, it is people's stories that stay with you when times are tough, the proof that it is possible because you have seen it. If a young dyslexic person thinks comms is not for them because of spelling, we lose talent before it starts. As recruiters, we can help by looking at how we hire: processes that do not filter people out on written applications alone, and assessments that judge impact, not grammar.
Recognise everyone's difference. Neurodiversity is not one thing. Ask people what they need, rather than assuming.
Create environments where difference can shine. Structure, flexibility and psychological safety. Then trust people to do their best work.
In a world of AI, this matters more than ever. The thinking AI cannot copy is the thinking our industry has too often designed out. Let's design it back in.
So this Dyslexia Awareness Month, I would love to hear from you. What does your brain bring?
Thank you to everyone who has shared their story with the Worshipful Company of Communicators so far: Suzanne Edmond, Dan Holden, Nik Govier, Sarah Wait, Frederick Russell-Rivoallan and Reena Anand.
Madeleine Weightman is Co-Founder and COO at The Work Crowd, working with businesses to find flexible solutions and helping consultants build rewarding portfolio careers.
Whether you need interim, fractional or freelance expertise for a project, to plug a gap or upskill your team, or you are exploring new opportunities as an independent consultant, The Work Crowd can help you connect to the right person.