How to design teams that perform intelligence and innovation work like Unit 9900
Published on 27 August 2025 • Written by Dr Lisa Colledge
We live in a world where averting a cyber attack or national security breach often depends on detecting disruptions in patterns, and a piece of data that seems out of place. As security attacks become ever more sophisticated, it’s no longer enough to rely only on conventional talent pipelines to provide the edge you need to stay secure.
We can take inspiration from global military and intelligence agencies. They have long recognized the benefits of drawing on teams of people who have different ways of looking at data, and who notice different things. The world’s top security agencies make sure they include autistic and dyslexic professionals amongst those they attract - not out of goodwill, but because it vastly improves performance.
They have identified something that many workplaces still overlook: the way someone thinks - how they perceive, process, and act on information – is more than a personal trait. It can be transformed into a professional asset.
And when you know how to design to attract and enable people with diverse cognitive styles, it quickly becomes a strategic competency.
If you prefer, you can listen to a podcast covering this topic here.
Unit 9900 and the rise of neurodivergence in intelligence roles
The Roim Rachok (Hebrew for "far beyond horizons") team of Unit 9900 is an elite, specialist division within the Israeli Defense Forces. Shrouded in secrecy, this elite unit is the most pure example of the power of neurodivergence to detect insights worth investigating within data. The Unit is composed entirely of autistic individuals who have been trained to analyse satellite and aerial imagery. Their job is to spot patterns and subtle deviations in aerial images that could indicate threats, such as shifts in terrain and shadow anomalies. Precision is key, and these slight changes are easily overlooked by those with different cognitive styles.
One officer, identified only as Corporal N, described the importance of her cognitive capabilities in being successful in her role. Her photographic memory enables her to remember details, and her cognitive style is creative and be patient. The head of the department that processes new recruits says that capabilities often associated with autism give the teenagers they recruit a critical edge.
Similarly, the Australian Defence Department has developed cyber-training programs to benefit from typical autistic strengths, and the US federal government is actively tapping into cognitive diversity to strengthen national security.
GCHQ, the UK’s signals intelligence agency, openly recruits dyslexic candidates, noting their big-picture thinking and holistic pattern recognition (learn more in this article or this podcast). In fact, 84% of their dyslexic recruits score above average in visual reasoning.
Visual thinking as a professional asset
We can learn more about the characteristics of these cognitive styles, that are very well suited to drawing insights from the smallest details in a huge amount of data, by turning to descriptions from neurodivergent people of how they experience their brains working.
Temple Grandin, a scientist and renowned autism advocate, describes her thinking as highly visual and non-linear:
“All my thoughts are like videos. When I visualize a cat, I see videos of every cat I’ve ever seen. There is no generalized cat concept.”
This kind of cognition doesn’t always fit neatly into the expectations served by the systems we are used to in our schools and places of employment. It’s not verbal. It’s not sequential. But in roles that demand precision, simulation, and pattern awareness, it’s highly effective and worth considering how you can adjust your working culture so you can enjoy the benefits of this cognitive style.
Grandin says her brain doesn’t work in words, but functions more like high-tech computer-generated imagery (CGI). In her profession of designing livestock handling system, she can simulate the experience in her head, walk through it from both her and the animals’ perspectives, and identify and correct stress points and confusion triggers before anything is built.
Laurent Mottron: the science and the collaboration
The personal experiences of visual thinking described by Temple Grandin are also echoed in neuroscience research.
Professor Laurent Mottron, one of the most renowned autism researchers in the world, developed the theory of Enhanced Perceptual Functioning. In it, he postulates that autistic brains are hyper-developed in the areas used for visual processing, and are less reliant on verbal working memory.
In controlled studies, autistic participants consistently outperform others in tasks like mental image retention, spatial manipulation, and detail recognition. Mottron’s work has become foundational in understanding that autism is not a deficit of cognition, but a different configuration of strengths that we can all benefit from.
One of the the most powerful lessons comes not from his data, but from his lived collaboration. Professor Mottron met Michelle Dawson during a television interview when she was a postal worker representing herself in a legal dispute about disability discrimination, due to her autism. He was impressed by her analytical precision and self-taught legal mastery, and invited her to join his research laboratory as a research assistant.
But Michelle didn’t just assist; she transformed the lab’s approach. Her bottom-up cognitive style meant she never overreached, but built literally towards conclusions in which every insight was grounded in data. Professor Mottron, by contrast, works top-down, forming hypotheses and then iterating them, based on the data. While it would be easy for their opposing styles to clash, they have instead developed a collaboration style that recognizes and values the complementary inputs that they each bring such that the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. As he said:
“Combining the two types of brains in the same research group is amazingly productive.”
You can listen to me talking about this collaboration here.
Dyslexia, holistic perception, and strategic insight
Whereas autistic-style thinkers often bring high-precision detail detection, dyslexic-style thinkers often bring systems-level perception. They see patterns across time and space, anticipate connections, and spot anomalies in the context of the whole.
As I’ve explored in a previous article, dyslexic cognition excels in creative strategy and ambiguity navigation. It’s not uncommon to find dyslexic leaders thriving in complex problem-solving environments, particularly when multiple variables must be balanced in ambiguous, fluid environments.
The lesson? You can’t choose any one style that better than the others, but they’re unbeatabke if you choose for the combination.
From mismatch to mastery
Despite all this evidence, our social and workplace systems still tend to reward verbal fluency, linear thinking, and polished presentation, missing out on a lot of potential.
When people like Temple Grandin or Michelle Dawson are put in environments designed only for word-based cognition, they will likely struggle. But, like anyone, when given a role that fits the natural strengths of their neurostyle and a supportive working environment, they excel.
Let me be clear. This isn’t about lowering standards. It’s about removing the filters that screen out excellence just because it arrives in an atypical package.
Two takeaways for forward-thinking teams
So what does this mean for your team, your company, your strategy?
Design for cognitive complementarity, not conformity.
Autistic precision. Dyslexic big-picture insight. Neurotypical relational fluency. If you need more than one kind of task done well, don’t bet on one kind of “ideal” mind. Instead, design and build roles and team environments where different minds can intersect, and sharpen each other’s outputs.Don’t wait for diagnosis. Design for difference by default.
Not everyone knows they’re neurodivergent. And, even if they know, not everyone feels safe disclosing it. That’s fine because you don’t need to wait for someone to tell you they’re autistic or dyslexic before you design the working environment they will thrive in. You know, with approaching 100% certainty, that you have diverse thinkers in your team, so pre-empt the problems, and build a team culture that recognizes, enables, and values multiple cognitive styles, regardless of whether they come with a label. You can read more about this here.
Final thought
If intelligence agencies are doing this to safeguard nations, what might happen if you used the same logic to strengthen your teams and your innovation pipelines?
Let’s stop designing around sameness. Let’s start designing for what our diverse minds can do together.
Curious about how to attract people with different minds to boost your team’s innovation?
Let me help you.
Book a free consultation and let’s talk about it.
We'll touch on what you're experiencing, take a look at root causes, and discuss how neuro-inspiration can transform the engagement, wellness, and performance of your team.
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References
Information about Unit 9900 is drawn from “Creative, patient and an eye for detail - how the gift of autism helps Israeli spies,” published in The Sunday Telegraph on 3 December 2023.
Dyslexic spies in GCHQ: statistic from this post.
Temple Grandin described her visual thinking style in this book chapter: My Mind is a Web Browser: How People with Autism Think. (1995) Published in Learning and Cognition in Autism, Eric Schopler and Gary B. Mesibov (eds), Plenum Press, New York. Chapter 8, pp.137-156.
Professor Laurent Mottron described his collaboration with autistic lab assistant, Michelle Dawson, in this article: Changing Perceptions: The power of autism. (2011) Nature 479 pp.33-35.
