Episode 59: Season 1 reflection: the three themes you connected with most
Published on 18 November 2025 • Hosted by Dr Lisa Colledge
In this special Season 1 finale of Culture by Neurodesign, Dr Lisa Colledge reflects on a full year of episodes and explores three themes that have resonated deeply with listeners.
These themes have shaped conversations and directions behind the scenes, and they point clearly toward where leadership and neuro-inclusive culture design are heading in the most forward-looking organizations.
Stay connected until the start of Season 2:
Register for Lisa’s free weekly newsletter, The Neuro-Inspired Question.
Join her free presentation to mark International Day of People with Disability on 3 December: Autism-inspired innovation: how freedom within a framework builds neuro-inclusive cultures.
Book a free Performance Leaks Audit, or a meeting that you shape according to your questions.
Theme 1: neuro-inclusion is not an add-on — it’s performance infrastructure for the modern workplace.
Lisa discusses how connecting diverse neurostyles strengthens both wellbeing and organizational results, and why this dual lens forms the heart of the modern leadership playbook.
Neuro-inclusion should not be something you do only when someone discloses a diagnosis. It should be your underlying team system that enables clarity, connection, innovation, and resilience across your entire organization.
Highlighted illustrative episodes
Episode 29 – Culture is the Game: IBM vs Polaroid
Episode 33 – Autism and Silicon Valley: a case study in neuro-inclusive design
Episode 21 – Organizational resilience: 90% of companies lack the core capabilities
Theme 2: design over disclosure - the shift from accommodations to proactive cultural design
Accommodations don’t scale as the primary strategy for enabling neurodivergent talent because of the scale of what we are considering. Proactive cultural design - “design, not disclosure” - creates healthier, more scalable, and more effective working cultures not only for neurodivergent talent, but for everyone.
Assuming that neurodivergence is present, and designing proactively for diverse neurostyles, removes the pressure on vulnerable team members to disclose, and creates cultures where people can thrive without needing a special request.
Highlighted illustrative episodes
Episode 56 — Trust over control: autism and universal design at Schiphol airport
Episode 37 — Neurodivergence and high performance: lessons from an underwater school play
Episode 45 — From autism diagnosis to entrepreneur: finally, inclusion that works for everyone
Theme 3: the universal appeal of the neurodiversity lens
The neurodiversity lens resonates far beyond formal diagnoses. Cognitive styles such as attention, sensory processing, communication, and executive function all sit on universal cognitive spectra. Designing for neurodivergence — the extreme of these spectra — lifts performance and wellbeing for everyone.
This is why leaders, teams, introverts, high-pressure roles, and even neurotypical employees respond so strongly to neuro-inspired design: it speaks to real experience that people recognize, to some extent, in themselves.
Highlighted illustrative episodes
