5.3 We solve problems innovatively

The third reason why dyslexics make powerful changemakers is we solve problems innovatively. The Dyslexic Thinking skills of Reasoning and Imagining.

Dyslexic thinkers process information differently. This helps us to come up with new approaches to old problems. An advantage in any situation. Her Royal Highness Princess Beatrice says 'One of the strengths we have as dyslexics is to look at things differently, to be a problem solver, find new ways to do things.'

Our Dyslexic Thinking skill of Reasoning allows us to understand patterns, evaluate possibilities and make decisions. And as I mentioned earlier this allows us to connect the dots of insight and see the big picture. Then we use our intuition and senses to think around the problem. And our imagining skills help us find the solution. Because we see problems differently, we're able to see solutions that no one else has spotted. And that's often what leads to breakthroughs in creating powerful change.

Our ability to rise above a problem or situation, to get a helicopter, big-picture view, rather than getting stuck in the details means dyslexics can often see that it's the system that needs to change, rather than just treating the symptoms. And our ability to ask the big questions and challenge the status quo means we have the tools to do this. Let's hear from Her Royal Highness Princess Beatrice about how her Dyslexic Thinking is helping her in her work to reimagine the education system.

Princess Beatrice, you work for a technology company and you are also a passionate changemaker involved in some of our favourite charities, like the Helen Arkell Centre and Big Change. You've said that, 'We have to look at things differently if we're going to combat the challenges that every young person is facing today', which I couldn't agree more. I think we're at a time where we've got a lot of work to do to make our young people feel safe, valued and inspired to thrive in the 5th Industrial Revolution. Tell me, how has Dyslexic Thinking helped you to do what you do?

Thank you so much, Kate. Talking about this subject is my favourite thing because as a dyslexic who's navigating the kind of mad world we live in, I am so grateful and lucky to have a Dyslexic Thinking mindset because it definitely pushes me a little bit further to try and solve some of these challenges and try and help as much as I can. And sometimes I use my Dyslexic Thinking, I describe it like being able to think in a circle, and really try and find as many people as I can along the way in order to connect that circle up so that we can really help and support young people find what they really need. And that's sometimes working with some fantastic organisations which are focused on one subject, but in the story of Big Change we realised that actually we needed to work on the sum of all parts.

The very foundation of Big Change was to ask ourselves some very large questions. Why is education the way that it is and is it fit for purpose for what young people really need to thrive in life?

We’re so proud to be working with Princess Beatrice and the Big Change to help reimagine the education system. When it comes to innovative problem solving, the key skill to learn is not just to try to fix the problem but know when to change the system. It’s an approach that Virgin Unite is built on too. Let’s hear again from Jean Oelwang about how they use Dyslexic Thinking to do things differently.

We didn't see ourselves as a typical charity. We wanted to turn the charitable sector upside down and we didn't want to focus just on one issue. We wanted to focus on our approach, and it was an entrepreneurial approach, and thinking about how do we change systems and issues for good. So how are we not just treating the symptoms but how are we actually changing the systems? And again I think that links back to Dyslexic Thinking where you're not just band-aiding a problem and trying to save one person or two people, you're trying to change the entire system so that you can have a long term impact.

Organisations like Virgin Unite are built on thinking differently and nurturing innovative problem solvers. But what if the context you’re working in is more traditional in its approach?

The UN and the public sector is not well suited to people that think differently. If I applied for a job at the UN, I wouldn't make it past the first round. Again, I've always had to be scrappy and unconventional and so a traditional career path was never going to be possible. But I started out as a 19 year old intern at the UN, and I figured out how to be in the right places at the right time. And it was actually my first job out of graduate school that I started to really get a sense of, that there was something very different about the way that I saw the world and how I needed to learn the world. And that sitting and reading reams of paper and statistics and data and so on, didn't make sense until I was able to go to a place.

And so very early on in this journey of mine at the UN, I was in Southern Iraq and it was eight o'clock in the morning, we got out of our cars and immediately you could feel your face begin to to sizzle in the heat. And walking into a school, over a stream of sewage, into a school and over shards of glass and so on, in just searing heat, it all became clear to me, all of the multifaceted issues that the community there was suffering, and also some of the solutions and how we were going to tackle them. The majority of maternal mortality, morbidity, newborn mortality, still births take place in humanitarian and fragile settings, and all of it is preventable.

And for me, that is a sign of a terrible, terrible injustice, and collective failure of governments, of international community, of the people who care so passionately to try and put an end to this.

Dyslexics are such multisensory thinkers. Princess Sarah's experience is such a good example of how dyslexic changemakers connect the dots and see the solutions straight away.

Another dyslexic changemaker who saw a problem differently and used his Dyslexic Thinking to solve it innovatively was the Founder of the global Right to Dream football academy's Tom Vernon. Let's hear from him now on how his Dyslexic Thinking helped him to innovate and create change in the football industry throughout Africa, Egypt, Denmark and now America.

You're able to analyse and see problems differently but then also see possibilities in a different way as well. And the football industry is like many industries, is so entrenched in one way of doing things. And so the bravery to say, 'Hey, what about if we did it really differently?' is not necessarily easy to come by. And then also the ideas about how could it be different are also hard to come by. And so I was very lucky when I started the academy. When I started I had the idea because I knew what the academy was like at Manchester United, and at other places, to try and replicate something like that in Ghana.

And an early mentor and my biggest role model is a man called George Weah, who's the only person ever to win the Ballon d'Or and then become president of their country. And very early on he used to come and visit Right to Dream and he asked me what I was trying to do, and I explained that I was trying to build a standard football academy in Ghana, replicating a lot of the industry norms. And he said, 'Well, you're going to fail'. And I said, 'Why?' He said, 'Because then you're not here for Ghana, you're here for yourself and you're here for an extractive, exploitative industry'. And he said, 'You need to think differently if you want to be successful here'.

And so that was the provocation to imagine differently and the inspiration for me to be the best version of myself. And so that's where we asked ourselves if we were really here for Ghana rather than myself or standard industry, what would it look like? And that's where we said, we shouldn't just go to a village or a community and scout for the best footballer. Why don't we find the most intelligent kid who's good at football who could get a scholarship to a world leading university? And can we really go to a community and only look for boys? If we're here for Ghana shouldn't we look for girls as well? Which is why we have two residential academies in Africa that I think are the only two in the world for girls. So he unlocked the floodgate of allowing me to think the way that...

Think differently.

Yes, that I'm capable of. And so we backed those ideas and we called an elite football academy, Right to Dream, as well. And I always remember in the early days we used to go and play some of the best tournaments in the world, and be insecure about our name because it was Real Madrid and Manchester United and Chelsea, and then, what's Right to Dream? We stuck with those ideas as well that we could tell a different story and have a different brand and then a very different approach. So I'm 100% positive that without being dyslexic we wouldn't have been able to see the problem or create a different solution.

The Right to Dream model has changed the game. It is a fully residential, educational, 100% scholarship football academy. It builds an individual path for every young person, giving them access to some of America's top universities. It is one of the most successful football academies in the world at producing world class players, both men and women. With over 100 professional footballers coming through their academies and 7 or 8 players playing at the World Cup.

Another dyslexic changemaker who used his Dyslexic Thinking to see things differently and solve the problem innovatively is Alex Wright, Co-Founder of the drinks brand DASH. Here, Alex explains how he is helping tackle the problem of global food waste with an innovative solution.

So about 40% of fruit and veg doesn't end up in consumers plates, globally. If I was to reference that in another way, the CO2 that is emitted from food waste, if that was a land mass it would be the third largest CO2 emitting land mass after the US and China. So both in terms of the input that goes into growing this fruit and veg that doesn't end up on consumers plates is very bad, but then also the externality of the CO2 that is emitted from it is then very significant as well.

And so we wanted to try and use this fruit and veg that was rejected by the supermarkets, and when we were looking at products that we could create it into, we saw the beverage category up and down the country was just stuffed full of sugary and artificially filled ingredients. So we thought, great, why don't we buy this fruit and veg, initially from Jack's farm, and then infuse it into spring water, again from Jack's farm, to create a great tasting drink that doesn't have any of the bad stuff.

Latterly, when we were trying to understand how much it would cost to set up the facilities in order to buy the fruit and then infuse it on Jack's farm to create a canned beverage, we realised that a canning line cost about £17 million. We thought, ok, not not even the Virgin StartUp loan will be able to fund that so we’ll park that. And so we started small and just tried try to get the products out there, do lots of tests, learn. And then fast-forward six years, DASH is in 20 international markets, we've got teams in three different markets in the UK, Australia and France. This year we will sell nearly 40 million cans.

We've got big ambitions. The great thing about where we're going is that the macro issues that we're trying to solve of trying to offer consumers a truly healthy soft drink, and also to raise awareness about the issue of food waste, unfortunately those are global phenomenons, not just UK based. So it means that we've got quite a lot of work to do across our 20 different markets and we'll have more in the future.

Here are three key takeaways from this section. One, we don't just work to treat the symptoms, we work to change the systems that create the symptoms in the first place. Two, we take a big-picture view of a problem, see it differently which helps to create innovative solutions. And three, we gather the right people around us who share our vision to create big change.