5.1 Big picture thinking

Dyslexics make connections across complex issues, subjects, and data, which others often don’t see. This is known as the big picture processing skill.

When it comes to communicating, this allows us to connect the dots and gain a big picture understanding of the subject.

Many become skilled journalists and TV presenters, helping the audience to make sense of world events and situations that are constantly evolving. Plus, hear why the world’s best communicators don’t have to be the world’s best spellers, from the co-founder of Axios, Roy Schwartz, and the SVP & Chief Communications Officer at LinkedIn, Nicole Leverich.

   Dyslexics are big picture thinkers

Timing: 15 minutes

Kate hears how dyslexic communicators use their big picture thinking to make sense of evolving situations.

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KATE GRIGGS

The first reason why dyslexics make powerful communicators is we make sense of the big picture. The Dyslexic Thinking skills of reasoning and communication.

The dyslexic brain is wired differently. This means we're often able to connect stories and see patterns in narratives where others may not. This makes us skilled at understanding big ideas or evolving situations and explaining them to others. It's a fact that's rooted in neuroscience.

As MRI brain scanning shows, research carried out by Dr. Manuel Casanova while at University of Kentucky School of Medicine found that dyslexic brains have a bias to long-distance connections. They have a longer distance between axons and mini columns, which leads to the big picture processing skill. This allows dyslexics to make connections across complex issues, subjects, and data which others often don't see. When it comes to communicating, this allows us to connect the dots and gain a big picture understanding of the problem.

Many of us become skilled journalists and TV presenters, helping our audience to make sense of world events and situations that are constantly evolving. CNN news anchors past and present, Robyn Curnow and Anderson Cooper, are both dyslexic. Thinking about his role as a communicator, Addison Cooper says: “A lot of compelling stories in the world aren't being told, and the fact that people don't know about them compounds the suffering.”

For over 30 years, Anderson Cooper has been reporting on war zones and humanitarian crisis, and using his Dyslexic Thinking skills to connect the dots, make sense of the big picture, and communicate this clearly to his viewers around the world. It's a skill he shares with former CNN journalist Robyn Curnow. She spent over two decades at CNN breaking the biggest stories and interviewing everyone from Nelson Mandela to Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. Let's hear from her now.

ROBYN CURNOW

You know, the funny thing is I didn't choose television. I didn't even choose journalism, to come into it. It kind of chose me. To write for television, particularly television news, is like a dyslexic dream because you have to write often in bold capital letters, the sentences are simple, you're writing to pictures, and you need to take away all useless information. Anything that you put into a television news report has to be the real essence of the story.

And then of course there's storytelling. Generally, TV news is an amazing place to be able to trust your dyslexic instincts, which is: look at the big picture, identify the story, tell the story, and create a narrative that that is simplified so that an audience can understand the main issues.

KATE GRIGGS

Her ability to quickly summarise a situation or assess the facts and present an angle comes as a result of her Dyslexic Thinking skills of reasoning and communication. While she shone in the newsroom, Robyn struggled at school and didn't have her Dyslexic Thinking spotted until later in life.

ROBYN CURNOW

It was a relief to know I was dyslexic as an adult. It was also quite a stunning piece of self-knowledge, because it explained so much. And without having to sound like, I don't know, Spider-Man's uncle or one of the Avengers, it suddenly dawned on me that my greatest weakness was also my greatest strength.

KATE GRIGGS

In order to make sense of the big picture, dyslexics often use their multiensory ability to feel, see and understand what's happening around them. This is crucial in humanitarian crises. Former UN advocate Princess Sarah Zeid speaks about how she uses her Dyslexic Thinking to make sense of the big picture.

HRH PRINCESS SARAH ZEID

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 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 8:00 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 to tackle them.

KATE GRIGGS

It's not just humanitarian advocates who use their Dyslexic Thinking to make sense of the big picture. Spies do too. GCHQ, the UK's Cyber and Security Service, have long known the value of dyslexics as communicators, able to see patterns and cut through the noise and make sense of the big picture. Here's former director of GCHQ Jeremy Fleming explaining why dyslexic communicators are crucial to his mission to keep the UK safe; and Charlotte, a dyslexic spy, who explains how her Dyslexic Thinking helps her do what she does.

JEREMY FLEMING

People who think differently, people with dyslexia, are integral to my teams. And when I see dyslexic people in my teams, then they are team players. They can see through the noise to see the facts. They they are really good at simplifying. And in this day and age, when technology is increasing the pace of everything, then those teams have to be more and more effective. So I deliberately go out and look for people who think differently.

CHARLOTTE

As an intelligence analyst, I work in a 24/7 operations center. And I can't go into too much detail on what I do, but I can say that I'm an analyst working on some of the biggest incidents threatening the UK. I'm often looking through a lot of data, and I find that my dyslexia helps me to see the bigger picture and spot patterns that aren't always obvious to everyone else around me. I also find that my approach to finding solutions is very different. I often think quite fast and outside of the box, and this is key to my job.

KATE GRIGGS

Former Head of Communications at GCHQ and Director of National Security Communications at No. 10 Downing Street, Andrew Pike, went on to use exactly these Dyslexic Thinking skills to help bring about peace in places of conflict like Northern Ireland. Joining the dots, seeing patterns, connecting people and ideas that didn't want to be connected. Like Robyn Curnow, he didn't have his Dyslexic Thinking spotted until later in his career, too.

ANDREW PIKE

I suppose it's worth saying that I never knew that I was a dyslexic. I was about, gosh, 42 or something, I think, when I was diagnosed... I hate that term, diagnosed, by the way.

KATE GRIGGS

Identify, we use.

ANDREW PIKE

Yeah, identify is a much better word because I don't feel as if I'm suffering from anything with my dyslexia. And honesty and integrity, all those things I link back to my dyslexic way of thinking. Because I suppose before I knew I was dyslexic, I was forced to develop those underdeveloped muscles when I started off, maybe to compensate for the fact that I wasn't this linear, you know, sort of Oxbridge thinker.

KATE GRIGGS

Yeah. And I think you describe the ability to empathise with others and get them to receive the ideas that you're wanting them to receive, I think.

ANDREW PIKE

That's diplomacy, right? In diplomacy, what are you trying to do? You're trying to get somebody to do something they may not want to do. How do you do that? Well, if you read, you know, Kissinger or whatever, you will read a lot about the strategic approach. And of course, that's important. Part of it which is not written or talked about enough is charm, likability, honesty, trustworthiness, decentness.

I'm not being pious. I've got many, many, many things wrong over my life. But I tell you what, that is a thread to how you come at these things will get you much further in my judgment than having this beautifully laid plan and sticking rigidly down the middle to it. And some of the best diplomats I've worked with are, you know, they do nail those things.

KATE GRIGGS

While Andy's Dyslexic Thinking skills have undoubtedly helped him to achieve remarkable things, when he first discovered his dyslexia his first instinct was to hide it, like three in four dyslexics in the workplace.

ANDREW PIKE

I remember being devastated when I was told, thinking, I can't let anybody know because, you know, I've got ‘communicator’ in my title. You know, you can't be a dyslexic communicator. Actually, Kate, it was many years later in GCHQ when you said to me, I think when we first knew each other, ‘what are you talking about?’ I thought god, no, it's rather a good thing to be dyslexic communicator. So of course I've talked publicly about...

KATE GRIGGS

Dyslexics are brilliant communicators. It's one of our superpowers.

ANDREW PIKE

But I suppose the conflation of the idea with the written word and all that. Written word, by the way, has not really been my problem. I mean, I do take longer to draft complex things out. But for me, it's the way that I process and the way that I think.

KATE GRIGGS

As Andy explains, it's important to see communication not just as the written word. It's the ability to speak so others listen and join you on your mission. It's the ability to sense, read the room, listen carefully, and hear what's not being said. And most importantly, you don't have to be a great speller to be a brilliant communicator.

Many dyslexics are gifted communicators, but struggle with spelling, grammar, or organizing their thoughts on paper. They excel verbally explaining and communicating their ideas in person rather than on paper. But the great news is AI is helping with our challenges, and our strengths have become even more valuable in the workplace. Here's Nicole Leverich, LinkedIn's Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer, speaking at Made By Dyslexia's World Dyslexia Assembly.

NICOLE LEVERICH

I'd make mistakes. I still make mistakes. I'd spell things wrong in email, and I've been taken harshly to task over it. But getting past that first few years, I started to be able to see some of the advantages of being dyslexic. I'm a very creative problem-solver. I'm able to look at things from all sorts of different perspectives, and that's a gift. It's a skill that I have because I am dyslexic.

KATE GRIGGS

Master communicator Roy Schwartz, who co-founded Axios and co-authored the definitive guide to communicating simply and powerfully, Smart Brevity, is the same.

ROY SCHWARTZ

So, I can't spell anything. I can't understand grammar. And I've tried very, very hard to do both, and I still can't do it. To give you some sense of my spelling challenges, sometimes they're so bad that spell check doesn't know what word I'm trying to use. So I have to actually go and use Google and put it in a sentence in order to get it.

And there's some words that baffle me. Because I feel like I'm smart, I know a lot of things. But yet I can't spell the word ‘exercise’. I can't spell the word ‘entrepreneurship’. And so often I have to try and find a different word because I can't spell it at the time and I don't have the time to, you know, go look it up. So I'll just try and use a different word.

So that's been a challenge, and especially when you're in media and journalism and I'm writing to other people who are professional writers, I'm always concerned that I'm not doing a good job or that someone is realizing that I can't spell or can't write correctly. So, that's been very difficult. But luckily, I think things are moving in the right direction for dyslexics in the sense of AI, spell check, grammar check, all of those things are starting to be corrected automatically which is great.

KATE GRIGGS

The skills dyslexics have are the skills the world needs. AI can aggregate. Dyslexic thinkers use their skills, including their communication skills, to innovate. Princess Beatrice sums this up brilliantly.

HRH PRINCESS BEATRICE

When I look at Dyslexic Thinking, I am inspired to see the way that we could probably solve some of the world's biggest problems if we put Dyslexic Thinking in the heart of the narrative. And this is about communication skills. This is about teamwork. This is about collaboration. You know, some of the most important things that we need to have if we are ever going to design a future where technology and humanity can be symbiotic in the successes that we really need to see.

KATE GRIGGS

Here are three key takeaways from this section. One, dyslexics make sense of the big picture. Two, they're good at connecting facts and seeing patterns in narratives where others may not. Three, this helps them understand big ideas or evolving situations and explain them to others.

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