Global Diversity Practice: From an internal taster to practical neuroinclusion
A focused internal learning session helped Global Diversity Practice assess Divergent Thinking's approach and demonstrated how the approach could support future collaboration.
Project snapshot
Organisation: Global Diversity Practice
Relationship: Partner case study
Sector: Diversity, equity and inclusion consultancy
Format: Internal 60-minute session, partnership development and joint proposal work
Date: From 4 September 2025
Audience: Global Diversity Practice's internal team and prospective joint clients
The brief
Partnerships between consultancies carry a particular credibility test. The prospective partner needs to understand not only what a specialist knows, but how that knowledge is communicated, how lived experience is handled and whether the working approach will translate into a coherent offer for clients.
Global Diversity Practice invited Divergent Thinking to deliver a one-hour internal session. The design was deliberately transparent: 45 minutes on The Abstract Idea of Neurodiversity, ten minutes showing the consultancy approach and five minutes for questions.
The session therefore served two purposes. It was useful learning in its own right, and it gave the team direct experience of Divergent Thinking's facilitation before deciding whether to create a more formal relationship.
Why the brief matters
The CIPD's Neuroinclusion at Work report found that 23% of surveyed employers were doing nothing to create a neuroinclusive workplace, while only 30% had carried out all-staff education or awareness activity in the previous two years. Training can be a useful entry point, but only when it gives people something more precise than a list of conditions.
Acas guidance on neurodiversity at work emphasises that support should focus on the barriers a person experiences and should not depend on somebody having or sharing a diagnosis. That needs-first principle is relevant across employment, education, events and public engagement: make common processes easier to navigate, then respond to the individual in front of you.
For buyers and partners, the important question is therefore not simply whether neurodiversity was mentioned. It is whether the work was connected to the audience's real decisions, facilitated accessibly and supported by evidence proportionate to the claim being made.
What Divergent Thinking contributed
The learning explored why neurodiversity is simple to define in the abstract but more complex to apply responsibly. Nat Hawley connected applied neuroscience and lived experience with practical choices about communication, expectations and environment.
The consultancy walkthrough made the method visible: start with the real problem, involve people affected by the system, distinguish broad good practice from individual adjustment and agree what evidence would show useful change. The closing Q&A created room to test assumptions and discuss how specialist work could sit inside a wider diversity practice.
Following the session, the relationship moved into partnership development. A memorandum of understanding was exchanged and signed, and the organisations later collaborated on a client proposal. The end client did not proceed, so this case does not describe that proposal as a delivered client engagement.
How the work drew on lived experience and neuroinclusive practice
Divergent Thinking's approach starts with a practical premise: neuroinclusion is not achieved by asking everybody to reveal a diagnosis and then attaching a standard checklist. It begins by noticing where the design of work, learning or communication creates unnecessary friction, then combining better defaults with individual support.
Nat Hawley brings personal neurodivergent experience into the work, but does not present that experience as universal. First-person insight is used to make an abstract barrier recognisable—for example, the energy required to decode vague instructions or to perform confidence in a fast discussion—before returning to the question of what an organisation can change.
The learning itself models the principles it recommends. Content is clearly sequenced; important ideas are made visible as well as spoken; examples are concrete; reflection is not dependent on being the fastest voice in the room; and participants are given language they can reuse after the session. These choices support a wide range of people without requiring anyone to disclose personal information in public.
What the evidence shows
The immediate written feedback described the learning as a 'very engaging and thought-provoking session'. More materially, the team concluded that Nat was a better fit as a partner on neuroinclusion solutions. The signed partnership document and later proposal collaboration verify that the session progressed into a formal working relationship.
This is evidence of partner confidence and commercial readiness, not proof of end-client impact. The distinction is valuable: it shows how expertise was assessed and integrated without implying that an uncommissioned proposal produced outcomes.
A very engaging and thought-provoking session.
Global Diversity Practice, post-session feedback
What other organisations can take from this case
The value of a case study is not that another organisation should copy every detail. It is that the design choices make a useful starting point for a similar decision.
Let a prospective partner experience the work before packaging a joint offer.
Explain the consultancy method as clearly as the subject matter.
Use a written partnership agreement to clarify roles and expectations.
Record proposal collaboration without presenting an unawarded proposal as delivery.
Treat partner confidence as one form of evidence, separate from participant impact.
A practical blueprint for similar work
The first step is to define the behaviour or experience that needs to change. 'Raise awareness' is rarely specific enough. A better brief might ask managers to make expectations clearer, help facilitators offer more than one participation route, or enable a team to recognise and reduce cognitive overload.
Next, involve people with relevant lived experience while protecting choice and confidentiality. Lived experience should influence the design and interpretation of the work; it should not become a demand that one employee educate everybody else or represent an entire community.
Then make the desired practice observable. Clear agendas, written follow-up, examples, pauses, predictable routes to support and flexible ways to contribute are easier to use and evaluate than a general promise to be inclusive.
Finally, agree proportionate evidence. Immediate feedback can show relevance and confidence. A 30–90 day follow-up can test adoption. Process data can show whether an agreed change became part of normal work. Each measure answers a different question, and none should be stretched beyond what it can support.
Building a stronger evidence trail
A credible evidence plan begins before delivery. Record the intended audience, the decision the work is meant to influence and the smallest useful set of measures. If a percentage will be published, retain the number of respondents and the total invited to respond. If a quotation will be used, preserve the exact wording, attribution, date and context.
Immediate satisfaction, learning, intended action, observed behaviour and organisational result are different levels of evidence. A strong case study can be valuable with only the first one or two levels, provided the limitation is stated. What undermines trust is presenting a positive comment as proof of sustained change or implying that delivery alone caused a wider outcome.
For a future follow-up, a short question is often enough: what, if anything, did you change after the session, and what became easier or clearer as a result? Specific examples are more useful than an unqualified claim that the organisation is now neuroinclusive.
Further reading and verification
Planning something similar?
Divergent Thinking designs evidence-informed neurodiversity training and practical workplace programmes for employers, education providers, charities and professional communities. The work combines applied neuroscience, lived experience and accessible facilitation. Contact nat@divergentthinking.uk to discuss the audience, the real behaviour you want to change and the evidence worth collecting.
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