Why Temple Grandin Believes Visual Thinkers Can Pursue An Impactful Career

Have you ever asked yourself what kind of thinker you are? Are you visual, kinesthetic, auditory, or verbal?

Visual thinkers see images in their mind's eye— they include everyone from object visualizers with a knack for design and problem-solving to those who are more mathematically inclined and excel at pattern recognition and systemic thinking.

Even though visual thinkers constitute a far greater proportion of the population than previously believed, we live in a language-filled world. This sidelines visual thinkers, screening them at school and passing them over in the workplace.

Temple Grandin hopes to change that perception and help others understand the benefit of those who think in pictures.

Whether by transforming how we think about autism or through her work on animal behavior, Temple Grandin has never stopped following—and driving—the research on what makes minds tick. As a result, she is the voice of visual thinking in professional and popular circles.

Her bestselling memoir Thinking in Pictures (later turned into an award-winning biopic starring Claire Daines) broke ground on neurodiversity, transforming scientific investigation and public understanding.

In her most recent book, Visual Thinking, she again reframes the conversation. She shows the path forward in her mission to discover how people think and transform our understanding of how our brains are wired.

A Trailblazer in the Autistic Community

Ms. Grandin was born in Boston, Massachusetts. At age two, she was not verbal and showed all the signs of autism. Fortunately, her mother defied the doctors' advice and kept her out of an institution. Instead, she sought help elsewhere. After years of therapy, intensive teaching, and mentoring by her high school science teacher all helped her learn to speak and paved the way for her career as a scientist, author, groundbreaking animal advocate, and livestock equipment designer.

When the movie Temple Grandin was released in 2010, it introduced the world to this remarkable journey. Ms. Grandin quickly became an unlikely hero to neurodivergent people everywhere. Particularly as a parent of a neurodivergent child diagnosed with autism in 2012, the film was a comfort in showing me how an autistic person could channel their unique gifts into a brilliant career.

Visual Thinkers And Hidden Gifts

"I didn't know when I was in my 20s that other people thought in words," explained Grandin. "I assumed everybody thought in pictures. And when I wrote Thinking in Pictures originally, I thought all people with autism thought in pictures. And then, after reading some reviews of the book, I started thinking about people I've met. I figured out that autistic people's thinking falls into three categories: visual thinker/logic thinker, and musical/mathematical thinker."

With her latest book released in October 2022, Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions, she uses cutting-edge research to take us inside the world of visual thinking to reframe the conversation of neurodiversity and show how different types of thinkers impact our world.

For example, there is a common misconception that if you are autistic, you automatically excel at a career in IT, coding, or being a developer.

"The IT is the mathematical mind," she said. "The mistake that's being made is it's only a third of the neurodiverse people. You're not picking up our mechanics: my kind of mind is mechanics, artists, photographers, and anything having to do with working with animals. I'm also getting a lot of interest in pasture rotation and regenerative farming. We visual thinkers would be really good at that, too. Only a third of them can do the computer route, and that's the mathematical mind, and the math and music often go together."

Why Businesses Would Benefit From Neurodivergent Employees

A conservative estimate is about 50,000-60,000 autistic people turn 18 annually. They graduate from high school and are ready to take on college and careers, yet four in 10 adults with autism never work for pay between high school and their early 20s.

Grandin feels that it's not enough for employers to know that neurodivergent individuals exist simply—they need to understand that they have different focuses and strengths.

"The first thing they have to know, and I don't care what kind of corporation it is, is that different kinds of thinking exist," Grandin explained. "I did a Zoom call with a big bank, and they hired some of the verbal autistics to sell financial products. So your 'word thinkers' that love sports statistics and stuff have some of the greatest successes in highly specialized sales: cars because they knew all the details of each car on the lot, financial products, and specialized business insurance. It's what I'm going to call specialized sales - where you're appreciated for knowledge of a specialized thing."

Talent, creativity, and know-how abound in autistic people, and countless industries could benefit from their contributions and innovations. Like anyone, however, it's about discovering each individual's talent and supporting their efforts to excel.

"I tell corporations: many human resources people will be highly social verbal thinkers," shared Grandin. "I was just talking to an airline and said, 'That super-good mechanic? He is not going to interview well at the HR department. Likewise, the super-good IT person is not going to interview well.' So these people need to show the work to people that will appreciate that work. For example, show the computer code they can do to the IT department or show photography or design work to someone who will appreciate it. Or, for the mechanic, show a beautiful engine he's worked on — show that to the maintenance director. It must be shown to the maintenance department, not the HR department, because these people will not be super-social."

There are many reasons to consider hiring neurodiverse individuals. For example, a study done in 2018 by Accenture, AAPD, and Disability found of the companies they researched that hired those on the spectrum, they achieved, on average, 28% higher revenue, twice the net income, and 30% higher economic profit margins compared with other companies in the same sample.

In addition, The Harvard Business Review supports employing people with autism  as a competitive advantage. They say the results include increased morale, improved products and services, higher productivity, and ultimately increased bottom lines. 

Advice For Parents And Autistic Individuals

A statistic often shared is that 85% of people who are autistic are unemployed. Ms. Grandin, though, sees this exclusion from the workforce as more of a new development.

"I have grandfathers always coming up to me and telling me they're on the spectrum. They tend to figure that out when their kids get diagnosed," she states. "The difference is that I believe that grandfathers grew up using tools. They grew up having a paper route and learning to work. The people I worked with had all these patents—they took shop in school or grew up fixing cars. That's their way in. For my kind of mind, which would be mechanical stuff, the kids aren't getting exposed to it. They're not fixing cars now. I know two people: a single welding class was the gateway to a gigantic business, and one is autistic, and the other is not."

For these reasons, Ms. Grandin encourages exposure to hands-on work that connects with an autistic child's unique skills and thought processes.

"One of the big problems today is I'm seeing too many kids getting locked into the label of autistic," said Grandin. "They're not learning word skills. I also see parents holding them back. I know 16-year-olds, fully verbal, never going shopping for themselves."

"I tell parents, I know paper routes may be gone, but look at church volunteer jobs, farmer's markets, walking dogs for other people, building things, and learning about cars. Just avoid any jobs that are chaotic to avoid super-multitasking horribleness!"

Overall, whether you are a business leader, parent, or educator, or want to understand the people around you better, Visual Thinking aims to show that when we fail to encourage and develop the talents and skills of people who think differently, we fail to integrate ways of learning and to believe that benefit and enrich society.