Australian leadership advisor Mike Meyer has ignited a global conversation with a simple but profound question: "What if we've spent 200 years making people fit the system, then called the people who couldn't fit it the problem?" The question, posed in a recent article, has resonated far beyond his usual audience, with 92% of its reach coming from outside his existing network, spanning Australia, the UK, and the US.
The question stems from Meyer's earlier hypothesis that as much as 40 to 50% of the population could be neuro-complex—a figure that sparked immediate debate. But Meyer insists the real issue isn't the number. "People understandably got caught on the 40 to 50% figure. But the conversation it opened is far more interesting," he says. "What if neurodivergence isn't suddenly exploding? What if we're simply getting better at seeing people who were already here?"
Meyer argues that neurodevelopmental differences are strongly hereditary, yet generations of adults grew up in an era when autism, ADHD, and other differences were poorly recognized or narrowly defined. They didn't suddenly become neurodivergent when their children or grandchildren were diagnosed; they were always there. The problem, he suggests, lies in the systems we built.
Over the past two centuries, schools and workplaces were designed to meet the needs of an industrial society: turn up at the same time, sit still, follow the process, work the same hours, communicate in expected ways. These systems worked, but Meyer contends that we confused what worked for the system with what was normal for humans. "We built a world that needed people to behave predictably, then decided the people who didn't behave that way were the unusual ones," he explains.
The world those systems were built for is rapidly changing, and Meyer sees this as a catalyst moment. "The idea that weird might be normal isn't new to me. What's different now is that it feels more relevant, more visible, and perhaps more obvious than ever before," he says. He emphasizes that "normal" doesn't necessarily mean natural, and that the conditions of the industrial age are giving way to more flexible ways of working, communicating, and leading.
Meyer is careful not to suggest that everyone is neurodivergent, or that 40 to 50% of people are disabled. Instead, he asks a more uncomfortable question: How much human capability have we overlooked because our definition of normal was too narrow? "For some people, neurodivergence is profoundly disabling. We shouldn't pretend otherwise," he acknowledges. "But for others, part of the problem may have been the collision between the person and a system built around somebody else's way of functioning. Change the environment, and you don't change the person's neurology. You change the collision."
The popularity of the conversation suggests that people are ready to ask bigger questions about neurodivergence than just how many people have a diagnosis. Meyer welcomes challenges to his hypothesis, but he believes the underlying issue is undeniable: "Maybe the people weren't always the problem. Maybe sometimes it was the system we were asking them to fit."
The article sparking the conversation, "We're Not All Neurodivergent. So Why Does It Suddenly Look That Way?", is available on M31's website and LinkedIn. His original hypothesis is detailed in "Beyond Diagnosis: What If We've Been Counting the Wrong People?" on M31's website.
