From the Windsor (Ontario) Star, a feature about Cisco systems CEO John Chambers and his life with dyslexia.

“I can’t explain why, but I just approach problems differently,” he told Fortune magazine five years ago. “I picture a chess game on a multiple-layer dimensional cycle and almost play it out in my mind.”

It is how Chambers moved Cisco from being a unidimensional maker of routers (the Internet’s basic plumbing) to becoming a multi-faceted developer of electronic gear, software and services.

Chambers cannot read sentences, which is why the slides he uses in his presentations include only a couple of words which alert him to the general topic he wants to talk about. “I’m very good at seeing something and memorizing the whole concept,” he says.

Chambers was very adept at hiding his dyslexia.

It wasn’t until the late 1990s — several years after he had been appointed CEO — that he came clean.

… He still has trouble with written directions and he prefers voice mail to e-mail. Now, through Cisco’s products, he is in a position to make his own world and those of other dyslexics somewhat easier.

One reason: Cisco is playing a leading role in creating the video-enabled web.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 20th, 2007 at 4:46 am and is filed under celebrities, dyslexia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post