If you have a measure of authority at work, I need you to help people like me. Specifically, neurodivergent individuals in the workplace contemplating or being forced to quit.
How can we avoid this? People managers, I invite you to please reflect on the suggestions below. A little patience and flexibility go a long way.
Seek to understand your colleagues and their behaviour. Often there is an underlying reason behind why a person does certain things. Knowing these reasons doesn’t excuse certain actions but it often helps to explain them. Furthermore, it often makes it easier to react with kindness and compassion.
How can all this be achieved? Have regular communication with all team members. Doing this can help to keep everyone relaxed and comfortable. Sometimes the reason why a person behaves in a particular way will naturally come out. If not, you can go into a chat with the goal of finding out more about a particular behaviour.
To help them open up you might mention some of the things you do that don’t immediately make sense to people. Try to naturally raise the trait in the conversation and make it very clear that what they are doing is not “wrong”. You just want to find out more about it for your own understanding so that you can support them in the best way.
My second brief step to help get the best out of your neurodivergent colleagues is to provide regular feedback. Due to the struggles related to our ADHD we tend to be worried that we have done something wrong or that we are not productive enough. A little consistent reassurance can massively boost our confidence.
Conversely, we may also be unaware when we have made a mistake, offended someone or done something our manager is not happy about. Often when the characteristic is first noticed, it’s no big deal. It’s nothing more than a minor irritation. Simply having a quiet word will allow the matter to be put to rest straight away. Sadly, this is not what often occurs.
Many times, I have experienced my unusual traits being seen as “odd”, criticised behind my back and then several weeks later all of them being flagged completely unexpectedly as development issues during an appraisal. By this time, things have usually escalated to the point where my manager is upset or even angry by the time he finally confronts me. This does not usually end well for several reasons.
- I’m upset that these matters are being tackled weeks later instead of when they happened. I don’t feel that my manager has my best interests at heart or is granting me the best chance of success.
- I will often not say the right thing. and inadvertently make matters worse due to lack of advance knowledge and preparation.
- I am then forced to try and make complicated personality changes in a short space of time. Completely masking significant parts of my personality is draining and unsustainable.
All this unpleasantness can be avoided by providing regular feedback.
So, what are my takeaway messages?
- Seek to gain insight into your teammates’ thinking and why they do certain things.
- Provide regular feedback.
Of course, there are other more specific things you can do to assist neurodivergent employees. I may well cover some of these in a future article. Yet, you will find that applying the above two points is an excellent starting point. You can skyrocket the productivity of your team whilst helping to enrich many lives.
