The following is a transcript of our podcast conversation with Vanessa Osorio Brewster Laughlin, Brett Greene, and Dr. Robin Ballard. You can listen to the full episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Sarah
Hello, and welcome to Humans Beyond Resources, an HR podcast by Reverb, where we cover topics from culture to compliance. Reverb believes that every decision a leader makes reverberates throughout the organization, from hiring your first employee to training your entire workforce. We believe in building healthy, inclusive cultures that engage your team. I’m your host, Sarah Wilkins.
Welcome back to part two of Supporting Neurodiversity in your organization with Vanessa Loughlin, Brett Green, and Dr. Robin Ballard. Now, how, as people leaders, can we support neurodiversity in our organizations? And maybe I’ll start with Dr. Ballard and see what thoughts you have.
Dr. Ballard
Sure, yeah. I think it depends a lot on the different manifestations. What are the sorts of people you’re dealing with, what are their strengths and weaknesses. It is very typical within folks, say, on the autism spectrum or with ADHD, to have real strengths and weaknesses, like have a more spiky profile of things that they’re good at and things that are difficult for them. So we’ve talked about working memory problems in folks with ADHD, with folks on the spectrum, it’s often around processing speed, so they might just need a little more time to get there. But they’re going to get there, or they’re going to go do the project in a new or different way, potentially one that solves a problem no one else could solve. They often need a little more time and space to do it. They also really benefit from super clear communication, because one of the difficulties that’s at the core of autism is around social communication is difficulties understanding abstraction, metaphor, and kind of getting the gist of things. So you may feel, for example, as a supervisor, you’ve been pretty clear saying someone asks you, like, well, when is this due? And you go, oh, sometime in the next week or two, and that might be fine for a lot of your folks. They may either know you and know what that really means is by the end of next week, or they might get the gist of, like, well, kind of infer, well, the quarter ends at this point, so I know to do it by then. That may be devastatingly complicated to someone on the autism spectrum who really needs you to, say, Friday at 05:00 p.m., right, and have that level of clarity. Otherwise they may not be able to put the pieces together on it themselves. So depending on the profiles of the folks you’re working with, the accommodations are going to look different. So starting with learning a little bit about these different conditions and then having direct conversations as best you can about where are your strengths, where your weaknesses. Often for both ADHD and autism, one of the superpowers is often hyper focus and hyper intensity. They can take really deep dives on topics and get really, really into things in a way that neurotypical folks will just kind of go, okay, I’ve learned enough. And no, the folks with ADHD, autism are still going. So there are times when you can really pull in those strengths, and other times you really have to work around some of the weaknesses.
Sarah
Yeah. Thank you, Vanessa and Brett, anything to add there?
Vanessa
Yeah, I almost started clapping when Robin brought up the Spiky profile. I encourage anyone who’s not already very familiar with that term to Google it. You will get some really interesting content, articles, videos, et cetera. So the Spiky profile, it’s a really beautiful way, I think, in terms of a visual, to have this idea of who’s sort of average or who’s middle of the bell curve, and then to realize that all of us, to some degree, have strengths and weaknesses. And for some of us who are neurodivergent, those can be even more extreme. So what that can look like is, for some people, it can mean that just piggyback off the example from Robin for a topic that they’re very interested in, maybe it’s what they do every day at work, or maybe it’s a special project. They might go so deep into this subject that they might spend an evening dedicated to it, or work day. They might kind of move other things aside to prioritize it. And in that element, in that environment, or that sort of state rather of hyper focus, they’re able to come up with, create new ideas, creativity. Sometimes it’s all about just even producing at a higher, just really faster and more. I remember I used to write papers, and it would either take me like, 10 hours to write a page, or I could write ten pages in an hour, right? So there’s sort of like, nothing in the middle. And I think that as a manager and as a leader, if you can not only from the standpoint of supporting the difference in your organization, but frankly, taking advantage of it, the question that we ask new hires and we ask again and again in people’s first, I would say six months to a year. And we even bring it up over time because things can change or people can learn more about themselves. But we ask them, what do you really not like to do? I’m going to use it, Robin, again, use the metaphor. What’s like kryptonite? What is it? Like, the closer you get to it. It’S sort of like, oh, God, no. Thank you, I’m having a reaction to this. But we also say, what are your tennis balls? One of the things that the example is like a lab, or like, I have a black lab, and if tennis ball is in the room, he hears the word tennis ball. If he sees it, especially, he will be laser focused on that until he gets to chew on it, play with it, play fetch. So we ask people, what are those things that you’re not only naturally drawn to, where you don’t mind doing, but the things that you love and you’re passionate about. And when you apply that mindset consistently of not only supporting people to do the work that maybe they just have to do to get things done, giving them more than one way to, let’s say, enter their time into a time tracking system, but at the same time, you’re always having that mind of, how can I really assign projects? How can I support roles and responsibilities and design? And if you’re doing that in a way to optimize the strengths, I mean, that’s not only a competitive advantage but it also just makes for a much more pleasant and inclusive work environment as well.
Brett
Well, just kind of to continue with what Vanessa was saying in that type of scenario specifically, let’s say one of the Kryptonite things is writing reports. A lot of times neurodivergent folks think better verbally. And if we had a partner that somebody else on our team or somebody else in the company that they actually love writing reports or organizing or putting those things together and we could talk to them about it, they could put the information down, and then we could just clean it up. For example, if it would take me 5 hours to write that report, that I’m expecting isn’t going to be very good because I know I don’t have the parts of my brain to do that really well, and I have rejection sensitive dysphoria. So I’m worried about my manager, how it’s going to receive, and I spent 5 hours on that. Think of that versus if I could talk to somebody for a half an hour that really helped put that together and then spend anotherteen to 30 minutes finishing that up. And those extra 4 hours, not only was I not spending it, stressed out, freaked out, worried about my competency and all that, but that 4 hours now is being used for things that are my tennis ball, that I am really good at that do move the company forward. So the company is actually winning more by having me have that partner than having me try to figure it out or be in an environment where I’m afraid to share that well, I’m not really that good with writing reports and then have a manager come back and go nobody likes writing reports. And it’s like, yeah, but I don’t have the same parts in my brain which is different. And just general things that might just be kind of common sense things for companies is having ERG groups for neurodivergent folks. If you don’t already having training or coaching for managers or for the neurodivergent folks. And I think just having that education and these conversations where people are experiencing that it’s just part of what we do, then it’s not a thing. Then it’s not this disorder that needs an accommodation where it’s kind of like asking dad for the keys when you’re 16 to go take the car. It’s just like oh yeah, okay, well, if you’re dealing with those things, what can we do that would be better, what ideas you have? Or here are some things that we don’t for some other folks. Is that something that would help you? And again, goes back to universal design, that these are just good human things that kind of help everybody?
Vanessa
I want to bring something up that we’ve talked about but not directly, which is stigma. And I’ve even seen in the chat and some of the direct messages people saying, I didn’t get a diagnosis until I was older either or my spouse or my husband is going through the process right now and it’s really interesting. And so wherever people are either feeling like they identify as maybe neurodivergent all the way to having a formal diagnosis, having maybe part of their family, their children, versus the folks who might say, I just want to be an ally, like this is not a group I identify with, but how can I make a difference? I think I want to kind of speak to the people who would put themselves more in the ally category and say, one of the biggest things that you can do to support others in your organization is just to start to find big and small ways to chip away at the broader stigma that we have within our society. Quick personal story. When I shared with my mother, who is kind of older from South America, different culture, I initially told her that my son had received a diagnosis last year of not only being having ADHD like his mom, but being autistic. Her first response was, no, that’s not really a thing. And that definitely doesn’t apply to my wonderful, brilliant grandson. And with love in her heart, she was expressing a viewpoint that is really playing into that internalized and externalized stigma that this is not just different, this is bad, this is only negative, this is something to be hidden, this is something to be ashamed about. And if you think about it, we actually used to societally refer to people who wore glasses as four eyes and a nerd. And I mean, can you imagine that happening now or thinking that they were like wicked because they were left handed, right? So we have historically, over time had the difference is suppressed, minimized, and then we sort of say it exists, but then it equals something bad, and then we kind of move on to, like it’s kind of actually neutral on its own. And maybe we should just have at least a few left handed scissors at every classroom and not sort of demonize somebody. Because the reality is if you have a switch hitter on your baseball team, that might actually give you a competitive advantage to have righties and lefties. So I think that what we’re in right now. And I appreciate Brett put the comment in the chat about just the increase in diagnoses. That doesn’t mean that more people are necessarily being born with these conditions, but it might just mean that we have a higher level of awareness. And as sort of coming out exists and is happening, what we’re seeing is different reactions. And I mean, I literally have said to people before, yeah, they’re saying like, oh, I’m so add today, meaning I’m so distracted and Stacy or whatever. And I’m like, why actually have ADHD friends? And they’re like, oh, I’m so sorry. Or I’ve even had people say, oh, don’t say that about yourself. I’m like, no, literally,
00:11:39 Vanessa
it’s good to know if you’re going to have that kind of level of self awareness. And so we’ve given some examples already, but two that come to mind would be normalizing conversations about differences in sensory experiences, differences, communication preferences and styles. Differences in a lot of the stress.
Brett
We go through is because we might produce a great outcome, but then we get what we feel like is criticized or judged or poked at about how did we get that answer? It’s like, well, how did you do it? It’s like, I’m not good at taking that, putting it down here, writing it, so that communication translation is really bad. But if it’s a better outcome than you were getting or than you expected, work backwards from that and really value that. Because one thing, again, that makes this really challenging is most folks who are neurodivergent are really high IQ. So there’s areas where we overproduce or people just working together, you just unconsciously pretty quickly go, we make these assessments and oh, that person’s smart, or they’re good at this or good at that. And so if we see that someone is over producing in certain areas or smarter than us in other areas, but they can’t remember where they’re supposed to put the cup in the break room.
Sarah
Yeah. Thank you. Ideas to help support neurodivergent team members as we work in a virtual world with zoom calls, conference calls, slacks. I mean, Vanessa, you hit on this earlier, right? The distractions of the slacks and the emails and the things that come up. So any kind of tactical or examples that you would recommend?
Vanessa
Yeah, I’ll start off with a few. Number one, I use a kind of a clinical term to reference that there are certain technologies that are contraindicated to my brain functions and my sensory experience of the world. So there’s a reason why I do not no longer use Facebook, I no longer use Instagram, and why every single sound and haptic and vibration on my phone, which by the way, takes a long time to turn them all off on an iPhone, are generally in the off mode. And the reason is because of that Robin was talking about, one of the features of ADHD and other forms of neurodivergence is some people might think, oh, it’s distractability and it’s more that when we get the stimulus. You kind of brett mentioned that squirrel right. And so I think one of the things is that people who are maybe neurotypical might think oh gosh, I like to have these alerts, I like to have a little flag come up, I like a noise, I like this, but for somebody else. And again, this depends on the individual. But broadly speaking, this is going to be consistent with ADHD. It’s not that we have a lack of attention. Sometimes it says attention deficit, it’s that we almost have too much attention, we’re too easily pulled into things. So on my team, we don’t use Slack and we try to minimize emails, we also try to minimize direct live meeting time and we save the time that we’re actually working not asynchronously so working live together for sometimes more of the fun stuff or brainstorming. And there’s different fit for purpose. So people use different version of this, whether it’s notion or a Google Doc or mural I think is one of them. But those are all tools that allow you to actually kind of have a virtual whiteboard. So imagine we’re all back in the office and we have in the hallways giant whiteboards where we can add stickies, we can put little magnets with things and what have you. And that is actually again an example of universal design because it serves the similar purpose from a communication and update task assignment and knowledge and collaboration that you might have with Slack or email. But it does actually force you to have a bit more precision of language. You wouldn’t expect someone to go up the whiteboard, a shared whiteboard in a conference room, let’s say in a company and write gibberish on there and have expect anybody to know or be imprecise in language because you’re not necessarily going to be able to say what did you mean by that? Right? But in email constantly we’re writing things and sending things that are kind of not really thought out, so to speak. And so we have found that and that is an example of a tool. Again, this sort of whiteboard approach works a lot better. And slack. If we were to use it, we would probably just use it for fun social stuff. The connection part of working with other people, but knowing that something that might be a useful reminder to one person. Your organization might feel like you’re drowning in distractions and impulses that you can’t look away from. And that can just be and not effective.
Dr. Ballard
To use an example. To be more specific to autism spectrum disorder, eye contact is usually very hard, very confronting for folks on the spectrum. So minimizing the time that they’re going to be doing video calls or required to have their camera on or made to stare at a bunch of faces can be really important too.
Vanessa
I thought of one more thing actually in the pitch for Asynchronous processes. Even when you are working in the same time zone, even when you are working maybe down the hall, is that it allows people of all flavors of neurodivergence to manage their energy a bit better. So you can have, I think, one of the best examples from an ADHD executive specializing executive coach. I work with a woman named Molly Lenz, she uses this example of trying to surf as a surfer when there are no waves. You just can’t surf when there’s no waves. And so you sort of how can I be most productive during the times and get the most experience surfing when the waves are actually big enough to enjoy. And so by creating an environment with a combination of asynchronous and live collaborative tasks and responsibilities, what you’re doing is you’re actually letting people of all different kinds match their energy to the task at hand so that they’re doing the sort of more difficult for them specifically work at a time of day or in a day where maybe they didn’t have a lot of meetings and they could do a deep focus. And so that’s a very great example too of universal design where in our organization we always ask the question can this be done asynchronously and if it can, we’re working from the system design and an.org design process design standpoint to enable that. And that bias has only served us well in many different ways.
Sarah
Great, thank you. And Brett, I have something to add.
Brett
What we’ve been talking about a lot right now are systems. And so if we just think about that one thing that can be really helpful. There’s three different pillars working people on and one of them as far as behaviorally, is fewer steps, systems and anchors. And we’re all making up systems consciously and unconsciously. Leaving your keys by the door is a system and not forget so specifically around what we’re talking about with email and Slack and I’ve talked to Neurodiverse folks that are dealing with five different communication systems in their company and driving them crazy. So the good news about understanding this is executive function we’re working, memory, those kind of things, is that we can create some systems around that as much as we can as an employee to design our time and our day of. When are we going to check those things? Is there a way I could only check those things two or three times a day. And on a company level, it would be awesome if that was kind of created or be like, hey, we’re only expecting you to pick a time before 11:00 a.m and pick a time after 03:00 P.m to do these. Things so that you don’t feel like you missed something because you took 2 hours to answer something on Slack and someone gives you a snarky of neurotypical. Folks, that’s like having two gallons in the morning where you have ten and by 11:00 a.m or twelve, we’re out. Because every decision, everything with organizing, planning, working memory is taking some of that away. If you’re familiar with the spoons concept with autism. Similar way to look at that as by noon we’re low or out, which can create things like irritability later in the day or defensiveness or not being able to do these things that if we have a system to do them knowing when we’re pressure in the morning or at a certain day, then we can try that. If it doesn’t work, try something else. But systems and anchors and fewer steps help us to retain some of that or extend how much executive function work in every tool we have.
Sarah
Great, thank you. And Lauren, you can unmute please and ask your question.
Lauren
Great, thank you so much. Appreciate this conversation and for all of your insights so far. Kind of staying in that same fully remote virtual Workspace, which is our company, but we’re a consulting firm, so our consultants are employees of the company, but they’re often working with clients virtually. And how do you effectively manage those external relationships where you have less control because they’re entering someone else’s environment? And we’re technical writing companies, so all of our team is highly skilled and then you kind of add on these layers of neurodiversity and then we don’t have as much control about what’s happening in those external environments as what we can do to support them internally. So is there anything that we can do to better support them when they’re working in those external situations? How do we just build a better support system for those folks so they can thrive not only when they’re interacting internally, but that they can also thrive externally as well?
Vanessa
I’ll take a stab, so thank you. Laurie, great question. I am a recovering, self professed recovering management consultant. So I totally understand that. Working and collaborating with teams, managing teams, managing client relationships, being on site at a client and needing to kind of in client services, you try your hardest to adjust and adapt to the culture and the norms of the client. That’s part of what we think of as good client services, delivery and adaptability, flexibility of a consultant. I think you actually mentioned the two things about driving and supporting your individuals kind of when they’re on at home base versus when they’re on site. And I love that you are already understanding that those are two very different things. So I continue to encourage that mindset. And I would just say having, I think the relationship with manager and colleagues and having openness in that and again, trying to dial down the stigma at a base level and then also making accommodations and communications that can be a source of restit. It’s a little bit like students who are in school and public school and maybe they don’t have an IEP, they don’t have accommodation. It’s even more important to have changes and support at home because that’s where they can go and they can recharge. So to speak. Same thing for a consultant who is on site, on the client site and then maybe has something to come back to, even if that coming back to is a virtual environment. And then the second thing, I think is that there is a role in an organization, particularly from the engagement manager, whatever you call that main client liaison who might be or how I’m not sure how the consulting firm is structured, but there’s this sort of third party advocacy for your consultants that company can provide upfront with, for example, SOPs right. Standard operating procedures. So to kind of piggyback around Brett saying as a company, saying things like, maybe there’s two times a day before 11:00 a.m. And then after three that certain communications get checked. If you’re laying that out in your initial statement of work or your client agreement or expectations or how you even onboard a new client, then you’re not going to put your consultant in a position of having to make it like, this is special for me. It’s just the way we do things at company consulting firm XYZ, right. That’s just part of all culture. That’s what just works better. So I think that looking and sort of understanding the ways again, that you can in advance advocate for certain expectations and certain standards of how that client relationship is going to work. Again, you’re not just going to benefit your neurodivergent employees, you’re going to really benefit everybody. So kind of like keeping an eye out for those and prioritizing. And if you ask your team, if you ask your consultants, they will tell you, they will tell you the things to prioritize. These are the top five, three to five things that if we could make standard in the way we operate with all of our clients, put it out there up front, that could make a big difference just right from the get go.
Sarah
Thank you, Vanessa. Dr. Ballard.
Dr. Ballard
Yeah. So, thinking about prepping your folks on your side of it too. One of the most common comorbidities for all forms of neurodiversity is anxiety. So I don’t know the stats for ADHD, but for autism, something like 60% of adults with autism also have a co occurring anxiety disorder which absolutely feeds into how they process information, how they see the world, how they’re going to be able to interact with people. And one of the things so anxiety tends to cause two things, avoidance and rigidity. And so we want to as much as possible help pre planning and going after and approaching instead of avoiding around the things that are going to be difficult. So we know that rigidity is also a feature of autism and so that’s harder to work on. Like they may still need things to be certain ways. But one of the things you can do in advance is help prepare people for. Here are some of the ways they might react. Okay. If they seem happy with it. Here’s what you might do if they’re not happy with – If you can’t really tell, how might you ask? And sort of walking through and role playing and scripting some of those things in advance can be really useful for folks too. Even something as simple as if they have to physically go to a new location. Can you do that the day before so you know where you’re going and you take that piece that is causing anxiety out of the equation so that you’re leaving people with as much energy to bring to the actual interaction that they can. So some of the prep work in advance, even if it seems small, can make a really big difference, not only in terms of how much anxiety they’re actually experiencing, but their experience of your support of them going, okay, I know these things are difficult and we want to help you with this.
Sarah
Great. Thank you. Parting thoughts from our guests.
Vanessa
Start by saying thank you for being here. I don’t know from your names, obviously, who identifies, has a diagnosis, maybe lives with somebody who’s neurodivergent and who is thinking, I’m really just here to understand, open my mind and in any way possible be an ally. I also don’t know how many folks in the audience are like, I think I’m going to find someone like Dr. Robin Ballard, a psychologist, to help me understand what is the nature of me and the way I show up in this world. I remember I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Robin for a long time and when I finally got my formal diagnosis, it was like, imagine having a piece of paper like this answers so many questions and this is just such a great starting point. But I remember, I think it was either you or me or together. Rob when we talked about it’s, like going your whole life with the wrong instruction manual, and then all of a sudden somebody gives you the right instruction manual and you look at the numbers on the front and you look
Vanessa
at the numbers, like, on you as like a robot or whatever, and you say, these numbers actually match. And, oh, my gosh, isn’t it good to know the operating instructions for me and as an individual? Because, gosh, life just gets a lot richer and better and more interesting. And so if you are going to benefit from that kind of knowledge or you’re going to benefit from an organization where you can advocate for change, whether or not you again identify as Neurodiversion or not, just know that you’re going to make a huge difference for many, many different people in your life. And it’s a worthy endeavor. So just thank you for being here, I guess would be my closing thought.
Sarah
Thank you.
Dr. Ballard
I would totally agree with that. And add that these differences we’ve been talking about today can be amazing and it’s really worth tackling the challenges that come with it. To see what strengths emerge. And having just a diversity of thought, opinion style in your organizations does, over time, make them more flexible, more adaptable, and better able to serve a wide variety of people. Really worth tackling these challenges for all of your employees and for the folks. You work with
Sarah
Thank you.
Brett
They kind of covered it. Thank you for having me here, and I appreciate the opportunity, and especially I’m learning so much from Vanessa and Dr. Ballard also, which is fantastic. And I guess just like what we talked about earlier, a little bit of education and loving kindness or grace goes a long way in creating systems. And Dr. Balor brought up anxiety is such a prevalent experience for all of us that even just having that question at your company or with people of, like, what kind of things do you have anxiety about around your job? If they feel safe enough to share it, to understand what can be created. Because little things, like a lot of us sponge, and then we go away and we process, and then we decide or answer. And so if we’re in half hour meetings where people are throwing the talking stick around, and it’s like, okay, what do you think about this? What’s the answer? And they hand it to you. That’s a nightmare for us. But if we understand things like that and have different processes built around it, I guess Vanessa kind of went into this just one simple process, and all of a sudden, that’s a huge exponential change. So a couple of small changes that are just informed by a little education around how people are experiencing things differently, neurodivergent or otherwise, can just create some really wonderful, strong, more powerful systems in the company that make people feel more fulfilled, want to work there, love being there, and pay for everyone?
Vanessa
Great.
Sarah
Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of Humans Beyond Resources. Visit Reverb people.com to find free resources, subscribe to our newsletter and connect with our team. If you haven’t already, subscribe to stay up to date on all of our upcoming episodes. We look forward to having you as part of our community.
