Let's Make Our Workplaces Inclusive for Neurodiversity
By Emily Layfield - October 2024
This article was originally published on the wonderful Cathy Rashidian's newsletter for ADHD Awareness Month 2024
During ADHD awareness month, there can be a tension between our desire to raise awareness and help fight stigma in the wider world and our knowledge that disclosing our own diagnosis isn’t always safe when so many preconceptions and limiting beliefs can still exist in the organizations and people with whom we work. Many of my clients struggle with decisions like whether to disclose their ADHD diagnosis in the workplace, and whether and how to navigate seeking out workplace accommodations that could improve their experience or productivity. It can be a high stakes decision if it feels like your livelihood might be at stake. But the good news is that lots of the steps our workplaces could take to welcome neurodiversity benefit not just those with disclosed ADHD but people with many types of brains. Even if we’re not ready to shout ADHD from the rooftops, we can still take steps this month to advocate for inclusive practices in our workplaces that will benefit all - whether we’re in leadership positions and can make direct changes or whether we’re an individual contributor and our influence might look different. Here are some ideas to get the ball rolling:
Celebrate differences. All of the people on your team have different strengths and challenges that come along with their different brains. When we explicitly recognize the strengths that each team member brings and seek out complementary strengths in groups rather than incentivizing conformity, we make our organizations safer places for different brains to find their place to thrive.
Give clear signals of respect and support. Many folks with ADHD struggle with rejection sensitivity and especially benefit from signals that their team has their back, trusts them, and believes in their work, but this practice is beneficial whether or not that is a particular challenge. It’s also much easier to receive critical feedback if you believe that the person providing it believes you to be competent and worthy of respect and admiration.
Approach with curiosity and assume positive intent. Often, when dealing with brains different than ours, we will find ourselves surprised by how someone has approached a situation or project, and when we’re surprised it’s easy to jump to negative or judgmental conclusions. When we can catch our surprise and turn it towards curiosity, often we’ll discover that our instinctive judgment would have been incorrect or incomplete. Curiosity opens things up, shame shuts things down.
Honestly self-reflect. Over the years we all absorb a lot of ‘shoulds’ about how we ought to work, what we ought to be good at, and what to expect from the people around us. Often when we can switch our focus away from conforming to those preconceptions and instead get clarity around what helps us do our best work, we can find ways to play those factors out at work and communicate our preferences to others. For example, I have often found success communicating with managers what kinds of projects I especially love to do, what tasks I would love to find ways to minimize, and what level of support would be helpful on a given project. On projects heavy with tasks that I tend to avoid, I will ask for a lot more intermediate deadlines and accountability support than I generally need for projects I find more intrinsically enjoyable.
Co-create explicit norms. Diversity often involves differences in experiences, assumptions, habits, and preferences, and when not called out, sometimes differences can create tension if there hasn’t been agreement on how diverse team members will bring these differences into their work together. There are lots of ways to create norms, but here’s an example from my experience at a consulting firm: we were often shifting teams and working with multiple managers at once, and whenever joining a new team or working with a new manager, we started the relationship with working styles conversations, where we talked about the types of work tasks we loved and avoided, the communication styles that worked well and pitfalls we’ve had in previous working relationships, and what clues teammates should look for to know if we were struggling. It was a two way conversation, with both managers and direct reports sharing their experiences and preferences. This kind of conversation can open the door to continuing to reflect on and call out moments of confusion or tension, and also serve as a forum for naming or negotiating some types of accommodations - usually without explicitly stating that we were creating accommodations. It can also be helpful to explicitly state that perfection is not the expectation.
Agree on expectations. I have often seen coaching clients whose manager gives them a project without many parameters and communicates that it’s up to them how to approach it, but then when the project is complete, they suddenly receive lots of critical feedback - or even a directive to start over - stemming from the approach not matching their manager’s expectations, which can be extremely demoralizing. Sometimes we’re blind to our own assumptions until we realize they haven’t been matched, but the more we can learn from those moments and seek to communicate in advance, the better. This is especially common when managers and staff have different brain types. Different brains often lead to different approaches, which can often be a good thing. Either communicating the expectations clearly in advance, if expectations do exist, or genuinely trusting the project owner’s approach, even if it is surprising, would be much more effective. Agreeing in advance on what “done” looks like and what the non-negotiable factors are can save a lot of time, even if they sometimes take a bit more time at the beginning.
Think outside the box. Often when we find ourselves on a team with diverse brain types, the optimal way of working together might not be the most common way, or the way we’ve worked in the past, or aligned to the perceptions of hierarchy associated with our roles or tasks. “That’s how we’ve always done it” isn’t a good enough reason on its own to continue the same approach if we want to benefit from neurodiversity on our teams, and all of the creativity and innovation that can come with it. Instead, try thinking about what the task requires and which people are best positioned to take which parts of it on, and reflect on why.
Iterate. Often we can get caught up in black and white thinking, or paint projects as successes or failures, when most of the time there were some things that worked well, some things that didn’t work as well, and some things that could maybe work better with some tweaks in any given situation. When we can take what we learned and make tweaks to move forward, we are less likely to get stuck in negativity spirals, we’re more likely to find better ways forward, and we’re able to adapt to the scenarios we’re actually in and the people we’re actually working with.
All of the above strategies can help workplaces create an environment that welcomes and encourages neurodiversity.
What approaches have workplaces taken that have helped you thrive with an ADHD brain?