By Emily May and Bethany Witham

Our neurodiverse team

Here in the LTSU, we’re lucky enough to have a variety of brilliant, neurodiverse minds on the team. This brings with it a variety of strengths, from innovation and creativity, problem solving capability, to reliability and accuracy. To harness these advantages, we have made a collective commitment to making sure everyone feels supported and equipped to succeed. By taking the time to understand our unique ways of thinking and working, we have developed strategies that support all our team members.

In this blog post, we share how our team has adapted our meeting practices and communication styles to accommodate neurodivergent needs. From signalling the type of thinking required in meetings to welcoming fidget toys and allowing cameras to be turned off, we strive to create a space where everyone feels comfortable and valued. Read on to explore the ways in which we are creating a neurodiversity-inclusive workplace.

Our practice

The greatest advantage that comes with working in our team is that all of us are equally invested in creating an environment in which we can do our best work. We believe that the best way to achieve this is to take the time to focus on ourselves – to do the research, find out more about how our brains work, and negotiate ways of working that support all of us.

The way we hold meetings, for example, probably looks a little different from what most people are used to, so we will use that framing here to explore some ways we’ve adapted our practice to suit the whole team.

Preparation

Neurodivergence can mean that it takes more time to pivot between disparate tasks, and heading into the unknown can be a source of anxiety, so we make sure to use descriptive titles and agreed-upon emojis to indicate the type of thinking we’re going to do. For example, we use a detective to indicate some research 🕵️, a brain for collaboration 🧠, or a surfer to indicate a change of direction or something new🏄‍♀️. (We’ll talk more about how and why we do this in an upcoming post about our Team Principles, and explain how we embed them in everything we do.)

To give us time to prepare ahead of time, we attach meeting notes to the calendar invitation, with a list of questions to think about or items we intend to cover.

In the meeting

During the meeting, we work to make space for everyone to talk. This can sometimes be a challenge – while ADHD might make one of us excitable, fast-talking, desperate to contribute, the other might find that their Autism means that social cues are more difficult to read, making it harder to know when to jump in. Our openness in communicating this, and willingness to accept feedback on it, means that it is a facet we are all aware of and working to accommodate – although we may not always be 100% successful.

Something else that we keep in mind is that neurodivergent focus doesn’t look the same as it might in neurotypical team members; crochet and fidget toys are welcomed in our meetings and cameras are fine to be turned off, because we know that all team members are engaging in the best way for them. Then if any notes need to be made, or tasks written down, we will pause the meeting to ensure that this can be done without distraction or anyone missing some of the conversation.

Looking ahead

Finally, we work really hard to ensure that there is a clarity of expectations when we leave which is supported by the team’s thoughtful, detailed documentation of our processes. Tasks and expected outcomes are written down clearly in our shared team planner; next steps are assigned and given an appropriate deadline that allows for flexibility in how we complete our work. There are no assumptions made that we have achieved a shared understanding first-time, but instead we explain back to each other, ask clarifying questions, and collaborate in annotating in ways we all understand.

Final thoughts

This is just a small selection of the ways we have changed established and expected ways of working to better support and enrich the efficient practice of our team. We hope that this illustration offers an opportunity for you to think about what small, low-effort changes might be made to support you and the people you work with too.

Things you might think about:

  • How can understanding neurodiversity benefit me and the people I work with?
  • Could any of the strategies in this post be useful in my work?
  • Did this post challenge my perceptions? What aspects of neurodiversity could I learn more about?

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