While fixing your physical workspace and changing organizational policies are very concrete, simple projects to take on, some of the changes organizations need to make in order to make spaces more accessible to NeuroDivergent people are a bit more ambiguous.
Organizational culture describes and defines the proper ways in which an employee is expected to behave within an organization. At the center of an organization’s culture sit its commonly shared values and beliefs (all of which must be supported by planning, careful design, and structure).
A strong culture is a common feature among successful organizations. A company’s culture will impact the level of collaboration and productivity that employees demonstrate from day-to-day.
Strong cultures often have fewer disagreements, enhanced trust, cooperation, and are more-efficient when making decisions. People who work within organizations that have strongly defined cultures can easily understand how leaders within the organization would want for them to respond in any given situation.
For an organization’s culture to improve organizational performance, its beliefs and values must be widely shared and firmly upheld.
Successful organizations go out of their way to clearly communicate their cultural identities to all members of the team. They are driven by their values and allow their values to determine how the organization will run.
Organizations need to decide which values they want to emphasize, and clearly communicate them to all members of the team. If you don’t actively create the culture that you do want within your organization, a culture you don’t want can develop organically.
An ineffective or toxic culture can weigh an organization down, leading to poor communication, high turnover, disengaged employees, bad customer relations, and lower profits.
Example of A Strong Culture in Action
Before starting out on my own as an independent NeuroDiversity consultant, I was the VP of Marketing, and Organizational Change Agent, for an amazing consulting firm.
Our culture, at The Firm, was not defined by “perks.” We were a values-based organization, meaning we had a culture of shared core values that were clearly outlined and understood by all members of the team.
In that values-driven culture, our clearly defined organization’s values created a unified team, with clear direction and goals. This clarity would carry us through both the best and the hardest times.
In the spring of 2020, when COVID-19 came to the United States, many organizations were forced to move to working remotely, something our team had already been doing for the past few months.
The companies whose cultures were built on more shallow office perks struggled, while our culture tied us together.
We didn’t have air hockey tables, premium coffee bars, or office bicycles. Instead, our culture was defined by the values and goals that were important to us as a team. As a company, we were always very clear about our goals, intentions, and initiatives. Our achievements were measured in outcomes, not hours worked (which also helped us to attract and retain productive and self-motivated people).
Culture Starts at the Hiring Process
Your organizational culture starts with your hiring process, and the values you look for in the candidates you select: getting the right people in the right seats.
Now more than ever, diversity and inclusion are critical for business success. If you want to recruit people who fit into your company’s culture, then you first must define what your culture represents.
When assessing culture fit, it is essential to remember where diversity fits into the equation. Employers that emphasize cultural fit in their recruitment and selection process can be vulnerable to discrimination claims, if the values and culture are set up incorrectly (and many are).
Employers should be aware that certain types of organizational cultures may cause harm to various minority groups, and may even violate anti-discrimination laws.
More and more cases are arising of companies facing lawsuits over employee discrimination disguised as culture fit.
Example of a Discriminatory Culture in Action
I once worked in hiring and recruiting for a company who only hired one type of personality.
Looking back, their checklist of what I was asked to screen for as “proper culture fit” basically translated to “NeuroTypicals only” and “NeuroDivergents need not apply”.
Many of the people who were let go at that organization were on performance improvement plans.
Even though I tried to camouflage my weakness, as was expected by my employer, my NeuroDivergent traits often came up on performance reviews, and were noted as things I needed to overcome if I wanted to advance or get raises.
Failure to overcome certain weaknesses, or too much expression of anything others perceived as weaknesses, would be grounds for termination, so I pushed myself to overcome (or hide) any struggles and weaknesses I had.
I didn’t know I was Autistic at the time, and remember actively seeking to recruit and hire people who “were not like me”, because the people who I related to always were let go.
Many of the people I related to the most were let go for being a “poor culture fit”. Why? Because the people who were most like me often didn’t understand the unwritten and unspoken rules of our organization’s twisted corporate culture, and many struggled with stereotypical ideas of professionalism and dress codes.
Those who failed (and were most like me), did so because they didn’t hide their weaknesses and struggles well enough not to have those things used against them by the people in power. This led to them being labeled “problems” by people in charge, for being “too needy”, “immature”, or “not getting it”.
Instead of investing extra time and support in these areas of need, and empowering these team members for success, they were let go without warning.
Behind the scenes, in closed doors, it would be said that they were a “bad culture fit”—something that was never put in writing (probably because of the liability).
While those who “played the games” of office culture well were sometimes let go, they often had a planned exit, and were let go with compassion. Many had help (via referrals) into their next role at another organization in the industry.
Those who had the misfortune of being labeled a “poor culture fit” were the ones let go without warning. They would be completely caught off guard, and far more devastated, by their terminations.
The organization’s shallow, personality driven (vs values driven) culture, discriminated against NeuroDivergent people, by valuing NeuroTypical traits and punishing NeuroDivergence, creating a hostile environment for NeuroDivergent employees.
The hostile environment led to increased NeuroDivergent turnover, as well as a decrease in overall NeuroDivergent hiring, as the recruiting team (two NeuroDivergent people) learned that people like them didn’t do well within the organization.
What IS a values driven culture?
Having a clearly defined culture, one that’s centered on common values and goals (instead of personality, happy hours, and perks), can help prevent discrimination during the hiring process.
Some examples of core values that can help to align people are:
✥ Respect: treat others with respect and consideration
✥ Servant Leadership: help first, and serve with gratitude
✥ Integrity: do the right thing
✥ Honesty & Trust: be transparent and honest with each other, to build trust (honesty and trust are built through vulnerability and accountability)
✥ Accountability: be willing to take accountability for one’s actions and mistakes
✥ Responsibility: embrace opportunities to contribute
NOTE: Hiring for a value based organizational culture can help future employees to understand and embody your company values, but it doesn’t mean dismissing a candidate based on personal beliefs or personal values you may not agree with.
Organizational Evolution
Organizational cultures are constantly evolving, meaning the best employers are those who regularly assess and adjust their organization’s culture, helping to ensure that teams and departments can stay engaged, productive, and satisfied with the work they do.
In addition, there are certain types of organizational cultures that, are naturally more inclusive than others. There are also workplace cultures that should be avoided at all costs, as they can be extremely toxic to those whose minds work differently or have other disabilities.
For example, organizational cultures that encourage toxic positivity, and shame people into hiding their weaknesses and struggles can be exceptionally harmful.
I like to call this the “everything is fine culture” where nobody is willing to speak about conflict, problems, or pain.
In these environments, showing signs of weakness or needing help is often taboo.
When this type of culture forms, even NeuroTypical and non-disabled team members may be hesitant to speak up when they need help, feel overwhelmed, or are being assigned more than they can realistically handle.
Though “everything’s fine cultures” are hard on everyone within an organization, they are most harmful when people need to ask for help.
In cultures that champion self-sufficiency, and discourage people from asking for help, or speaking about struggles and weaknesses, people with disabilities may feel unable to ask for the accommodations they need (and are legally entitled to), because doing so means they may be looked down upon by leadership and peers.
Proper accommodations are often necessary for NeuroDivergent and disabled people to access equitable employment opportunities.
Questions to ask:
✥ Is your organizational culture based on perks and personalities, or is it based on your organizational values and goals?
✥ Does your culture discriminate against NeuroDivergent people by valuing NeuroTypical traits and behavior?
✥ Is your organizational culture saturated with toxic positivity?
✥ Does your culture stigmatize people who ask for help or does it empower them to equip themselves for success?
A Culture that Welcomes Change & New Ways of Thinking & Doing Things
NeuroDivergent people, and those of us who have other disabilities, often need to flex the world and systems around us to fit our needs.
When the systems don’t flex, if we are poorly supported, and our needs aren’t met, we are more likely to fail, burn out, or leave jobs we could have otherwise done well if we had been properly supported.
Let’s return to NeuroDiversity for a moment. NeuroDiversity rejects the idea that autism and other neurological processing differences should be cured, challenging the prevailing views that neurological diversity is inherently something bad.
Unfortunately, most systems in society today, including most workplace systems, have been set up by and for NeuroTypical people (those who are considered to have an “average” or “typical” brain for the time and culture they are currently living in).
These systems are all too often harmful to NeuroDivergent people (those whose brains diverge from what is considered “typical” for the time and culture they are living in) because our needs are not taken into consideration.
Historically, NeuroDivergent people haven’t had much opportunity to give input when developing the systems in society, because we are often pathologized, and told that our ways of doing things, thinking, and experiencing the world are wrong, and that we are broken.
Over and over again we are told to try harder to fit ourselves into these broken, outdated systems, instead of flexing the systems, so that we may all evolve and find solutions that work well for everyone.
The systems and structures that favor the majority will often miss or exclude the outliers. This is why it is crucial for organizations and leaders within those organizations to maintain flexibility, and not get stuck in their old ways and systems, as it is highly likely that many of those systems are (often unintentionally) harmful to those who didn’t help design it.
If your organization and leadership aren’t willing to flex rules or change policies, and are stuck in the “this is the way we’ve always done things around here” mindset, the changes that must be made won’t happen.
This is an excerpt from my best-selling business ethics book, Workplace Neurodiversity Rising, which was named “trend for 2023” and praised in Forbes as “an excellent ‘how to manual’ based on lived experience and professional competence”.
You can read the Forbes article here.
Workplace NeuroDiversity Rising is intended to be a tool that can help ANYONE who wants to make the world, or the spaces around them, more inclusive for NeuroDivergent (and all) People, in organizations, communities, schools, and beyond.
I’ve been working with organizations for years, but I’m only one person, and there is a LOT of work that needs to be done to fix the world and our workplaces.
I hope this easy-to-read, affordable guide will be a valuable tool, offering clear guidance to help readers start making immediate changes to the spaces around them.
With Love and Gratitude,
– Lyric
