Book 15 with TomThere is a particular meeting I have sat in more times than I would like. A business has decided to take neurodiversity seriously. Everyone means it. And within ten minutes the conversation has become entirely about individuals: who has what, who needs what, who should be told what.
Nobody mentions the office. Nobody mentions the meeting culture, the open plan, the six-person interview panel, the job advert asking for excellent communication skills in a role where you will mostly be alone with a spreadsheet.
So the business ends up with a diagnosis-shaped problem and a diagnosis-shaped solution, and a year later nothing much has changed except that a few people have been asked to explain themselves.
The superpower thing
The other failure mode is cheerier and just as unhelpful. Every quirk becomes a superpower. Everyone is told they are an asset. It feels generous, and it is quietly patronising, because it asks people to be extraordinary as the price of being accommodated.
Most people are not extraordinary. Most people are quite good at some things, bad at others, and would like to get through a Tuesday without their brain being a talking point. That should be enough.
What actually moves
The useful work is duller and more effective. It looks at leadership, environment, friction, communication, strengths and outcomes, in that order, and it asks a different question. Not what is wrong with this person, but what is this room asking of people, and is it asking for the right things?
Written instructions instead of corridor conversations. Agendas before meetings rather than after. Interview questions sent in advance, which improves the answers from everyone, not just the people you were trying to help. A quiet corner that does not require a form.
None of that is a concession. Every one of those changes makes the business better at hiring, better at deciding and better at getting work out of the door. That is the whole argument: the adjustments that help neurodivergent people are, almost without exception, just good management that nobody got round to.
The annoying question
Every team has someone who asks the question that stops the meeting. It is a nuisance. It is also, three weeks later, usually the only question that mattered.
We spend a lot of energy training that person to stop asking. Then we hire consultants to tell us what they were saying.
Mr Purple Neurochamps, which opens today, exists to do that work properly: leadership services, the 10×10 experience, an incubator and lab, events and publications. Each one becomes a public offer only when it is genuinely ready, because the field has quite enough confident nonsense in it already.
Have a look: mrpurple-neurochamps.com.
Different was never the design flaw. The room was.