SPEAKER_05 0:00

Welcome to Neurodiversity Today, the podcast where we shift the narrative on neurodiversity with your host, Kenneth Mims. Every week he sits down with amazing guests who share honest stories and break down the barriers of how we see the world. Whether you are neurodivergent yourself, a parent, educator, employer, or an ally, you belong right here. But before we get into it, if you love what we do here and want to help us grow, please take two seconds to hit that subscribe button, leave a quick like, and share this episode with a friend. It really helps the channel to reach more people. Now, let's jump right in.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Catherine McCord, are you neurodivergent?

SPEAKER_03 0:38

Heck yes, I am. I love it. I have multiple neurodiversities. Um, so I have and from different categories, right? So there's the medical, uh, where you find things like traumatic brain injury, cerebral palsy, things like that. There is the mental health spectrum, which is like OCD, bipolar, all that. And then there is the learning and communication, which is where you and um and learning variances, which is where you find like dyspraxia, ADHD, dyslexia, that type of thing. And so I have some that cover multiple categories. I have I have variances that resulted from my seizure condition uh that have made me neurodivergent. I also have obsessive compulsive disorder, bipolar one. Um, and then I also have an undiagnosed, we've never quite been able to put our finger on. So then there's also something random just kind of floating around with me as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

All right. Well, I appreciate you sharing your, you know, your story. Um, not just your story, but you know, just your um your it's interesting, you know. I don't want to say diagnosis. I don't want to say I just sharing, sharing, yeah. I'll just I guess the right way to say it is just your story, who you are. Being open, transparent because you know, it's you we're we're always not. And many times we're not in like safe spaces, you know, like work, school, or even in our own families sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

But you just unfortunately.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Yeah, yeah. You know, so I I I truly appreciate that. And so you you you do a lot of great work and you know, do, you know, in this area. And I just want to start out, you know, with some of your your your your your vision or your philosophy. Um so you frequently say, you know, uh say um uh different is not a deficit. And so, you know, what is the single biggest um corporate policy that still treats autism as a deficit? And and how do you think we can flip the script?

SPEAKER_03 2:40

That is the great question. And and for clarity for anyone listening. So my background is going around building and rehabbing HRN talent acquisition programs for startups and growth stage companies across the country, also some outside of the country. I've also consulted for enterprise organizations as well. And uh, and now I'm actually working directly with a growth marketing company and uh doing and kind of focusing more on a particular product I'm trying to build out as well. Um, so I I eat live and breathe breathe HR right. And one of the things that is the most uninclusive is and it's not really a policy, it's it's a consistent way of being of this is the right way to do it, and there's no flexibility. So it's a lack of universal design. And and how that translates into policy is that's when you see policies that are specifically designed in a way that is not friendly to the autism community or to other communities as well. So you'll see, for instance, a policy that states, you know, all cameras must be on during all meetings. Why? First of all, why? As somebody with a seizure disorder, please stop having that policy. Um, um, it's not actually necessary to complete work, but but that is an example of how that translates. So it's a general mindset that then translates into policy. And it's this idea that what works for me must work for everybody else.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Yeah, yeah, that that is a that is one, you know, that people don't really, you know, talk about. Well, people talk about universal design, but the impact of not having it, what that means, typically, you know, that's what's um practice, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:25

Exactly. Yeah, and and it's really interesting too, because universal design has historically only applied to IT or to architecture, right? But now we're starting to understand it should apply to life. Okay. So whether it's designing the workplace, how workplace interacts, policies, procedures, all of that in the workplace, universal design, even at home. I apply universal design at home, right? Like this doesn't have to be just this way. This could be designed in a way that it works for literally everyone, right? So that it's just it's a more effective and comfortable way for humans to function.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Yeah, and I think it, yeah, I think that the that transitions into like just the overall valuing of individuals, valuing of you know, perspectives. And you talk about that. Um, you know, uh how can leaders apply your framework of uh equal value thinking, EBT, to bridge uh gaps between neurotypical and neurodivergent like communication styles without forcing, you know, in individuals to really mask is what you're you know forced to.

SPEAKER_03 5:33

Yeah. Yeah. And and and one thing that I get a lot of questions around too, and I'll go ahead and define this too: the difference between masking and and compromising. Right? What is the difference? And I give a very clear definition of once it becomes unhealthy, it's masking. Compromise is something that everybody is comfortable with, and it's something that works for everyone. It doesn't mean one side loses, right? That's that's not what that is. So the second that one side is losing or there is an unhealthy aspect, that's masking. That's that's where I could draw the line pretty clearly. Um, the ways to avoid that, number one, I firmly believe that every single organization out there needs to have training for their leaders that is anti-ego training. And what I mean by that is ego we've kind of used to mean that you are very full of yourself, you think you're better than everybody, but that's not really what it is. The biological ego mechanism derives from your amygdala and is actually part of your fight, flight, or freeze response. And what happens is when you see a behavior or an action or somebody says something that's counter to what you think or how you function, your brain reads that is incorrect because you need to be correct. Your brain's whole job is to keep itself safe. And so it needs to believe that the way it does things is right, or else that's very stressful for the brain. And so accepting new information can feel stressful. So what you have to do is learn to tell that amygdala, no, thank you. Like I see you, I know what you're doing, but that's not a response that we need. We're not actually in any danger here and we're not being threatened by this. And so actually learning how to turn that off is very important. That's actually one of my favorite classes that I teach. And I actually teach that as part of other classes that I do. And it's always so funny to watch people go, I didn't know I could turn this off. I'm like, yeah, yeah. That upset feeling you get when something's different than you, or like, you know, if your spouse or whomever says something or your co-worker at work says something different, you get that feisty feeling, you can turn that off. You can just poof make it go away and actually release healthy, productive, communicative uh chemicals in your body. And so that's number one. Learn to defeat the ego mechanism and respond in curiosity, asking questions and accepting the answer and then acting on the answer. By the way, leaders, that's also how you build psychological safety and trust is these exact steps. So defeating the ego mechanism, the other big thing is encouraging education around different topics and encouraging understanding and furthering that curiosity um culture. So teaching people that, you know, you you don't know the motivations of the person. So ask and ask questions and get to know. I have seen so many HR instances over the years where somebody told me that a coworker was rude, and I'm like, no, they were direct. That's not the same thing. And so then we have to get to the crux of that, right? So learning, um, teaching that different communication styles are okay, understanding the difference between rude and direct, things like that. So education, curiosity, and defeating the ego.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Wow. You know, that is powerful, you know, and that aspect of the ego, you know, the role that the ego plays within that um, you know, inefficient um uh leadership or management style is critical. It makes me even think that, you know, that that ego is a really a developmental delay, you know, because you know, and you know, do you see a connection between like the that that ego and like trauma, our previous previous trauma and like PTSD to some degree as far as that?

SPEAKER_03 9:18

There can be. Yes, yes, absolutely. There can be. Now, a lot of it's just inherent in our human little brains, a lot of it is, but it can be inflated, it could be specifically triggered or activated based on trauma, illness, um, mental health diagnoses, all of these things, even hormones. Our hormones so like, you know, if somebody is in midlife and their hormones are shifting, that's men and women, by the way. It's not just women, uh, men and women shifting their hormones, whether it's a pregnant person, like whatever the thing is, hormones do make a difference in how we we respond in our triggers and all of that too. So taking there's biological factors, mental health, everything. Absolutely and trauma 100% plays a part in that. And I've seen workplace trauma come to life real quick in the form of ego. And it's a pretty easy thing to spot once you know what you're looking at. Um, and you just you have to come at that with compassion and patience and and create a safe space to help them, you know, get back down to a healthy, a healthy baseline. And then you can move forward in a productive manner and help counter that ego. But it takes some practice because it can get really they can because people have experienced something dangerous to them. And I've seen everything from actual assaults at work, like actual physical assaults at work, to being berated publicly, um, having their livelihood taken away from them, you know, that kind of thing. So people and that's food on your table, right? There's nothing more baseline than that. So that trauma can absolutely come out and giving it grace is very, very important, but also not allowing the trauma to rule the situation and to cause pain for others is very important.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

Wow. I I want to transition to talking about recruitment, um, recruitment, retention. Um, you know, we have many uh professionals, you know, that are part of our our audience or our community, and you know, um, we're all in different stages of our our careers. Um, but one of the biggest traditional things of every career is the resume. And so you talk about you know the resume a little bit. You're a strong advocate for firing uh the traditional resume. And you know, if companies throw you know out the resumes today, you know, what does an autism inclusive um uh bias-free vetting process look like in in practice?

SPEAKER_03 11:48

That is a wonderful question. So again, back to the universal design of everything, right? And keeping it broad. And and one of the main ways that I teach recruiters to do this or anybody on the hiring team is to make the main thing the main thing, right? What is the mission of this role? Okay, if however the person got to the point that they can do the role, great. The point is, can they do it? Right. And focusing on that, skipping over job titles, which half the time are inflammatory anyway or irrelevant. Um and a great example of that, by the way, is Bank of America is notorious for giving VP titles to regular everyday IC contributors. Like they just, they just throw out VP titles like it's nothing. Um, and there's a whole history behind that, but it's real. So titles are irrelevant. Um, and really just paying attention to the skills of how somebody got there. And and even being very flexible about um longevity and jobs and things like that, because first of all, we all learned during COVID, it's not always our fault, that person's fault, right? Um and then also it's important to understand that with different diagnoses and with different personal characteristics, uh, a lot of times it's harder to keep jobs for a long time. That has nothing to do with the individual, it has everything to do with the system. And so again, just focusing on the skills and the fact that they can do it and then get the rest of the story in the interview. So that's number one. So focus on make the main thing the main thing. Um, and yes, I do believe the resume should be fired. It is antiquated, it is old, a piece of paper cannot possibly accurately represent a human. Um, another thing is to accept the use of uh tools as a regular part of your interview and application process. And um, I'm gonna use AI as an example, but there are many other tools like PDF readers and things like that. But just having standard accommodations, as I call, as I call them, and making it so that it's just a normal thing and telling people whatever you're doing to get this done, let's do it. This is cool, you know, and and just flowing with it and making it part of things because when people have to ask for something special, they don't feel comfortable. They feel like you're gonna discriminate against them because it's happened. They feel right, that's where that trauma comes back into play. And so just making it part of the everyday flow and saying, here's everything we've seen, like it's very welcome here. Here's some things we can do for you, just let us know. Um, and then have a fill in the blank, right? Like, and we also know we don't know everything, so feel free to tell us what you want. I like to call it uh accommodation southern style. Because if you've ever been to a southern party, you know they will take care of every little tiny thing you want, and they're always right there. Do you need more? Are you okay? What can we do for you?

unknown 14:27

Right?

SPEAKER_03 14:29

So at least that's how my family was. So that's kind of how I look at it.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Your computer doesn't crash just because it runs a different operating system. It just processes things in its own way. So why do we expect every human brain to run the exact same way? Colleagues who process data, sound, or time differently aren't broken. They just run on a different, equally valuable code. Let's build better workplaces for all employees. Design an environment that supports every operating system. This message is brought to you by Neurodiversity Today.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Yeah, you know that, you know, you know, the resume, the onboarding or just the hiring is, you know, just one one critical step, you know, and a lot of times, you know, where companies are are, you know, you could say getting it wrong to some degree, or, you know, there's opportunity, you know, to overcome some barriers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:24

Oh, and real quick, I'm sorry, I did want to point out too, because this is another one that really gets me, and I nearly forgot to say it. I'm so sorry. Um, is B we need to start training interviewers, number one, how to ask questions in more than one way, because how it hits your ear is not how it's gonna hit somebody else's ear. And if you are not an overly literal person and you try to have a conversation, let alone an interview with a person with autism, you're gonna get real frustrated real quick if you don't know how to pivot your questions, right? Um, there is a brilliant uh routine that kind of focuses on that by comedian uh Hannah Gatsby. And she talks about when she was in school, her her, she was asking her teacher lots of questions, and her teacher was trying to feature prepositions and she was trying to teach her how she was related to the box, which was, you know, just talking about relational. And she took it real literal. She's like, wait, am I cousins with the box? You said I'm related, right? So and it's just a confused little child, right? But it's it is the same, it is the same kind of thing. We all speak a little bit different languages, and especially different um uh different diagnoses or different um different variances within human beings can create more, you know, kind of kind of a more specific train for that that line of thought. And it being prepared to ask questions in different ways and to prep in different ways and to help the person answer in an effective way is very important. We are supposed to be good at interviewing, not the other person. It's my job to be good. It is not the job of the candidate to be good at interviewing.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Yeah, that is that that's true. That's definitely true. And you said, you know, I I think about outside the box thinking, like, you know, where's the box at? What box are you talking about? Why do they keep talking about this box?

SPEAKER_02 17:11

Yeah, what is with the box?

SPEAKER_01 17:15

And so, you know, that that leads into the next next phase of the game, which is hiring, you know, after individuals hiring and then onboarding. So many companies, you know, successfully hire neurodivergent talent, you know, but they feel retention. They feel are, you know, there's, you know, individuals leave, you know, uh shortly. So what is the most common mistake uh managers uh make, you know, in the first 90 days of onboarding an into uh you know a neurodivergent team member?

SPEAKER_03 17:44

Yeah. Okay, so number one is kind of a universal mistake that managers make, and that is assuming that everybody comes in knowing everything. It doesn't matter how experienced the person is, they still need to be trained on your way. They need to learn your culture, your methods, your team, that kind of thing. A very thorough onboarding process is important. At the organization I'm at right now, hiring managers are not allowed to do anything more than say hi for the first three days. They stay with me, I onboard them, they learn about the company, they learn about the culture, they learn about the technology, everything is taught to them. Then they're handed over to their team to be to be slowly acclimated into the work. So number one is having that process and having it available in multiple learning styles, audio, visual, kinetic, right? Addressing the three learning styles. Because if you try to sit there and lecture me, I won't hear anything you say and it will not stay in my brain. But if I do it kinetically or I can watch it, I've got it the first time, right? So that's the number one.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Number two, specific to neurodivergent individuals.

SPEAKER_03 18:49

Giving giving people the ability to set their own pace is really important. And talking to them, don't just think that your pace works for everybody, right? Like there are times that three days get shortened because I get somebody that's so excited, they just run through everything really straight and then they're ready and they're they need to go. And if I made them stay in that position, they would get anxiety. Whereas there are other people that have messaged me and gone, can I have an extra day? And I'm like, sure. Yeah, what are we sitting with? Like, is there anything else additional I can get you to help with that? You know, and and no rush, that's fine. So stopping this assumption that your timeline works for everybody and giving people that timeline uh to be able to kind of collaborate with you and say, okay, this is how I learn, this is how I receive, this is how I acclimate to things, all of that. Um, and then past that, I would just say, again, the standard accommodations, just be ready to have whatever tool they need and the way that they work just be part of life and not to even think twice about yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

You know, you you talk about accommodations and you talked about universal design. And just to dive a little bit, you know, deeper, um, you know, you've noted that the accommodations shouldn't be treated as special favors. Um and uh what are two universal workplace um adjustments that may cost you know zero dollars, but can you have a huge improvement logical safety, you know, for you know, nordivergent employees.

SPEAKER_03 20:18

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, absolutely. So first of all, universal design for anybody that doesn't know, I think I forgot to define it earlier. It just means that you design with everybody in mind, right? That's all it is, that's the short version. There are different components to it, but that's all that it means is that it's literally designed with flexibility inherent as part of the design. So, uh, and I do believe accommodations should be standard. They should not be, they should not be something that's attack on or they should not be something that's that's a special favor, like you said. Um, two examples. Uh, number one, this is actually one of my favorites. There, and there are different companies that do this, but I'm just gonna name the one that I use the most frequently. User weight, their technology is a plug-in to any software, website, et cetera. It is, it starts free. There are additional options, but the the biggest version is free. And basically it allows people to adjust the technology to what they need. So it can change it, the the text size, the they can turn off things that blink or flash, it can change from light to dark, or it can and just all different kinds of things they can do. It's really extraordinary. Um, and you can even select conditions or diagnoses that you have to be able to say, hey, this is this is what I have going on, and it'll fix it for you according to what it knows about. And so it's for me, you know, I could say, oh, I have seizures, and it'll be like, all right. So clearly you don't need things just moving all over the screen at all times, right? Which which is not my type of seizure disorder, but it makes sense, right? That's that's an obvious thing that it would assume. So user way or a very similar plugin that will allow people to adjust technology to what works for them. Wonderful. Absolutely. Phenomenal. Um, another really big one, and there are oh God, there's so many different versions of this right now. Um, there was one that used to be called V Note. A Claude can also be used this way, but using AI to help organize communication. So for instance, some folks monologue, right? And there are different, there are different diagnoses that will do this. And sometimes it's for some people they enjoy the monologues, other people they can't follow it. So using using technology to organize the speech, put it into, you know, put it into a pattern that will maybe be better received by some people. And that way that person doesn't have to repeat themselves or anything like that. It's just a simple technology that listens to it and then condenses it and can send it off to whomever you need, right? And that works for everybody. Because let me tell you, I I'd love to use the example of my friend Lisa. We have uh she has ADHD. And with my bipolar one, I have long ups, long downs, long mids. Well, in my downs and my mids, I love what I call her Candyland speak, which is where we go here and then we come up this colorful trail to here, and then we circle back over here, and then we come over here to this thing, right? And eventually we get to the end goal. And typically I love that and I think it's wonderful and an adventure. But when I'm hypermanic, I cannot follow it. I can't do it. Like my brain just I can't do it. And so we have come up with our own little accommodations that we use for that so that we can still communicate, have lunch, text each other, all of that. Um, we built them together around respect for how each of us like to have our boundaries met. But that's a good example of this is a person I want to talk to that I love dearly. But every once in a while, my brain's just like, mm-mm. I'm not receiving this today. And so having that kind of technology can really help.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Yeah, that's a that's a great example. You know, that is a does she approve of you using her as Oh yes, yeah, she does.

SPEAKER_03 23:59

Yeah. She's we've we've she's used this example, I've used it, we've done things together, it's fine.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

That's you know, that's that's that's important because, you know, first of all, you know, shows awareness, but just simple strategies, you know, but that's where I think a strength-based perspective, you know, really, you know, takes effect as far as, okay, all right, it's not a disability, it's not a you know, you know, deficit, you know, I just need switch it up a little bit and you know, I can you know I think that is that's huge. You know, you talk about AI, just curious, are there any you know other you know, um, you know, uses that you see for this, you know, you know, rise in AI, you know, in the workplace that organizations can leverage, you know, to help, you know, neurodivergent individuals or individuals themselves, you know, can use, you know, for their pro productivity?

SPEAKER_03 24:51

Yeah, absolutely. Um, first of all, the one that needs to be avoided like the plague is anything that where interviewing is done by AI or resume review is done by AI, AI cannot do what a human mind can do. It factually cannot. Okay, so please stop doing that. It is horrible. Um in terms of helping, oh my gosh, there's so much. Um so Claude, and then there's one other that is completely eluding my brain right now. Um create really good agents for interview practice. And you can so you can create an agent for yourself, tell it the type of role, actually, feed it the job description. Um, I've actually known people that even feed it the LinkedIn profile of the recruiter and say, like, hey, what kinds of questions do you feel like this person's gonna ask me? Blah, blah. And it actually lets you practice, it will grade your responses. Now, is it perfect? No, because again, it can't do what a human mind can do, but it is good prep and it will let you think and let you interact. One of the good things to do there too is to program it to argue with you, right? Like, okay, well, can you elaborate? Well, I don't think that's true. What do you think about this? So that you can practice turning off your own ego so that when that recruiter wants to probe you or when the um probe and ask questions, or when the hiring manager wants to push back a little bit, you're not so thrown by that. Because that's part, that's actually part of effective interviewing for some types. So you should never make a person feel bad, but pushback and seeing how they can collaborate even when things are not in 100% alignment is an important part for some roles. So you can even use it to help uh help you catch those triggers and be able to respond more productively. Um, resume writing. Big huge fan of it. There's Chat GPT honestly does not make the best resumes, uh, but Claude does. Jim and I do okay. And then there are a few AI specific for resume writing. Big fan, uh, but please double check it as a recruiter. You would not believe the hilarious mistakes that I see that are clearly AI that you know no human possibly made. Um, so please, please, please double check them and be sure, but they're great for creating your resumes. Um and then for interviewing, using it to come up with for on the interviewer side, um, using it to come up with alternative ways to ask questions. Like, hey, you know, what are three other ways to ask this? And then have those sitting there waiting so that you can again be prepared for alternate communication styles. You know, what's a good way to elaborate here, you know, and and speaking that way. There are a few AIs that are so that are so quick at live communication that even in the moment it can say, hey, your your candidate is struggling with this, try saying this or try prompting them this way. And it's a very helpful tool to use. So using that for communication, um, even on the candidate side, by the way, you can also get those and use it the other way around. Like, oh, I think you're frustrating the recruiter who maybe say it this way, you know, that kind of thing. Um, there are some of them that will even tag to emotional cues, like, oh, this recruiter seems to be shutting you off. Maybe answer more shutly, more, you know, more um quickly, maybe, maybe elaborate more. They seem to be getting frustrated, they're not getting enough detail. So it can be used for um light emotional cues, things like that. And again, some of it'll be off, some of it will be wrong, but it can still be helpful, especially if you struggle with uh with interviewing because interviewing is stressful anyway. So it could just kind of exacerbate what's already there.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

You know, that that that's amazing. That's phenomenal. You know, and some of this, some of these uh, you know, apps will call it um, you know, I'm not familiar with. I'm gonna have to do some some research after we, you know, I'll send you some.

SPEAKER_03 28:28

Yeah. I'll send you some.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

But I'm also curious about, you know, after that, you know, hiring or our interview process from an executive function functioning, you know, consideration, just yeah, I know people are using we've been using AI for note-taking and meeting, and that's pretty good. But, you know, can you talk about that as well as you know, other maybe time management and other things that you're seeing?

SPEAKER_03 28:54

Oh, yeah, it's wonderful for automation, reminders, and again, creating what they call agents. And by the way, you can learn to do this for free. There are great classes that Google and IBM and other companies put for free on Coursera or extremely cheap, where you can learn to do all these things very effectively for yourself. So if it's not something you're comfortable with yet, that that education is out there for free and/or very cheap, depending on the exact class that you pick. Um using it ongoing is an incredible help. I do it myself, especially for my three different when you have three different stages that you could be in, that you have to have different ways that you work and function for each one, right? And so I absolutely use it to accommodate myself. Um I have uh people who are very close to me with autism diagnoses who use it as well. Um, some of the ways that we do that is to create agents that will notice, um, will notice patterns and alert us, like, hey, I notice that you're kind of draggy behind. Do you want me to move this for you so that you have a little extra time to finish your project, right? So it can kind of monitor your calendar versus your actual activity. Um, there are others that will um, you know, alert just kind of send automatic alerts, automatic emails, automatic communication. It'll, it'll reduce the amount of human contact you have to have a little bit by sending very basic updates to people. Uh, because let's be honest, like not everything requires a call, right? Not it, not everything even requires an email. Sometimes just a quick little Slack message. You can even automate that. Like if you tell it like every day this person needs to know this, or if there's a change in this, this person needs to know, you can automate it and just go bam, here you go, right? So using it that way um to take away some of the little kind of extra tasks that stress our brains out, right? And to help keep us organized and keep us flowing, it's a wonderful, wonderful tool for that. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 30:46

How does your organization view different ways of thinking? Do you see hurdles or do you see hidden power? Meet Kenneth Mims, a dynamic TEDx speaker, global advocate, and founder of the Neurodiversity Education Research Center. He is a world-recognized expert in neuro-affirming, strength-based practices that change how we learn, work, and lead. From corporate boardrooms to university halls and K-12 schools, Kenneth gives your team the inspiration and motivation needed, along with actionable tools to move past old labels to tap into innovative potential. Foster true inclusion by booking Kenneth Mims at KennethMims.com today.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

As we um get ready to to transition to close out this episode, I just want to get your your thoughts around the future of HR. And so if you know, in your dream world or the future, um, if you could completely re rewrite uh the standard HR playbook, you know, for like performance reviews. Yeah. Performance reviews can really be sticky for neurodivergent individuals. Right. Okay. Which is sometimes it becomes like a subject of like social measure, you know, and and met matrix. So how would you restructure, you know, you know, um the HR, you know, playbook for performance reviews to be fairly, to fairly evaluate, you know, nordivergent employees?

SPEAKER_03 32:17

That is a wonderful question. And it's actually one of my favorite questions because the truth is it's not really that hard. So number one, we're gonna make the main thing the main thing again, right? What are our KPIs and the actual objectives of the role? Was this completed? Yes or no, right? That's very objective. So so moving it from the subjective to the objective and focusing on the actual objective of the roles. Now, there is the component that you need to be able to work effectively with your team. But one of the things is that you have to create objective criteria as to what that means. So are you responding in a timely manner? Check, right? Are we um communicating all the information needed for the other person to be able to do their job or give you what you need to do your job? Right. Check, right? Like these are yes or no questions, right? It's it's not about a popularity contest or anything like that. The only kind of subjective that I have not found an objective question for yet, and I'm still working on it. So if anybody has any suggestions, please reach out to me, is the um it the extension of. So the the first part of that I do have an objective for is the creating psychological safety for the team, right? Like, is it a yes or no? But there is a subjective piece to that too, because there are people that will say they don't feel safe because something doesn't feel natural to them, but it's not that it's wrong or rude or anything like that. It's just that person communicates differently, right? So that's the subjective piece of that that still bothers me. So what I'm doing right now is kind of a counteract is I'm saying, okay, psychological safety, yes or no. And here are the components of psychological safety. Does this person tell the truth? Do they um when somebody tell, you know, expresses an emotion or something they've gone through, does this person accept it? You know, is there action to correct anything that's causing pain or anything? You know, like there's actual, again, yes or no type questions. Um, but again, there's there's subjectivity to that too. Um, so that's the only piece. But in general, in general, it's so easy to make objective questions for everything, everything that we do. The only one I can't quite figure out is the psychological safety how to make that a completely objective question. But the rest of it is all completely able to be created into objective, uh, yes or no, pass or fail type situations. And once you make the main thing the main thing and focus on the goal and quit focusing on all these little crazy details, right, that don't really matter. Right. Like, so like, you know, with sales, like who cares how many calls a person make, how much money did they bring in? Right. Like that's that's the main thing of that's the main goal of that job. So focusing on the right things, keeping it objective, that's the way, that's the way to be fair to everybody, period. And and just make it very simple.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

Let me ask you a follow-up question. When when you when you see situations where there just is a like a misalignment or a back and forth between either an employee and HR or employee and their supervisor or manager, do you do you know, and that employee being neurodivergent, do you see that, you know, that the the some of the major factors that are playing a part? Is it the ego of the manager or the supervisor, or is there, you know, other dynamics, you know, that come in, even in and and this is a situation where the employee that's neurodivergent may be, you know, doing their job to a high level. You know, their their performance review, you know, is still, you know, um acceptable or above.

SPEAKER_02 35:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

But there's still a a conflict that may even lead the employee to like to to transition from the from the organization.

SPEAKER_03 36:09

Right. Absolutely. No, I so I do I have seen that quite a bit, um, quite a bit. Um and what's interesting is, uh, and I actually ran some numbers on this at one point, that around 65% of the time, it's primarily the other person, the non-neurodivergent person, or the other that's the the quote quote offended party that is that is having either an ego issue or they're having um a say, like they, they're they're feeling uh triggered by something, you know, something like that. The other part of the time, which the higher percentage, I thought it was gonna be a very, very low percentage, and it wasn't. It was that the neurodivergent person was activated by something the other person said, and then there was a legitimate. So in other words, they had a safety issue, like something that was said to them felt unsafe. And it was always a safety issue in that case. It was a safety, you know, type situation. Like I don't, this made me feel unsafe. And then there could be, you know, a reaction. So it was like a their defense mechanisms kicked in. And then it's a mutual concern, right? So that's why, whenever, again, back to that manager training, whenever something is said and you can tell it's gone sideways, stopping, turning off our ego and getting curious. Okay, why was that? Tell me more about that response. And that's the phrase that I really have people hone in on because it's not accusatory. Because a lot of people hear why and they feel like you're accusing, which is not true, but a lot of people do. But when you say tell me more about that, it opens things up. You know, it's like, okay, so elaborate on that. Tell me, I want to understand what you just experienced, you know, and really focusing because sometimes we can accidentally say things that are really damaging to a person or take them back to a PTSD response to something really, really bad that happened to them. And that puts them into fight or flight, and we just need to get them back out of it to calm things down. So that again, that's still on leadership. So yes to the ego thing, absolutely. But then also it is sometimes it's a trauma response that's been initiated in the other person, and we need to stop and give that grace and work through it a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

Yeah. That makes me think about that makes me think about not only like mental health, but like counseling. Taking more from a a counseling playbook. You know, you can just fall up under empathy, you know, but you know strategies. Um and and so from from your um your perspective, your experiences, you know, have you seen the role of counselors, you know, in HR or within an organization, um, you know, step in like when there's well, I guess not only stepping in, stepping in when there's a problem, but you know, just being part of the the organizational culture. Have you seen have you seen that in any type of organizations? Because I know your work is not only in the states, but around the world, and maybe countries, you know, have a different, you know, uh, you know, uh organizational culture and and and you know I mean it is it can be somewhat different from country to country, but I will say it there is so much limitation with HR that a lot of people are not aware of.

SPEAKER_03 39:40

So HR has no actual power, zero zip nada, does not exist. They are there to advise, and that is it. That is all that they can do. They have no power, and so that limits a lot of what you can do. So I s what do I see? I see a lot of people trying to be part of a solution and trying to further the right behaviors and trying to do things. Um and the intro happily, the percentage of executives who are supporting this is increasing slowly but surely. And so that's getting better. That's the good news. It is getting better. It doesn't feel like it, especially with all these crazy laws that are passed in some areas and all that, but ultimately, ultimately, um it is it is something that is getting better. And that's very exciting to me. So, yes, there are people in HR that are trying to further better practices. There are people in operations that are partnering with HR to further better practices. And it's really extraordinary. And even uh so I live in Florida right now, and people watching may or may not be aware of some of the very interesting laws that have been passed here. Um, but our our government, the government bodies here, anybody funded by government receiving government funding, cannot have any kind of inclusion program, education, wording, anything like that. Interestingly, I am still brought in by one of my clients who is a government body. Won't say exactly which one, but who is the government body. And I am still teaching them these things. And we are just very careful about the exact words we use, that kind of thing. But they want that education, they want to push it through. So even when there are laws passed, there are still good people fighting the fight. So don't worry, it is getting better, I promise. It's just it's going a little slower than some of us would like. And the biggest reason it's going slower is that ego.

SPEAKER_02 41:28

That's the biggest reason.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

Wow. Wow. All right. Well, I appreciate you so much. Before you uh um before we jump off, would you like to share any of your contact information or any ways people may um learn more about your services?

SPEAKER_03 41:42

Yeah, yeah. So I'm like I say mostly right now focusing on one organization in terms of like the HR work, but I still do some basic consulting. I still am open for recruiting projects, and I still always speak and teach. And my company that I work for absolutely does uh support that. Um, they are very open. So the best way to get hold of me is on LinkedIn. Um, Catherine McCord, I'm one of the only ones with my spelling. I'm pretty easy to find on there, actually. Um, so LinkedIn is the best way. Also, um, it's K McCord at TitanmanagementHr.com. Anybody can reach out to me, even with personal questions, um, even about your anything with diagnoses, if you have questions about me and what I've done with my diagnosis, anything like that at all, totally open to it.

SPEAKER_01 42:25

Uh we appreciate it. I appreciate it. You know, I appreciate you, you know, being here on this episode of Neurodiversity Today. Thank you. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_05 42:36

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