The Audacious Aspie And The Mystery of Neurodiversity!
Welcome back to the Audacious Aspie! Got everything with you? Coffee? A blanket? A cold towel to ease your mind after reading long, difficult words like from the last post? Good. Or bad, if you haven't, because we are starting anyways. Yes, we are continuing to look at neurodiversity, and thanks to the Harvard Business Review, how it affects the working world. But enough prolonging the inevitable pain and torture, let's get to it.
Can you feel it? The dread coming to you like a hot breeze in plus 30 weather? Can you see it? The wreckage of a once thriving coastal city, battered by their own doing? We are close.
The article is about promoting companies looking for “neurodiverse talent” (Paragraph 4). It starts with the usual doom-and-gloom, how we are mostly passed over because we struggle at the interview and such, before painting a more positive picture, like how research has shown that some conditions “can bestow special skills” (Paragraph 5). And while that's all will and good, how exactly does this help us? Directly? Nothing. Indirectly, will, easier to show you.
The number of companies who have reformed their HR for those with neurodiversity has grown quite a bit, now including SAP, HPE (Hewlett Packard Enterprise), Microsoft (of course), IBM and then some. All either have a start-up or tests. And even though the programs are still relatively young, oldest in the list being SAP at the ripe old age of four, each company's respective managers claim that the programs are already repaying the efforts in dividends, or “far beyond reputational enhancement” (Paragraph 8). Whenever I read that sentence, it sounds like their complementing a line of computers: these guys may look like they can't do much, but boy-oh-boy if get a strong enough wifi signal, clean your computer daily, and sacrifice to the tech-gods above, it’s like magic!
Don't wanna be like this woman? Just add blood of virgin (female teenager works best, depending on individual god/ess) a piece of your soul, the device you wish to fix and all of your happiness.
And, like proper ameteur philosophers, managers have “begun thinking more deeply” (Paragraph 9) about leveraging all their employees talents “through greater sensitivity to individual needs.” (Paragraph 9). To utilize personal needs of employees, or not to utilize personal needs of employees. That is the question. SAP in particular, so one manager says “forces you to get to know the person better, so you know how to manage them” (Paragraph 9) What a manager thing to say. The manager then went on to say that the program has made her a better manager, period. Or should I say WOMANager, get it? Because she's a woman and...okay, moving on.
And that was neuroscience in the business world and beyond. Amazing stuff really, but next topic we will look at something not so exciting, but still important to learn about. But don't worry about it now, because it’s not gonna happen for sometime yet. Also because I reap enjoyment to see you guys scream with fear when it finally does come out. I gotta get my entertainment where I can. But until then, this continues to be, the Audacious Aspie.
Sources used:
https://hbr.org/2017/05/neurodiversity-as-a-competitive-advantage