Neurodiverse teams – working with people who think differently

I am enjoying reading a report published by the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) in to Neurodiversity At Work.  Although the focus of the report is on enabling organisations to welcome into our teams people with what might be commonly regarded as disabilities e.g. dyslexia, autism or ADHD, it prompted me to think about the work that I do with teams using the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

The MBTI is one of the world’s most widely used psychometric profiling tools and is used in many different ways. Over many years I have specialised in using it as a tool to help teams to develop and improve the ways in which they work together and communicate, and to help leaders to understand how best to adapt their leadership style in order to get the best from their team. It does this by providing a simple framework to enable us to engage in conversations about how we are different from one another and how that might impact on the way we behave at work.

Most of the teams that I work with are quite diverse but sometimes I encounter teams where the manager has tended to recruit people who they could relate to personally. This results in a team of quite similar people with certain strengths but also with “blind spots” – aspects of their behaviour as a teams which they ignore, overlook or simply don’t deal with very well. Occasionally I have come across teams where the blind spot has been recognised and they set about recruiting someone who might fill that gap. But what can happen then is that the team reverts to “group think” and the new person feels alienated or excluded, and is often “driven out” and leaves. This is a bit like a human body rejecting a transplanted organ as being alien – the body’s immune system gangs up and rejects it.

So becoming a more neurodiverse team isn’t simply a matter of recruiting someone different; it’s also about creating a climate where that difference will be tolerated, welcomed and valued by the team.

If you recognise some of this and would like to know more, take a look here to read about how I support team development using MBTI or give me a call.