Managing
Person-Centric Management
Person-centric management is about getting to know each employee or freelancer for who they are – palliating their struggles in order to access their strengths, and forging job roles and careers that maximise the potential of the individual.
No two brains are the same, and within a truly neurodiverse workplace, each person will have their own, unique skills and challenges, their own environment preferences, their own social differences, and their own favoured styles (and channels) of communication.
Taking a person-centric approach is a strategic game-changer: it embraces and leverages the diverse spectrum in ways of thinking, communicating, and processing information within a neurodiverse team – instead of being inconvenienced by it.
Consider these tips to embrace a more person-centric approach to management:
Better Understand Neurodivergence
This can be achieved in two ways:
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Engage in training
This can help you understand what neurodiversity is, intersectionality, and the different ways it can manifest, indicators of mental ill-health to be cognisant of, and give you confidence to approach language and terminology surrounding cognitive difference.
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Open a dialogue with your neurodivergent employees
Learn about and from their individual experiences of neurodivergence, how they best learn and absorb information, and how they understand and navigate the world.
A better, more rounded understanding of neurodivergence and the individual experiences of it can mean that you might:
No longer mistake the bluntness of your autistic employee’s communication for rudeness;
No longer mistake your ADHD freelancer’s chronic lateness for laziness;
No longer mistake your dyslexic worker’s spelling mistakes for incompetence;
No longer mistake a crew member with OCD’s quietness for inattention;
No longer mistake your dyspraxic colleague’s clumsiness for negligence.
But that instead, that you better understand these occurrences, can work with employees to help mitigate the barriers contributing to them, and beginning noticing, and valuing, their individual strengths and skills.
