Investing in Neurodivergent Managers

In October 2019, Wired reported no real change in Big Tech’s diversity and attrition stats in spite of huge investments over the past five years. 1 While many theories exist as to why an average of $400M per corporation had little to no positive effect, there are a few clues that point to a fundamental misstep—the ways corporations spot, and develop talent in our current digital workspaces use retention strategies that worked for a white, male-dominated industry forty years ago. The benefits, performance feedback and communication modalities that work for the average employees, therefore, are just not effective in retaining those who are exceptional within that population.

Best estimates from CIO Magazine suggest only 12% of Diversity & Inclusion funding actually supports continued employee engagement programs. Recruiting gobbles up the lion’s share of these budgets without any real return on these investments. Incentives or accountability loops also do not show that these investments correlate to employee retention. Without talent management trainings that address neurodiversity, new hires that were successful at other companies go under-utilized, mis-managed, speciously assessed and excluded from the strategic discussions where they could be most impactful. 

Human Resource teams over-value neurotypical management styles where they prove more of a liability in retaining engineering and creative talent. A general estimate places diversity attrition costs at 150% the annual salary of that hire. This means that removing or losing nontraditional staff costs substantially more than keeping this talent engaged and productive. This turnover expense is in excess of the $400M each BigTech firm has invested on average to recruit and compensate diverse talent meeting their respective hiring bars.

Peeling back the layers of possible causes, reports by Gartner, Harvard Business Review, EY and others suggest that homogenous corporate cultures can not scale to meet the needs of a global marketplace. Contributions by neurodiverse staff provide a “competitive advantage” for businesses fighting for market share. 2 Among the IT behemoths, performance management simply fails to support and retain innovators, creatives and tech visionaries who think differently from their counterparts, especially if they also belong to a racial, or cultural minority. While assimilation may serve the short term, it can not flex to effectively motivate visionary minds. By surfacing executive bias in what makes a good manager, and challenging assumptions about competency based on social fluency, companies can fully exploit the talents of people with ADHD, Autism, Sensory Processing Sensitivity, and Dyslexia, among others,

Given the advances of BigTech to solve mind-blowingly complex challenges in its software and distribution efforts, it is almost comical how ineffective recruiting, performance measurements and retention are within the largest firms. Corporate culture may actually be a thinly veiled excuse for upholding a status quo marked by group-think, opacity or skill gaps in your leadership teams.

Neurodivergent managers are uniquely positioned for success managing personnel due to:

1. Limited Theory of Mind

Theory of mind is a social cognition skill common to neurotypical thinkers. Simply put, it refers to the ability to assign emotional states, motivations and filter predictions through the dominant values of other people. This kind of “mind reading” is viewed as a higher level skill that is not common among people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The problem is that neurotypical colleagues assume the motives, competencies, and future behavior of neurodivergent people based on Theory of Mind. In highly analytic populations, these assumptions are often wrong, leading to specious assessment.

People with limited Theory of Mind have a competitive advantage in the HR space because they make no assumptions about the motives and emotional states of their colleagues. Also, given the higher percentages of analytic thinkers (with or without Autism), those with neurodivergent conditions validate their theories with consistent and data-driven mechanisms.

2. Task orientation over promotion

On average, people with neurodivergent conditions (especially SPS, ASD, and Tourette Syndrome) are more comfortable engaging in defined challenges, written discourse, and measurable improvements, aspects of people management that often take a backseat to social support and team building events. Instead of success as a product of personal effort or charisma, neurodivergence often aligns with the notion that success is defined by key performance indicators and sustainability across platforms, people, and quarters. By removing the egos and personalities from the equation, people managers are not self-promoting as much as charter-driven.

3. Consistent rule/reward application

This may seem obvious but the ability to consistently apply the rules to staff at every level and tenure within a company is an asset, not a sign of rigidity for those with neurodivergent thinking. While exceptions and flexibility improve employee retention, a lack of accountability or adherence to spending, due dates or even employee handbook rules among senior leadership is more likely to be overlooked by those who prioritize social standing within an organization. Neurodivergent thinkers apply the rules as written on average, and identify refinements to these rules when social norms or lived experience departs from the policies in place. This feedback mechanism is invaluable in a human resources department where legal and operational liabilities will go unchecked where social influence is valued over scalabillity and documentation.