This newsletter is going to have a different flavor.
If you’re paying attention . . . You may have noticed that I raised an autistic child who is now an autistic young adult.
I have called the young adult phase “the slow reveal.”
Young adulthood, in many ways, is a slow reveal for everyone. What will come together for them? How will they show up to life? Did you set them up, as best you could, so they could seize success if they chose to?
But raising someone with advocacy needs comes with an additional question. Will they even be allowed success? How will life show up TO THEM? Will they find a place that will understand how to flex to allow them to be in their strengths?
Here’s what scares me most: the unemployment rate for autistic adults hovers around 80-85%! I don’t know what happens when you add “underemployed” to that. And that’s in a good economy! (And, believe it or not, college is an obstacle course in and of itself, so a college degree shows absolute resolve and fortitude!)
So that’s why I picked up the book “The Canary Code: A Guide to Neurodiversity, Dignity & Intersectional Belonging at Work ” by Ludmila N.Praslova, Ph.D.
In the first half of the book, which we discussed Monday, the many barriers in “how it was always done” with interview processes, work conditions, social demands to “be a fit,” the desire to force people to work at the office, etc were pointed out as some of the many things that keep some of our most brilliant minds out of the work force.
Interestingly, this book is opening my mind to how worksites could be more inclusive. My only answer before (a good one, but limited) was: “Entrepreneurship might be the only way to get the flexibility you need.”
For those who lack imagination, like me, the real answer comes down to “Is the work getting done? If it is, then isn’t that the most important criteria? And could you not just trust your employee knows what they need to get the work done? And if accommodation required some investment, couldn’t it be justified by work gains? And, by the way, did you know the evidence is there that EVERYONE benefits from this way of thinking? Seriously, who of us, if you have ever worked in cubicle-ville, would have benefitted from a quiet room with soft lighting for occasional work bursts and escapes from office chatter?
Until we step out of the mentality of fraternity-like, authoritarian thinking like “you have to suffer to earn your window office, like I did,” instead of listening and trusting varying experiences and needs, WE ALL will suffer the loss of a bright, hyperfocused, highly ethical, creative workforce.
Yes, this is a different kind of newsletter, but I have to ask: Can we start questioning what we blindly accept as “just the way it is”? Can we start to believe there may be better solutions? And what if solutions that address a few actually serve us all?