Monday, September 5, 2016

Fingernails On The Chalkboard, Autism and Success in the Workplace

It's a sound almost all of us are familiar with - the sound that sets our ear on edge, the harsh sound of fingers slowly scratching their way across a chalkboard, a sound that, prior to whiteboards and smartboards was sure to make the girls squeal.  And the guys squirm.  It's a sound I've used as a metaphor in my work having to do with getting used to something that just sounds uncomfortable.

It may be a husband needing to learn how to listed to his wife without proffering solutions.  Men often don't understand that the listening is as important, and often more important than fixing the problems.  Men, being hammers, tend to see everything as nails.  Thus, when she speaks, husbands want to fix.  Listening can seem uncomfortable, even wrong.  Just like the sound of fingernails on the chalkboard.

I often use the metaphor in the following way: imagine if a new form of "Hunger Games" government declared that we all must engage in 1 minute of fingernail on the chalkboard noise per hour.  We'd all hate it at first, but after a number of weeks or months, we'd accommodate to it.  Some better, some worse, but we'd accommodate.  Or a less onerous government declared that we all must (MUST) play 1 hour of tennis per week.  Well for the tennis players that'd be great.  For the rest of us, we'd have to learn, and it'd be hard.  Many of us would absolutely stink at first, we're older, fatter, not in shape or athletically inclined or just don't want to play tennis for an hour per week.  But as it's the requirement of the government, we do it.  All of us, even the least prepared and the least inclined, would improve, even if begrudgingly.

The thought came up again when I was speaking with a close friend and colleague about the difficulty "high functioning" folks on the spectrum experience in the workplace.  We both see lots of "HFA" folks and (putting aside the oft mistaken notion that engineers "must" have autism") folks who really do have autism and succeed in the workplace seem to have some things in common.

One thing HFA folks often do is focus well on their work - when the work is a good fit for them.  One thing they tend to do as well is tolerate (even if awkwardly) the interpersonal relationships so many "NT"s (neurotypicals) thrive on in the workplace.  It may not be a struggle, it just might be tolerance of the requirement to have the level of social interaction that the NT's insist upon. Depending on the person, the amount of insistence on social involvement in the workplace is tolerated.  Like the above mentioned tennis or fingernails on the chalkboard examples. Pick your metaphor.  But what it's likely just not is natural and comfortable.  It's tolerated.

I have been observing that many of successful adult HFA clients have learned to tolerate social interaction in the workplace.  They often don't "get" the social needs and subtleties of the NT community, but they understand it's a requirement for them to succeed.