How do I support a team member who feels an interaction was unprofessional while also supporting my #Autistic team member and encouraging professional communication?"

"Gill, a member of my team came to me with a complaint about an interaction with another team member (who has disclosed an Autism diagnosis to me). The team member described the interaction as curt and unprofessional, as they could hear my staff express their frustration with the question being asked. 

How do I support the team member who feels the interaction was unprofessional while also supporting my #Autistic team member and encouraging professional communication?"

I get this question, or variations of it, all the time.

This is how I respond:

How would you approach this if you did not suspect or know about the one person's Autism diagnosis?

Also, as a people leader, how can you take a coaching approach with the complainant? Perhaps starting with, "Okay, thank you for sharing this with me. How would you like me to help?" or "What would a resolution look like for you?" or "I can't resolve this for you, but I can help you prepare for a conversation with this individual where you share this feedback directly, how does that sound?"

My thought process is that we want to avoid "broken telephone" and solving peoples' interpersonal challenges FOR them, rather than with them. 

Often, people take problems to their manager or a supervisor and expect them to solve the problem for them or to deliver feedback on their behalf, as if it's the leader's job to "reprimand" or course correct other staff. 

But this is generally ineffective unless we're looking at something like a clear policy breech or misconduct. 

It may be helpful to clarify what "professional communication" means and define specific behaviours which demonstrate "professional" or "unprofessional" communication. 

A coaching approach can be taken with your Autistic staff here, too (or any team member who is not meeting behavioural expectations). 

Asking "Something important in this role is communicating with others professionally, what does that mean to you?" "When you reflect on your communication with colleagues over the past few weeks, where do you think you could have approached your communication differently?" or "Where do you feel your strengths are with communication?"

"Professionalism" is subjective. Behavioural expectations need to be clarified for all team members, otherwise, it becomes difficult to provide clear and consistent feedback to people about how they are, or aren't, meeting expectations. 

We often end up resorting to vague feedback like, "your communication with others need to be improved. Respect is important." Which is difficult to action on, and may be even more difficult for #neurodivergent folks to translate into action and behaviour change. 

I'm curious what you folks think about this! Does this resonate? What would you do differently?

#NDCoaching

#TheLowAchiever