Workplace Collaboration Autistic Style

There’s more to collaboration than the neurotypical approach

Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

Collaboration is one of those buzzwords that cleaves a divide between those who are considered good employees and those who fall short.

And there’s a prevailing view among employers that autistic employees struggle with collaboration, along with all the other deficits we’re assumed to have.

On the other hand, there are plenty of autistic people (me included) who will tell you that they thrive on collaboration.

So what’s going on? Are autistic people poor collaborators or not?

It depends on your idea of what collaboration is. Neurodivergent and neurotypical employees approach collaboration in very different ways that arise from differences in communication and thinking styles.

Central to this disjunct is the double empathy problem through which Dr Damian Milton reframed autistic ‘deficits’ in social communication as a mismatch between autistic and neurotypical communication styles. People can empathize more readily with others who share their neurotype.

It follows that autistic people do well when collaborating with other autistics or within collaborations that accommodate different communication styles. The ‘struggle’ is more…