Leantime (Techstars '23) reposted this
Founder @ Leantime (Techstars '23) | Easier Work Management for Neurodivergent Minds with #ADHD #Dyslexia #Autism |
Alexithymia. No, it’s not a reason to say gesundheit. Wikipedia describes it as, “emotional blindness,” Or difficulties in recognizing, expressing, sourcing or identifying emotions. It’s been associated with Autism and is often stereotyped as part of the condition. Yet research shows that only 36% of people can correctly identify feelings as they occur. Autistic or not. I started reading more into this after a discussion with Jonathan Stephens around using one of Leantime (Techstars '23) ‘s features: using emojis to rate feelings on tasks. A study done by Taylor, Hand, et al., used Autism Quotient (AQ) scores, Alexithymia scores and one more — looking also at attachment anxiety. Individuals who scored higher on AQ and Alexithymia scores had lower accuracy in identifying emotions via emojis. More interesting: High AQ scores AND high anxiety attachment had better accuracy at identifying emotional emojis. Better emotional accuracy is likely to occur with high attachment anxiety…. because of hyper vigilance. Hyper vigilance and attachment anxiety can come from abuse — where some research suggests upwards of 90% of Autistics experience significant traumatic events over the course of their lives. While one could argue that higher accuracy is a good thing, when some of that benefit is coming from a lack of psychological safety — it’s not. As a work management tool, we knew we had to focus on what people need. People are going into work environments with trauma and then experiencing more at work — And it’s at no small cost — a toxic corporate culture is 10.4 times more powerful than PAY in predicting a company’s attrition rate. Somewhere along the line, we decided that business is business and people… exist outside of business. But the reality is — people make up the business. That means the whole of the person. Whether they recognize feelings or not Whether they had a supported childhood Whether they are neurodivergent Our productivity, the ability to produce, has been given and built up for the company over the years. But the reality? When we’re productive, we bring all of us. The best businesses support the whole individual and not just their outputs. And as for the emojis… we’ll be implementing some additional testing around helper text to add clarity. #autism #neurodivergent #business #workplace #leadership