Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:00:03.280 - 00:00:45.040
My bigger pieces of advice are, especially for leaders, is to expect variation. So expect that people work in different ways and don't assume what works for you or maybe even the majority of your team works for everyone.

But instead lean into curiosity and being open minded and find out what your team needs to do to be their best. And I know you know this too. Being curious and open minded is again, sounds so simple but it's so difficult in practice. It's so hard to do.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:00:47.200 - 00:01:50.250
Hi there and welcome to the Step up podcast. I'm your host, Kent Knievel.

Every week I talk to experts who focus on helping leaders step up their leadership game and leaders telling their stories of growing up through the ranks. If you're new to the show, do me a favor and subscribe so you never miss an episode.

One last thing, as a leadership development consultant and executive coach, focus area of mine is supporting newly promoted leaders.

One in three promotions fail because we never teach newly minted VPs how to stop being a director or a newly promoted director how to stop being a manager.

If that's you, or if you support a leader who has been recently promoted, I encourage you to visit my website at Kent Coach Toolkit and download a free copy of the Promoted Leader Toolkit filled with practical advice and tools to help new leaders stick the lamp and truly step up to their new leadership level. All right, I've dillied and dallied long enough. On with the show. Welcome everybody.

Today we are talking about neuro inclusive cultures and with me for this conversation today is Hailey Meyer, leadership development consultant and Coach Haley. Thanks for being here today. Welcome to the podcast.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:01:50.970 - 00:01:53.850
Thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:01:54.730 - 00:02:03.170
I am as well.

And so for the audience who doesn't know you yet, I would love for you to introduce yourself, talk a little bit about your background, whatever it is you want to want the audience to know.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:02:04.130 - 00:03:04.770
Yeah. So I am the founder of Compassionately Transparent Coaching and my company does two very distinct things.

One, I work as a leadership development consultant in organizations helping create programming for frontline leaders, mid level leaders, people just transitioning into leadership, helping them make sure they're leading with confidence. And I do leadership coaching as a part of that.

Really any level of leader, one to one coaching to help improve whatever leadership skills is important to the client. The other part of my practice that I'm really passionate about is ADHD coaching.

So working with individuals that are living with ADHD or otherwise impacted by adhd, understand more about how their brains work and Navigate and create systems that help them again, be more effective and confident in either school or work.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:03:05.890 - 00:03:12.850
Nice. Tell me a little bit about your background. What got you into this work? What did you do before you got into this line of work?

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:03:13.410 - 00:04:30.290
Yeah, I have about 25 years experience in corporations and I really have taken a lot of left turns, I would say, in my career trying to figure out what I wanted to do when I grew up.

But in organizations, I've been part of sales, I've been part of sales operations, I've been part of product development, I've been part of traditional learning and development teams and then also as part of leadership development in organizations. And that's really given me a nice broad look at how organizations focus, function.

And so that really helps in my leadership development work because I have a taste of how so many different parts of organizations work. Really.

I came to fall in love with leadership development actually when I was getting my mba and my MBA is from Hamline University with an emphasis in leadership and change management. And that was really one of the first times I realized that I could devote a whole career to helping people lead teams more effectively.

And so that, that really kickstarted my journey to say, okay, I need to get to a place where I'm in an ELE D, part of an organization, so I can get to create leadership development experiences. So that's really what I've been focused on here in kind of the latter years of my career.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:04:33.170 - 00:04:42.690
What brought you? You know, there's coaching and leadership development can be a pretty broad space. What made you interested in neurodiversity?

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:04:43.890 - 00:06:58.980
Yeah, so when I started coaching, my the first coaching school I went to was the institute. And I've always been fascinated by how our brains work. My undergrads in psychology, my favorite class in psychology was neuroscience.

So I've always really been fascinated about how we work and how we're wired and what causes us to behave in certain ways. So just a lifelong passion of mine. So when I got into coaching, went to the neuroleadership Institute. Loved that take brain based coaching.

What I found was so many of the clients that were either coming to me inside organizations or finding me through my own private practice were neurodivergent in some way. Many of them living with adhd, some living with autism. And I remember Kent talking to some of my coach friends.

There's a really great coach network here in the Twin Cities.

And running this idea past a couple of my coach friends, like, hey, I'm noticing this trend where well over 50% of my clients have ADHD or some sort of neurodiversity. And I remember my coach friends going, hayley, none of my clients, they're experiencing neurodivergence.

And I was like, oh, I really need to pay attention to this. And then on a personal side, so many people that I love the most in the whole world are living with adhd.

And so a little over a year ago, I really leaned in, and this might sound woo, and I think that's okay, but really got leaned in and I said, okay, universe, I hear you, except I understand what I was supposed to do, and I haven't looked back and went back to school. ADHD coaching is a specialty form of coaching, so that required another coaching program.

I'm happy to say that I've passed all of that, and I am a certified ADHD coach practitioner as well as leadership coach certified through the icf. So just. And it's just been a blast. I absolutely love helping both leaders and people impacted by ADHD thrive in their environments.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:07:04.590 - 00:07:20.510
Thanks for sharing that. That's really interesting. And I wanted to come back to something you were just saying, which is you had.

You were finding so many of the people you were coaching had adhd. And then as you were talking with your contemporaries, they were like, none of my clients do. So what's up with that? What?

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:07:20.510 - 00:07:20.830
What?

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:07:22.110 - 00:07:25.870
Tell me, have you done any thinking or research around what that might be about?

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:07:27.150 - 00:08:21.900
That's a great question. I can't quite put my finger on it. My guess is a couple of things.

One, like I said, all the people, not all, but a lot of the people that I love the most in the world are adhd. And so I think I, as a human, very open about it and very safe for people to talk about it.

A couple of my clients have told me that I make them feel calm. And so I think. And that's probably one of the best compliments I've gotten as a coach. And a couple of my clients have said, I really feel calm.

I'm collected when I talk to you. So I think there's an environment where that I create that helps kind of cultivate that sharing and the psychological safety around sharing.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:08:21.980 - 00:08:39.580
Okay, so it might come down to you are attracted to individuals who are, as I like to hear online lately, you are maybe interpersonally attracted to people who are a little more neurospicy, as they say. Yeah, yeah.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:08:39.660 - 00:09:01.940
And maybe people who are more, to use your term, neurospicy, are attracted to me. Yeah. Right. From the. Like, we. We work Together. Yeah. Interesting. Well, yeah. And not to say, I want to be careful, too. Not to say that my.

That my other colleagues creating safety. I know they are. They're fantastic. Yeah. I just think there's a little bit of, like you said, like, magnetism.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:09:02.020 - 00:09:02.500
Yeah.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:09:03.060 - 00:09:06.580
I understand. Your brain and everything feels good in the relationship.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:09:06.740 - 00:12:00.300
Yeah. So talk to me a little bit about. Okay, let me rewind. I remember, Gosh, it was, I want to say, 2021. 2020. 2020. Yeah, 2020.

Between, like, the latter part of 2020 and into 2021, I was in a DEI role at Cargill. And among all the many things we could get into about that time period in D, one of the things that was going on was the pandemic.

And I remember there being a real. Cargill was a primarily, I think, at the time, kind of in person culture.

And we did use probably Skype and then teams for video calling pretty regularly, but it wasn't like a virtual first necessarily kind of place. So I remember this sort of ebb and flow of people feel. We all went home and people didn't turn their.

I'm trying to remember, people were hesitant to turn their cameras on. All of a sudden. I think part of it was we were living this messy life at home.

Some people with kids and other people with pets and partners that they weren't used to being around all day and maybe getting a little bit out of the routine of how one preps themselves for work for the day. And so there was a bit of my hair is not ready to be on camera kind of thing going on.

And then I think as the pandemic was dragging on, we were like, now we gotta get cameras on. We gotta see each other. And. And then I remember, as probably into 2021 as I was, I had launched our first ever global day of Inclusion.

And there was this hole with someone had brought in a speaker about neurodiversity. And the topic of being on camera all day came on or came up in that conversation. I wasn't there, but I heard about it after the fact.

And there was this whole conversation of, for some folks who are neurodiverse, it's actually really hard to have to look at themselves all day long on video calls. And I remember. So then this whole idea of, do you have your cameras on? Do you have your cameras off?

Started kind of entering into this space of inclusivity. So that's a really long story for me to say.

That's probably my first foray into in my time in D. And I Also having people pitch to the DNI team recruitment organizations focused on helping people with autism or ADHD get jobs. Right. Those were my. So this is 2021ish, my first sort of foray into the ideas of or even just broad brushstrokes ideas of neuro inclusive cultures.

So would love to hear, I would love taking it from the top maybe let's define that and would love to know what kind of brought you into thinking about this more from a cultural perspective beyond just your one on one coaching.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:12:01.500 - 00:15:06.030
Yes. So I'm really passionate about helping individuals. Right.

But then that goes more broadly into the structure because what is, what you were just describing is that is, is the work structure, is the school structure, I help students and professionals but here is the work structure supporting so that everyone can work at their best and there can be things in the work environment that work for maybe a larger group of people that don't work for everyone. And then all of a sudden you're dimming the brightness and the brilliance that the whole population can bring.

And so as I think about it at that structural level and that's why I'm so passionate about helping with neuro inclusive cultures as well. There's, there's so many business reasons why this is an important imperative. Diversity of thought.

Neurodiversity, just by definition means that people's brains function and process information differently. And that's not wrong, it's just different.

And that's where you harness diversity of thought that breaks you out of groupthink that can enhance creativity, enhance innovation. And we're living in a world in society right now where everybody's asking for more creativity, more innovation.

How are we going to do things differently?

And so when you have groups of people with varying ways of thinking, varying ways of looking at the world you get to unlock challenges are surfaced faster, customer bases can be understood to a greater extent. It's a huge benefit and from a team member. So that's kind of the business benefit. Right.

When a team members feel included and their voices are heard and what they need is honored in that kind of psychologically safe space they can work and thrive to a greater degree. They can show their creativity, problem solving, innovation.

Neurodiverse individuals tend to have improved pattern recognition more they're more likely to challenge the status quo. There's also some neurodivergent folks have a greater attention and focus on authenticity and fairness and justice.

So there's so many just beautiful things that we want in our organizations that we can unlock by making sure that everybody can thrive. The issue of course is that companies don't always know how to do it. Well.

We think about our HR teams, sometimes our policy teams, whomever is creating policies and they write policies for the average. Right. It's easier to write for the average and what will work for everyone.

And it's hard to write policies that have so many different kind of ways and exceptions. Right?

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:15:06.030 - 00:15:06.349
Yeah.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:15:06.349 - 00:15:07.310
And then we get our gloves in.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:15:07.310 - 00:15:07.990
A little bit of.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:15:07.990 - 00:16:22.230
A little bit of trouble. I think about.

I've been really appreciative to see especially lately and I don't know if you've seen this too Kent, but there's been a lot of research and articles around this kind of strategic advantage of neuro inclusivity that I was just talking with.

All the diversity of thought that you can harness and what those articles are looking at is the business benefit of that advantage of neuro inclusivity.

But I think there's an important additional element that gets missed which is that when you create a neuro inclusive culture where everyone can thrive, then the business thrives. So I flip it.

So much of what's coming out is like the advantage of what happens to business results, you know, when you have a neuro inclusive culture. Great, let's start with the humans where everyone can thrive and then your businesses will thrive too.

So I really think of this as like a people first initiative. Create the right conditions, create that psychological safety, treat people well and then you'll have the business result.

But it's not the other way around.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:16:23.270 - 00:16:39.800
Yeah. I want to get into what's been going on that that is getting in the way.

But before I get there, it's interesting because I was kind of talking about my experience at Cargill and I'm not sure when I became aware of Temple Grandin. Do you know who that is?

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:16:40.360 - 00:16:40.760
No.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:16:41.240 - 00:19:05.170
Okay. There's a whole, I think there's a whole movie where Claire Danes portrays her in fact, but it's. It's.

So what I'm saying here is it's interesting because I think the whole I'm going to get it so wrong, I'm not even going to really try. But she was a high functioning or, I don't know, medium functioning person on the autism spectrum.

And the whole story is how she, and I think I believe her. Her mom fought for her to get an education and yada and she helped pioneer some new, I guess for lack of a better way of putting it, like technology.

But it was more like how they the la. Literally the last yards of a Cow's life.

She kind of designed this pen system that would help reduce the anxiety of the cows before going to slaughter.

Because the way that it used to happen is they would kind of, it would be this sort of scary experience and so their cortisol levels would be through the roof literally right before slaughter. Which is. So this is a, maybe this is a really weird angle to go down.

But part of like her story and she speaks in front of organizations and schools and all sorts of things and I think part of her whole message is just that her, her ability to literally think differently. The visual kind of thinking that she is capable of compared to like you were saying, the quote unquote average person. Right.

And so I would say some of what I've.

Some of what I'm hearing from you, some of what I remember hearing when people were pitching, hey, come check out our organ, our talent pool with this recruitment organization of neurospicy individuals. Because there's, they think of things differently and they see the world differently.

And what that might unlock for you, a innovation and problem solving perspective. I, I was just thinking back to Cargill. Like there was this interesting experience and a huge part of I think their history in the end as well.

And still I, I feel like it's only been over the last 10 years maybe where talking about neurodiversity in the workplace is pretty new. Right. And maybe over the last 10 years maybe fewer, let alone neuro inclusive culture. And yet there's these.

I guess where I'm going with that is there's these shining examples of where companies have already benefited from it. Right. Like that, like Temple Brandon's a good example from, from Cargill's history.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:19:06.370 - 00:19:08.610
Yeah, they're good. Oh, go ahead.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:19:08.930 - 00:19:33.169
What I wanted to say is what's getting in the way today, like in terms of how we just operate, companies operate from a day to day perspective. What is it that we're. They just maybe, maybe give it some grace and say what is.

Where is the, what is the lack of intention that's happening and how is it maybe getting in the way of getting people's best thinking and people thriving?

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:19:33.810 - 00:22:27.920
Yeah, I think that, I think one of the biggest things that's getting in the way and this will lead me into some advice that I have, but I want to really describe what I think is part of the problem is it's human nature frankly to see different ways of doing things as wrong. We have a little bit of built in, but bias towards what, what, how I do it is right.

And so you see someone doing something differently and you're like, right. And so when organizations do that on a broad scale, they stop seeing differences as just differences and they start to see them as problems to fix.

And so there's this. It might be a silly example, but I think it illustrates it really well. I've written about this out on LinkedIn too.

But let's take this example of being left handed. Right. The majority of humans are right handed. There's some that are left handed and they face challenges.

Not seeing being left handed is any way like being neurodivergent, right? Not at all. But I use sample to bring to life an example or bring to life what happens in organizations.

So let's say you're left handed, but the place that you work only gives you right handed scissors. They insist that you take notes in spiral bound notebooks, but you can't use the back side of the page. You have to use the front side of the page.

And if you're left handed, you know that really stinks. And then at lunch your boss says, no, you need to sit next to that colleague who is a right handed person. Sit on their right side.

So we've now taken this left handed person. We've put them in an environment that just doesn't work. But the left handed person isn't the problem.

The lack of the proper tools like the scissors and the unnecessary rigidity of how to take notes with that notebook and then the lack of compassionate awareness like where your leader is making you sit, those are the problems. The environment's the problem, it's not the person. But that's exactly how many leaders view their neurodivergent team members.

And so when someone with ADHD or autism or even learning differences struggle, they're often labeled as problems and poor performers. And that breaks my heart. And that's when I see people come to coaching is because they've been told they're a problem and they're not a problem.

They're working in structures that don't work for them. Their brains are working differently, but their leaders can unfortunately sometimes see them as something to fix because they're working differently.

The real problem is that we lack the right tools, we lack the flexibility, and we lack that compassionate awareness to help bring their gifts.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:22:31.600 - 00:22:34.680
I think I lost your mic for just a second here. Are you still there?

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:22:34.680 - 00:22:35.840
Oh no. Yes.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:22:36.000 - 00:22:46.640
Oh. Or you just paused? Cause I heard you say, I heard you say bring their gifts. And then it went kind of oddly silent. Was that the end of your silence?

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:22:47.120 - 00:22:54.750
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. How do we create environments and understanding and awareness to. To have everybody shine.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:22:54.990 - 00:24:46.420
Yeah. Okay, so I'm just gonna make a vocal note here to clip out my little blurb of checking in with you and it'll. We'll tighten that up.

So this is probably gonna lead you into some of the advice. Cause I think what I'm struggling with in the conversation is picturing what this looks like, right?

Picturing what both the challenge, maybe even the solutions look like. Say my. Maybe the standard I'm thinking about this from is meetings, right.

And thinking about some general advice people in the, I don't know, HR or even leadership development arenas have been giving for a while in terms of probably in its most simplistic introverts versus extroverts, right. That we kind of go through this advice, this we talk about. Hey, introverts need time to process.

If you can both provide a clear agenda of what's going to be talked about if there's any potential to provide rereads and if there's any possibility to provide a break between say the meeting and decision making to give those people who are.

And maybe I'll try to start steering clear of introvert versus extrovert but people who are processors, you know, quote unquote, time to process, we will get their best thinking right. In my simplistic brain that's what's popping up for me as you're talking through this.

So I would love to hear and again like I said, this is probably going to lead into your. Some of your general advice in this space.

But yeah, like paint some pictures for me of how this is showing up or even just how the solutions just so we can see a bit more about what is, what is operating with more intention from a neuro inclusivity perspective practically look like.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:24:47.700 - 00:27:58.690
Kat, I love your example of meetings because that is one thing that I do talk about in their cultures and you're spot on.

So providing the agenda ahead of the meeting, providing any pre reads ahead of the meeting, providing ways for people to brainstorm can be really impactful so that you come to the meeting prepared.

Then when you're in the meeting, whoever is running the meeting, making sure that all voices are heard, there isn't one person dominating the conversation.

But also giving grace to folks who maybe don't want to talk out loud, maybe they want to provide their feedback in the chat, maybe they want to provide their feedback in a written form and then after the meeting sending out that recap. That's super clear who's who's got the next steps by when et cetera is also really helpful.

The other thing that I would say in meetings too is allow for movement if possible. Does everybody really need to be like glued and chained to their chair for 90 minutes? You know, walk around?

In my heart of hearts, if I would love to see some normalization of even fidgets and just different ways to incorporate movement because so many people actually think better when their hands are busy. So I've actually taken to. Sometimes I serve as an adjunct professor and so I've taken to bringing fidgets to my classrooms.

I've been known to play with a paperclip during meetings to keep myself focused. So I would love to see that. So there's good meeting practices.

But even as I'm saying that, and I think that actually gets me into my bigger piece of advice here, is that those things sound so simple. Right? Send an agenda, make sure everyone has time to speak and send a recap, but people still don't do it. Right.

And so it's both more simple and more complex than you'd think. My bigger pieces of advice are, especially for leaders, is to expect variation.

So expect that people work in different ways and don't assume what works for you or maybe even the majority of your team works for everyone, but instead lean into curiosity and being open minded and find out what your team needs to do to be their best. And I know you know this too. Being curious and open minded is again, sounds so simple, but it's so difficult in practice. It's so hard to do.

I'm actually reading this was funny, it just happened yesterday. I'm reading Astrophysics for People in a hurry by Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Totally like a left turn here.

But he had this beautiful line about measurement and he said that our eyes are attached to the baggage in our brains. And I would further that in this context and say our ears are also attached to the baggage in our brains.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:27:58.920 - 00:27:59.240
Yeah.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:27:59.720 - 00:28:19.760
How do we recognize that and stay really open and curious about what helps other people work best? And that is real leadership work. No matter if you are a brand new leader today or you're running the company.

Like staying open minded and curious is hard work. And it's so.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:28:19.760 - 00:30:16.170
It's interesting because I feel like in pockets we give that maybe pockets is not the right word, but we give this advice to leaders, particularly if we're talking about having career conversations or we're talking about maybe you just entered the organization or you are now leading a new team. Right. And I feel like we at times Give some of this advice from a general perspective.

I don't know that we paint it maybe as explicitly as we could because we will say, you should ask someone how do they work best? Right. I know. I've learned even as when I've been an employee to check with my bosses sometimes about, hey, what are your communication preferences?

Do you prefer someone just dropping by or do you prefer an email? Do you prefer instant messaging and for what kind of communication? Right. I've uncovered all kinds of.

Just with that question, how do you prefer to be communicated with. I've uncovered all different expectations from all kinds of people to say, you're never going to get my attention with an email. Right.

Which don't even bother sending it. Right. Drop by. Right. Stuff like that.

But I don't know that we've given it the intentional lens around neurodiversity that you could to say, hey, here's some reasons why, why you want to ask these kinds of questions. Why? Yeah. Right. So I think meeting norms like this makes tons of sense to me. And I bet people listening are like, yep, I can totally see that. Right.

Fidgets and the freedom to get up and walk around and. But I guess I'm still kind of curious what other realms within the workplace could we be providing?

I think accommodations maybe not quite the right word, but maybe it is like providing more accommodation for people to operate in the way that they operate best. Yeah.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:30:16.410 - 00:30:47.460
Yeah. So I really like what you're saying about communication preferences. I think is a big one.

And I'll paint a couple of other really specific examples and what I love about this too.

And again, I'll say it's like, it's both really simple but more complex than you'd think because some of it breaks like those traditional in office norms, like getting up and walking around in a meeting breaks off as norms for some reason. Right. And I think the more that people do it or the more that leaders model, it can be really helpful there.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:30:48.980 - 00:31:51.990
I want to stop you there for just a second because I wonder.

I feel like I'm maybe even kind of seeing the office designs and remodels are maybe even taking this, I don't know, maybe not intentionally, but taking it into consideration because I'm like, when I was at General Mills, they were remodeling every corner of the business over the two years that I was there. Like the buildings and they were building more different and flexible spaces.

So like some of the meeting rooms I was in were more like ouches surrounding the walls with little pull up End tables you could put your computer on if you wanted to, or there'd be maybe a table in the middle, but then like these other chairs surrounding it. And so I feel like some of the space, maybe it's just a shout out to General Mills, but I can't imagine they were.

They're the only people kind of doing this and I wouldn't know how intentional they're being about it.

But I think some of this literal physical spaces that I have personally seen, and not just there, but even with some clients are even more conducive of freedom of movement in a meeting.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:31:53.670 - 00:31:59.590
Yeah, I love that we're all. No matter where you're at, you're designed to move.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:32:00.470 - 00:32:09.420
Sorry, I think that totally threw you off with that. But it was just like, oh my gosh. I feel like some companies, whether they know it or not, are starting to do some good stuff here.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:32:09.900 - 00:32:27.900
I love that so much. And that's actually reminding me of what I'm about to say. May be unpopular, but I believe it with every fiber of my being.

The, the companies that are remodeling their offices into this open floor plan from a neuro inclusive standpoint, like, yuck. I think.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:32:28.140 - 00:32:28.900
Ah, yes.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:32:28.900 - 00:32:46.120
Oh, I'm Pretty sure Carla McLaren, I'm attribute this to her, called it most succinctly the devil's floor plan. It is so disrupt. Literally everyone are neurodivergent team members. It's distracting and it's loud. And talk about sensory overload.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:32:46.200 - 00:32:47.240
Oh my gosh. Wow.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:32:47.240 - 00:33:45.330
And you're always on display, which creates performance, which actually goes back to your being on zoom calls all day. Right. And that can really wear out folks quickly. So yeah, just saying that, like I know some people listening are not going to like that.

I called it that. But yeah, these open floor plans just, they don't work from. From a couple of other just really examples.

Like some folks work better with headphones on. They're either putting music on and that helps them focus. That is a real thing, especially for adhd.

Provide enough brain stimulation to get through work in a more fun way as well. Some people wear headphones because they need to block out the noise. But that is not always normalized in offices and sometimes leaders get upset.

That thing. You can't hear the people around you or I can't just say come up to you and say, hey, Kent, because you can't hear me for some reason.

That can be annoying. But the headphones could be game for folks.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:33:45.330 - 00:34:12.000
Well, and for the love of, for the love of everything, I Think there's plenty of research out there about the lost productivity to context switching from day to day interruptions.

Anyway, so the whole if you have your headphones and I can't sneak, you know, I can't sneak up on you and interrupt you, I'm like, maybe we shouldn't be doing that anyway. Just from a simple lost productivity perspective,.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:34:14.000 - 00:34:15.360
100%.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:34:16.160 - 00:35:03.749
Which is maybe also the call to kind of keep Hybrid alive instead of this full on in office.

I'm probably going to date this podcast episode a little here, but Adam Grant, I don't know if you saw this, just published a paper report on what's really behind this return to office mandate. And I don't know that he points to it as the 100% reason, but enough of a statistically significant reason is leadership narcissism, right?

The need to lord over people, the need to be loved by your minions, the need to see the people. Right.

That there's something that the leaders directly are getting from having their people around them as opposed to it truly being about productivity.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:35:03.749 - 00:35:03.949
Right.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:35:03.949 - 00:35:39.350
Because the research is very clear that hybrids where it's at. Right?

And about that lost productivity thing, I know there's people I know who are just like, honestly, the days I work, the one or two days I get to work from home, I get the most work. I get the most work done because people aren't dropping by.

And so I think maybe there's another call here from a neurodiversity perspective to keep Hybrid. Right.

That, you know, from a mixed methodology perspective or however you want to think about that giving people both environments to work within to get the most.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:35:40.150 - 00:36:56.390
Yep, 100% aligned. And yeah, productivity. I think about people. Think about the.

Even if you're in Cubeville, the people that have their backs to those busy hallways in the break rooms and the lunchroom. Right. That is so disruptive where people. Somebody walks by and you jump.

Think about working eight hours in a place where you're constantly jumping and the impact on your cortisol and your nervous system. You're not bringing yourself that day. And I was recently unimpressed. I have a.

A friend with diagnosed ADHD who was trying to have her company move her into a less distracting place, like on the floor. And they were absolutely dragging their feet and not working with her. And I'm thinking this was one of the easiest requests on the planet.

This person is saying, I work better when I'm not being distracted by this break room right here all day. You'll get better work out of me. If I can move 25ft over there, why are we not doing that?

So that's what I'm, that's what I'm talking about is creating a neuro inclusive environment is much more simple than you'd think. It's just for some reason it's also more complex than you'd think.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:36:56.390 - 00:36:57.510
Yeah, yeah.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:36:57.590 - 00:37:11.280
And I think if we just high level I would leave you with this like high level if we treat everyone regardless guardless of brain wiring a capable human who's telling you the truth about how they work best.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:37:11.680 - 00:37:51.390
Yeah, I like that.

And it reminds me, I think there's so much commonality between when we talk about engagement and development and careers and heck as we're more or less talking about today is productivity and quality is treat people as individuals.

What is it that they need, what is it that they want and how do you do your all as a leader to provide that the environment for them to be at their best. Which to your point doesn't have to be so complicated.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:37:52.110 - 00:37:53.630
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:37:53.710 - 00:38:52.390
As we're winding down here one of my focuses is on the fact that we don't truly support en masse. We don't really give a lot of support to leaders the day after they've been promoted. Right. We don't. It is a big change.

We don't necessarily teach new directors how to stop being a manager and start being a director. We kind of make them figure it out or heck how to start being a VP and stop being a director.

So I ask all my guests to come prepared with two pieces of advice. So one is and I'll just kind of throw them both out and you can take them in whatever order you like.

Which is one piece of advice for those leaders who are still trying to grow in their career and get to the next level.

So what's one piece of advice you have for leaders who are trying to get their next leadership promotion and then one piece of advice for those who just landed in that role. How do we what advice do you have to help them kind of leave the old role behind and step into effectiveness at this next level? Yes.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:38:52.950 - 00:41:05.429
So K keeping with the theme of creating neuro inclusive cultures is again doing that really difficult leadership work of remaining open minded and highly curious.

And a lot of times what folks think, especially when they're either looking at making that transition to leadership for the first time or if they've just made the transition to leadership is they think they need to have all the answers. And the truth is you don't need to have all the answers and you won't have all the answers. That's why you're working with a team. Right?

And so you can unlock the brilliance of your team by staying really curious and asking questions. You create more psychologically safe environments on your team when you ask questions. But not leading questions, right? Or not.

Questions to which you already know the answer, but genuinely open questions, not only about how people work their best, but what are you seeing, especially folks that are closer to maybe the customer or the frontline. They're typically your best sources of information for how processes and products can be improved. Ask the questions and stay super curious.

Just don't think you need to know everything. That's you just you won't, you can't, you'll burn yourself out. And I think that plays as you, as you climb up the ladder as well.

But I would actually give a little bit different piece of advice and something that I've been working with people on is thinking about delegation as a development tool.

So when you're already a leader and you have a team and you've now just transitioned, like you said, to VP from director, how are you now developing the next set of directors? And don't take all that work with you again, you're going to burn out. You're not going to be as effective.

Think about that delegation and that training as developing that next line of directors. Your whole job as a leader is to help people grow and develop. And so how are you delegating?

How are you thinking about your role differently so that those teams can grow and thrive? Don't all with you.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:41:05.670 - 00:41:23.470
Yeah. Love it, Hayley.

For those who would like a little more Hayley Meyer in their life to talk about neurodiverse cultures or like, hey, I'm neurospicy and would love a neurospicy focused coach, where should people find you? What would you like them to know about you?

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:41:24.350 - 00:41:41.550
Yeah, I think the easiest place to find me is LinkedIn, either @haley meyer or I have a LinkedIn page for my company as well. Compassionately transparent coaching. I know it's a long name. Stick with me. It was picked on purpose. I also do have a website which is Paperbell me.

Backslash Haley Meyer.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:41:41.550 - 00:42:21.680
Nice. Hayley, thank you so much for being here today. This was a very fun conversation and I think it's an important topic.

I think the thing that keeps kind of coming back to me and is just be curious and be have a desire to get the best out of people. Right.

And I think if I were to sum up something that we probably both talk about in coaching as we're kind of trying to help people think about behaving differently in some way, shape or form is what if you just tried it? What if you just believed like you said earlier, believed them for a moment and experimented with giving them what what they say they want or need?

Yeah, maybe you'll be surprised.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:42:23.280 - 00:42:32.640
That's right. What if you just helped them move their desk? What if you just let them wear. What if you just let them pace in the meeting?

What's the worst that can happen? Bet. I bet the best is going to happen.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:42:33.850 - 00:42:34.130
Love it.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:42:34.130 - 00:42:34.450
Yeah.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:42:34.450 - 00:42:36.650
Hayley, thanks for being here today. I really appreciate it.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:42:37.290 - 00:42:37.930
Thank you.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:42:38.170 - 00:42:39.210
All right, take it easy.

Hailey Meyer (guest)
00:42:39.850 - 00:42:40.890
Thank you. Bye.

Kent Kniebel (host)
00:42:43.450 - 00:43:05.340
That brings us to the end of our episode. Thank you for listening. I'd encourage you to head on over to my website, Kent Coach, and start a conversation with me there.

Or check out my promoted leader Toolkit at Kent Coach Toolkit. Before you go on with your day, please take a moment to leave a rating and a review. Wherever you listen to podcasts, click the five stars.

That helps put this podcast in front of more ears. Until next time, take it easy.