Changing the process

Adjustments that help everyone

These adjustments help neurodivergent staff and often help everyone else too. Being tired, anxious, new to English, dealing with trauma or simply better on paper than in a live argument all make the same design useful. Build the ramp, and more than one group uses it.

What to change in the process

Send the agenda and main issues in writing ahead of time.
Allow written options, not only live debate: email, chat or a shared document.
Let either person call a short break without it being treated as walking out.
Ask clear questions. Instead of "How does that make you feel?" try "Is this about fairness, workload, respect or safety?"
Say the request out loud. Do not rely on hints.
Separate what someone meant from how it landed.
Ask every participant, "Is there anything that would make this conversation easier to take part in?" Do not wait for a diagnosis.

Before we meet

A short note to send with any invitation to a difficult conversation. It gives people the information and control that make participation possible.

What we will talk about The main issues, listed plainly, in the order we will take them. Nothing new will be raised in the meeting without agreement.

How you can take part In the meeting, in writing beforehand, in writing afterward, or a mix. All three count the same.

Pausing Either of us can ask for a short break at any time. A break is not walking out, and we will pick up where we stopped.

One question for everyone Is there anything that would make this conversation easier to take part in? Lighting, sound, timing, written prompts, a support person, anything else. You do not need to give a reason.

Afterward I will send a short written summary of what we agreed, with who does what by when, and you can correct anything you could not say in the room.

Adapt this for your setting and attach it to your next meeting invitation. Then make sure every line is true.

Browse and download only. Staff notes are not typed or saved on this page.

Make the adjustments the default, not the exception

What you can change

You control whether access is something a person has to ask for, and explain, or something the process already offers to everyone.

What to watch for

Do not grant a written agenda or a break as a personal favor to the one person who asked. It marks them, and it leaves everyone who did not ask without it.

Your next step

Put the seven adjustments in the way your team runs every difficult conversation, and say so in the invitation.

Try a situation

A team member asks their supervisor to send the main points in writing before a meeting about a complaint between two colleagues, and asks whether they can respond partly in writing afterward. The supervisor's first thought is that this is not how these conversations are done, and that a written exchange will feel formal and cold.

What is the best response?

Explain that these conversations need to happen face to face so everyone can read each other, and decline the written option.

Agree to the written agenda, offer the written option to both people, and ask everyone involved whether anything else would make the conversation easier to take part in.

Agree, but only for this person and only because they asked, and mention that it is an exception.

Carry this forward

Send the agenda and main issues in writing ahead of time, allow written options alongside live discussion, and let either person call a short break without it being treated as walking out.
Ask clear, choice-based questions, say the request out loud, and separate what someone meant from how it landed.
Ask every participant, "Is there anything that would make this conversation easier to take part in?" Do not wait for a diagnosis.

A scenario decision, a knowledge check and a before-the-meeting note adapted for your team.

Use the before-the-meeting note for your next difficult conversation, and keep the one access question in every invitation from now on.

Your next step

Which of the seven adjustments would be easiest to make standard on your team this month?

Add the one access question to your next meeting invitation

Agree with your team on a pause signal that is never treated as walking out

Rewrite one open-ended emotion question you tend to ask into a choice-based question

What you’ll be able to do

Adjustments that help everyone

What to change in the process

Before we meet

Make the adjustments the default, not the exception

What you can change

What to watch for

Your next step

Try a situation

Carry this forward

Your next step

Changing the process

What you’ll be able to do

Adjustments that help everyone

What to change in the process

Before we meet

Make the adjustments the default, not the exception

What you can change

What to watch for

Your next step

Try a situation

Carry this forward

Your next step