Whether neurodivergent or neurotypical, neuroscience drives inclusion and optimises project outcomes

I didn’t always identify well with being a project manager. Despite feeling at ease with my project management skillset and the robust governance and risk management that delivered success time and again, something wasn’t quite right. Prior to gaining project and change management qualifications, I had extensive professional experience with service design and development and therefore informal project management, so I put it down to imposter syndrome.  

After an early career delivering healthcare services in hospital settings, I moved into the charity sector to deliver and develop national services. Just two years into this transition, I became an executive leader responsible for designing and implementing strategies to ensure that families of children with disabilities could access the right equipment at the right time. 

Four years ago, following a workplace incident, I acquired post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This incident caused significant disruption and trauma for everyone involved. My role had become untenable. Determined not to be a victim, I focused more on the families needing additional support (as mine had, when I was a young carer for two disabled brothers), than on my own wellbeing. 

The PTSD, in combination with my hyperfocus, perseverance and stubbornness, (which I suspect are indicative of undiagnosed autism), created a long-term change in the way I experience the world. These days, I have to manage the prominent anxieties and fears associated with PTSD on a daily basis. If I don’t, my mental health suffers. 

When I got my diagnosis, no-one explained the concept of neurodiversity — which is a strengths-based paradigm that describes the natural diversity of thought/ behavior and is aligned to the social model of disability and positive psychology. As a healthcare professional, I understood the newly acquired malplasticity of my brain and therefore understood this to be a deficit. My neurodivergent identity only became clear when my son was diagnosed with Autism and Dyslexia. In explaining his diagnoses to family, friends and school, my own experience began to make sense.  

I took a career break to help my son access the educational and care support he needed. On returning to work, I became a Prince2 practitioner and was appointed into the role of National Caring Services Project Manager with another national charity. 

When interviewing for this position, I took a risk by disclosing my neurodivergence for the first time and, luckily, my line manager was fantastically supportive. She often reminds me that my experience in Service Design and my Growth Mindset (apparent from my interview) were more important than my formalised knowledge of project management methodologies. 

This experience, combined with Carole Osterweil’s book, Neuroscience for Project Success, published by APM, has silenced the imposter syndrome. 

I came to this book with a question: ‘Will this content help me engage with diverse stakeholders and/or realise success as a neurodivergent project manager?’ 

The answer is yes, enormously!  

Firstly, it highlights a universal truth. All project and change professionals operate in a stressful, VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex & Ambiguous) world, and everyone within this profession — whether they identify as neurodivergent or not — faces the same central challenge. Under constant stress, our thinking brains are frequently ‘taken offline’. This results in sub-optimal behaviors and decisions which make it far harder to realise project benefits.   

Secondly, it lays out a set of universal design principles to follow whether you identify as neurodivergent or neurotypical. Grounded in neuroscience, these principles and associated tools make our VUCA world less VUCA, bringing project success within reach. Essentially, they center on learning to ‘bring our thinking brains online’. This powerful act creates the conditions for people to accept and engage with change, and it safeguards cognitive capacity and mental health.  

Neuroscience for Project Success has a reader-friendly structure and style combined with person-centric examples and organisational case studies. I found it an accessible and easy read.   

Full of practical lessons, I returned to several sections more than once as I applied the principles and tools at work. These have helped me:  

• understand why I behave the way I do,  
• evolve my professional identity,   
• prioritize my wellbeing at work, and  
• lead my projects and programmes with confident humility and curiosity about behaviours. 

Together they have revolutionised my relationships with Project Boards and Business Executives/Sponsors. Many of whom followed my lead and either disclosed their neurological differences and workplace needs or adopted inclusive behaviours. 

I no longer struggle with personal or professional parts of my identity, or imposter syndrome. I’m more than the sum of my parts — I’m a compassionate and inclusive leader who loves facilitating collaborative efforts to co-design and successfully implement transformative organisational change. 

But most importantly, I have learned that my mental health and that of those affected by change is more important than any project outcome. If we follow these universal principles, we don’t need to choose between realising project benefits and safeguarding our mental health! 

I highly recommend Neuroscience for Project Success to everyone working on projects, change and transformation. It inspired further study of neuroscience and my qualification as an Agile Change Coach.   

The book’s publishers, Association for Project Management, are generously offering a 20% discount in support of @Neurodiversity Celebration Week.   

To get the 20% discount you must use this link to their bookshop and this code NEURO24, between these dates 18-25 March.  

Download a wonderful sample and find out more about this book.

 

You may also be interested in:

• 1 in 7 neurodivergent project managers are not telling employers about their condition, APM reveals
• What is diversity and inclusion in project management?
• Introduction to Neurodiversity in the Workplace/Awareness