By Dr Tom Hitchcock, founder of Mr Purple (LinkedIn)
Somebody on your team is not quite delivering. Deadlines wobble. The report arrives, but not the report you pictured. In meetings they go quiet, then send a brilliant idea at 9.40pm. The easy word for this is underperformance. It is also, quite often, the wrong one.
A piece by Evelyne Wilton about job design got us thinking, and it sits neatly beside something we say a lot at NeuroChamps: measure the room, not the worth of the person. Before anyone is handed a performance plan, it is worth checking whether the work itself was designed for one kind of brain and quietly given to another.
Why underperformance is often a design problem
Most jobs are built by accident. A role description written years ago, a meeting rhythm nobody chose, an office layout picked for the furniture rather than the people. For many neurodivergent people, and plenty of others besides, those accidents add up. They spend half their energy getting around the work before they can actually do it.
That energy shows up as late tasks, missed details or a sudden flat patch. From the outside it looks like a problem with effort or ability. From the inside it often feels like running up a down escalator in somebody else’s shoes.
Five places to look before you look at the person
1. The instructions
“Can you pull something together for Thursday?” is a perfectly normal sentence that contains almost no information. What is the something? How long should it be? Who reads it? What does good look like? Vague briefs reward people who are comfortable guessing, and trip up people who need to see the target before they aim.
2. The sensory load
Open-plan chatter, flickering lights, a fridge with opinions, the colleague who takes every call on speaker. Some people tune it out. Others hear all of it, all day, and reach mid-afternoon with nothing left in the tank. Lower output in a loud room often says more about the room.
3. The task switching
A role that is mostly deep work but interrupted every eleven minutes by chat pings is not mostly deep work. For people whose focus takes a while to build, each interruption costs far more than the minute it took.
4. The unwritten rules
Every workplace runs on rules nobody wrote down: who you copy in, how direct you can be with the boss, whether “let’s catch up” means today or never. People who read between the lines easily never notice these rules exist. People who take words at face value walk into them again and again, and then get told they lack judgement.
5. The feedback format
A quick “that wasn’t quite it” in the corridor gives someone a feeling, not a fix. Many people do far better with feedback that is written, specific and about the work, with one clear thing to change next time.
Meet Quirks, who explains this better than we do
If you have met Quirks, our NeuroChamps character, you will know he is a plain purple blob with no words and a great many feelings. Put him under buzzing lights and he goes spiky. Pile on interruptions and he squashes flat. Hand him a fuzzy brief and he wobbles, unsure which way to roll. Nothing about Quirks changed between those moments. The room did. Give him a quiet corner, a clear note and one job at a time, and he puffs up like a very pleased cushion.
A checklist you can use this week
None of this needs a budget, a policy rewrite or anybody’s diagnosis. It needs a manager willing to try a few things and notice what changes.
- Write the brief down. Purpose, audience, length, deadline and one example of good.
- Ask how they like instructions. Written, spoken or a quick sketch, then use that.
- Send an agenda before meetings and a short written summary after, saying who is doing what.
- Protect one focus block a day. Notifications off and no drive-by questions, for everyone.
- Offer a quieter spot or headphones without anyone having to explain why.
- Say the unwritten rules out loud. Pick three and write them down for the whole team.
- Change the feedback format. Specific, written, about the work, with one next step.
- Batch the small asks into one message instead of a drip of pings.
- Ask one question: what is one thing about how this work is set up that makes it harder than it needs to be?
Then give it a few weeks and look again. If things improve, you have learned something about the work, not just the person. If they do not, you can have a fairer and clearer conversation, because you know the room was not the problem.
What this is not
This is not about lowering the bar or guessing at anyone’s diagnosis. Nobody needs to disclose anything for these changes to help, and nobody should be asked to. It is not legal or HR compliance advice either; for formal obligations, talk to your HR adviser. It is simply good work design, the sort that tends to help the whole team, not just the person you were worried about.
Want a hand checking the room?
NeuroChamps is shaping practical workplace sessions for leaders and teams who want to get better at this, with plenty of Quirks and no jargon. If you would like one for your team, talk to NeuroChamps and we will have a friendly chat about what would actually help.
Common questions
Do I need to know if someone is neurodivergent to make these changes?
No. These changes help most people, and nobody has to disclose anything to benefit. Nobody should have to explain themselves to earn a clearer brief.
Is this the same as a formal workplace adjustment?
Not quite. These are everyday design changes any manager can make. Formal adjustments and your legal obligations are a conversation for your HR adviser or the Fair Work Ombudsman.
How long before I see a difference?
Give it a few weeks. Some changes, like a written brief, help straight away; others, like a protected focus block, take a little while to settle in.
Does NeuroChamps diagnose people or provide therapy?
No. NeuroChamps does not diagnose or treat anyone. We work on rooms, teams and ways of working, so different minds can do their best work.
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