
Managing Engineers on the Spectrum - ThrowawayAcnt09
Hi HN,<p>I&#x27;m a software engineer with ~5 years of experience in the industry turned newly-appointed engineering manager.  I manage a small group of people, each with their own projects, while I continue to have my own engineering projects that I contribute to in parallel to my managing duties.<p>One of the people I manage is having difficulties in their position.  Although I am not a doctor, I am fairly certain that this person is high functioning on the autism spectrum (what might otherwise be diagnosed as Asperger&#x27;s.)  I say this only because I myself am diagnosed as Asperger&#x27;s, and I see many of this person&#x27;s behaviors in a younger version of myself.  Despite the similarities, I&#x27;m unsure how to help them.  They are a wonderful caring person with clearly very strong technical abilities, but are being held back in their career by certain difficulties.<p>They&#x27;re having problems with task management and stress.  They will take an inordinate amount of time to complete otherwise simple tasks, rehashing work that has already been completed for the sake of organizing it in a way that is pleasing to them (formatting, commenting, etc.) rather than working on the deliverable objectives of the project.  This leads to delays, which causes increased stress, which in turn causes more delays.  This sets up a feedback loop that ends in them &quot;shutting down&quot; and that eventually requires intervention.<p>I&#x27;ve tried being a mentor to this person and helping them improve in these problem areas, but the advice or constructive criticism I&#x27;ve been giving on how to manage these issues does not seem to be helping.  Are there any good resources for learning how to manage people (specifically engineers) on the spectrum, or even just resources for new managers in general?  I&#x27;m worried that if things don&#x27;t improve, this person will end up being let go by the company.
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superflit
I did managed some people on the Spectrum and it is an eye opener.

The best way to explain is:

Imagine you can only see black and white (no gray tones) and all other people
can see full colors.

Then someone says:

"look at that Orange and pink tones" <...>

That is it. They can't identify these "orange and pink" tones.

Example on priorities:

1\. You set 5 task on priorities;

2\. CEO/Big Boss secretary calls because report Y is not printing;

3\. Your fellow on Spectrum says rigidly: "Sorry that is not important or
priority, bye".

That may look "funny" but these people suffer a lot. In work, relationships
everything.

They can't see "pink and oranges".

Sheldon from Big Bang theory is "funny" until it is not.

What is my suggestion:

1\. One task by time (only leave ONE task on their queues).

2\. Be EXPLICIT . VERY EXPLICIT. Examples:

2.1 "I Need this class to input X,Y,Z, and produce Z with W,G results. Do not
change code-style,lint or whatever."

2.2 "We need to improve W but we Can't turn off Z. or Y"

3\. Ask and understand how they think (example with real cases):

3.1 "Why you turn off the whole call center electricity? A. To restart all
machines faster after Service Pack."

3.2 "Why you blocked CEO mailbox? A.: "There was a virus running and I did to
safe him"

The thing is to be their "pink and orange tones".

One Task only, be explicit what you want, be VERY explicit what is the result.

Once you reach this you will have a fine tuned productivity machine.

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itronitron
It's possible they are burned out and are stressing out on the task management
because they don't 'believe in' or have confidence in the outcome. If your
work environment is characterized by a lot of re-work due to changing
requirements then that might also force someone into analysis paralysis which
would look like they are not making any progress.

One thing that might help is to meet with them once a week to list on paper or
sticky notes the higher priority tasks and discuss whether there are any
unknowns or dependent items that need to be resolved before they can make
progress.

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deodar
I am sorry I don't have any specific advice for your situation. I am answering
the part about good resources for new managers.

I personally learned a lot from "First, Break All the Rules: What the World's
Greatest Managers Do Differently" (ISBN: 978-1531865207). The key idea is to
not try and change the basic nature or capabilities of any person but to give
them tasks that help them showcase their natural strengths. This may not
always be possible.

I have found this idea to bear out in my experience. If you try to make a cat
bark, it will result in a lot of frustration for both you and the cat.
Personal growth and learning is a long, difficult journey and you as a manager
can only give ideas or hints. You cannot mold your reports' nature or style of
working.

~~~
ThrowawayAcnt09
Thanks, this is really good advice. We have been working with this person to
try and find tasks that they are better-suited for, but unfortunately the type
of work our company does involves fast-paced one-off projects that seldom
require the level of meticulousness that this person seems to want.

~~~
giantg2
This sounds like my situation.

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oftenwrong
I had a co-worker who was on the spectrum. Communicating with him face-to-face
or on a voice call was difficult. He would often latch onto a small aspect of
the conversation that didn't really matter, and then walk away from the
conversation with only that small thing in mind. This would lead him to work
on seemingly random things. I found that communicating with him in writing
seemed to work much better.

If you have not already, try switching to written communication. Beyond that,
I don't have any advice to offer.

~~~
giantg2
I find written communication much easier too.

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giantg2
Maybe you could have the person write an auto-format script to format it how
they want. You might lose a day or two as they develop it, but maybe that
would save time in the future.

