Episode 204: How to support employees with invisible disabilities – with Jenn Grindeland

The episode transcript is below.

Carolyn Kiel: Welcome to Beyond 6 Seconds, the podcast that goes beyond the six second first impression to share the extraordinary stories of neurodivergent people. I’m your host, Carolyn Kiel.

Carolyn Kiel: On today’s show I’m speaking with Jenn Grindeland. Jenn has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s degree in Organizational Leadership. She’s also a multiple brain injury survivor. With this background, she teaches teams leadership skills designed to support equity for and inclusion of neurodivergent and invisibly disabled employees.

Jenn, welcome to the podcast.

Jenn Grindeland: Thank you, Carolyn. I’m glad to be here.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. Happy to have you here and learn more about your story and the type of work that you do.

So you mentioned in your bio that you’ve had multiple brain injuries. How did your life change after your first traumatic brain injury, or TBI?

Jenn Grindeland: Yeah. My first TBI was when I was 15. So at that age, there was a lot of changes happening anyways with maturing and growing up. So, for me, it was a big social difference that I had to learn how to navigate social settings with this new brain injury that I had. Specifically that, that looked like, you know, I couldn’t be around loud music or lots of stimulation. So I was a sophomore in high school. In school I would get headaches really quickly with reading. So doing homework assignments, tests, I needed a lot of extra time and I needed to take a lot of breaks. Because there was a point where, I could, I would read two, three sentences, and I would have a headache for four hours. If I wanted to get anything done, I had to really space out my time. So between those two things, I would say were, were the biggest changes that I had.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. And were there things that you had to relearn how to do?

Jenn Grindeland: I would say for that, not, not in the sense of, you know, some people have to relearn how to walk and talk. I, I didn’t have that. But relearning how to advocate for myself in a, in a new way. I guess that’s not really relearning, but just learning in a new way, how to advocate for my needs and, and learning what those needs were, because those had changed a lot.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. And did you put in like special either coping mechanisms or systems? Like you mentioned that your ability to read changed dramatically because of the headaches. So did you have systems around that in order to be able to get your schoolwork done?

Jenn Grindeland: Lots of timers that I still use to this day. And that was, you know, 16 years ago. So, I did a lot of vision therapy. So I learned how to control my eyes and the way that they, you know, worked together. So that that’s the biggest thing is time management was my system. And I worked with the accommodations person at my school to get extra time and a half on tests and The ACT and stuff like that.

Carolyn Kiel: And did it impact your relationships with other people, like your classmates at school or friends and family?

Jenn Grindeland: I would say a little bit. My friends were pretty supportive, I mean, my family too, but I didn’t really share the details in depth with my friends because I was still navigating and figuring it out myself, going to lots of doctors, trying to get answers that I wasn’t receiving.

So with my, my friends, it was kind of like they would support me, but I also didn’t really ask for a lot of support, you know. If there was loud music, I would just kind of deal with it. And, you know, I didn’t have those skills in place right away to really say something. And so I would say the relationships didn’t change that much because of my own fear of them changing. So I tried to keep them as normal or as similar to before as possible.

And then with my family, I would say that we definitely got closer. Me and my mom specifically, because she, you know, I couldn’t drive yet when it happened and she was taking me to all my appointments and she was there hearing all the things that the doctors were saying and she was advocating for me in a way that I hadn’t seen before, because I never really needed it to that level.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, it sounds like the advocacy piece is, yeah, difficult as a teenager when it’s something that you have to suddenly try to learn and, and, and your life changes so much. But yeah, that seems like a big piece of it. Yeah, absolutely.

So a couple of years go by. You go into the working world. And you wind up having two more TBIs. Leading up to that, what kind of work were you doing at the time and what was life like when you had those two TBIs?

Jenn Grindeland: I had a pretty fun job. I was working in sports in higher education. So I ran collegiate recreational sports. So club sports and intramural sports at a college here where I live. And it was a lot of fun. I kind of fell into it. It wasn’t the type of work that I was planning to do from, but I just kind of fell into it. And it was a lot of fun when it happens.

And then the two TBIs were back to back. They were six months apart from one another. And that really changed the team dynamic there because, you know, people tend to be really supportive and understanding for the first four to six weeks of my experience after a brain injury. And then after that, questions start to appear. Why aren’t you better yet? When are you going to be back to normal? Why aren’t you contributing the way that you used to? Why aren’t you going above and beyond anymore? You know, it was just, I was still very much part time. I wasn’t back to full time due to my recovery from the first one when the second one happened. So, the timeline just started all over and that patience from my peers didn’t reset. So that was my experience in the workplace after my brain injuries.

Carolyn Kiel: Like what kind of symptoms did you have, or, or maybe it’s better to say like what kind of changed in, in the way that you were coping or going about work and life?

Jenn Grindeland: My symptoms were very similar to the symptoms that I experienced when I was 15. So a lot of headaches, nausea, light and noise sensitivity. When I was 15, I had some anger issues. That did not repeat itself when I had the second and third brain injuries. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I found mindfulness before that, and that really supported my, my mental processing of what had happened.

And again, it was a huge social barrier, what happened, because I could not leave the house. You know, my, I was working with a vestibular physical therapist throughout the second and third recoveries. And my therapy was literally stepping outside and walking back in. And that was my walk for, for the hour. I had to do that, you know, two, three times a day. And I would slowly work my way up to go outside, take five steps, turn around, come back in. At that time, I lived in an apartment where I had to walk down a hallway downstairs in order to get outside. So it was a bit of stimulation.

But considering that was the barrier or that that was like the threshold that I was working with, there was no way I could go out with friends and go out to a restaurant and hang out with friends in the way that I used to. And being older, 10 years older by that point, I had matured a lot. I knew self advocacy skills and, and my friends were incredibly supportive and their patience did not waver. Even, you know, throughout the two years, I would say it really took me to recover from that. And that, that was a way for me to really grow closer with, with my friends. I, you know, was away from my family by that point in my life and just geographically. But It was a great, I think a great thing for my friendships because now, it’s been five years, six years, actually, since those injuries, and even now friends will ask me, “Oh, is this too loud for you? Why don’t you pick where you sit?” In a restaurant, I always pick where I sit. I’m the first one to pick where I sit, because I want to make sure I’m facing the place that’s going to have the least amount of people walking in front of me and least amount of noise. And you know, that’s something that all of my friends still respect to this day.

Carolyn Kiel: Wow. That’s great that your friends were so supportive and continue to be supportive. But challenging to hear that work related things were made more difficult and yeah, it sounds so odd to hear you when you say it out loud, like, yeah, after about 4 or 6 weeks, people are like, all right, why can’t we go back to quote unquote normal? But I totally understand that that can be a lot of people’s attitudes, unfortunately.

And yeah. So I guess in terms of work, because you’re not, you’re no longer working at that particular place. You’re in a totally different business. Did you make the decision like shortly after to leave and change your career? Or what was that process like, the decision to change career wise?

Jenn Grindeland: I would say, yeah, it was, it was pretty shortly after. So I left two and a half years after it happened. And I would have left earlier if I had the guts. But I actually ended up getting laid off when, it was when COVID was in its beginning stages. And that was kind of the kick that I needed to go out and start my business supporting people. I had started it about six months prior on the side, but hadn’t really been at a point where I felt like it was responsible to quit and transition.

Carolyn Kiel: What kind of work do you do now to help employers with inclusion and working with other neurodivergent employees?

Jenn Grindeland: I teach employers and employees leadership skills. So I strongly believe that leadership is not positional and that anyone in an organization can be a leader. So I teach the same skills to both managers and employees, skills that are specifically designed to support coworkers, peers, direct reports, supervisors who are neurodivergent, or actually I want to say neuro distinct, I like that term a little bit better, but neuro distinct, invisibly disabled and or chronically ill. I, I feel like I fall into those 1st 2 categories and I have, you know, 1 of my best friends falls into the 3rd. So that’s something that’s really near and dear to my heart.

Leadership skills is a broad category. And underneath that category, I dig into strategic and kind communication, self advocacy and energy management and how all of those three skills can support people with hidden differences, is the umbrella term that I like to use. And and then I also get specifically into how can you be more inclusive in your communication, such as using all three forms, you know, written audio and visual forms of communication, you’re talking with people. And an example, another example is when we send written communication or print out written communication using an off white background with a dark font, not black, but like a dark blue or dark green or dark brown can help neuro distinct people or invisibly disabled people better read that material, so it’s not as jarring to the eyes. So I actually have a free inclusive communication checklist on my website that people can check out to audit their own communication practices and get some new ideas about how they can be more inclusive with their communication in the workplace.

Carolyn Kiel: That’s awesome. Yeah, I only learned that recently, actually, to not have, like, the bright white background with the dark black text, that that can be jarring for a lot of people with a variety of different disabilities and differences.

Jenn Grindeland: It surprised me too. You know, I am someone who has a visual disability and I didn’t even know that trick until I, I read it in a book about neurodiversity at work and I was like, oh wow, this would help me and I didn’t even know.

Carolyn Kiel: Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah, exactly. There’s so much to learn about that.

So do you tend to work with the individual employees themselves or you work with teams to help them build cohesion and inclusion within the teams?

Jenn Grindeland: I come at it from a team perspective. I offer my workshops and trainings for teams to join as a whole. So they’re all getting this same language and knowledge base together and have this commonality between them. And then, if teams want to, or if individuals want to go deeper, I do offer small, intimate discussion groups as well as one on one coaching if someone wants to dig deeper and talk about how this material really directly affects their work. You know, we can brainstorm through specific situations that they’re having together and and work through those challenges.

Carolyn Kiel: Do you bring your own experiences as an employee with hidden disabilities in the workplace forward as you work with teams in other workplaces?

Jenn Grindeland: Definitely, it’s a huge part of it. I always start off by explaining how I am connected personally to this work and my lived experience because I think that provides a lot of credibility, not only credibility, but also kind of reassurance for the people that are learning from me as well as that they feel validated. You know, “oh, there’s someone else who was experiencing something that I’m experiencing and she found a way to make it a positive thing. Let me see what I can learn from her.” So that’s a big part of it.

And I’m actually surprised that some people don’t do that. That some people, you know, don’t really bring their lived experiences into this kind of work. Because we’re talking about humans and people. Why wouldn’t we talk about ourselves and our human experience if that can help somebody else?

Carolyn Kiel: It’s great to be able to bring that lived experience. And as you said, it also brings credibility to the type of work that you’re doing because you’ve been there. You’ve been through it. So yeah, your, your lived experiences and you know, your education because you’ve, you’ve studied in this area formally as well. It all works together so well.

Jenn Grindeland: Yeah. Which is, is, is pretty funny because I, I was in a career beforehand that had nothing to do with my education. I didn’t mean to get into that career, it just kind of happened. And I really missed the psychology and the leadership of what I, you know, education piece of what I learned, and I wanted to get back to that, but I didn’t know what that would look like. And then when I had these two brain injuries while I was working, I knew right away, this is it, I am going to use my education to educate people on, on this exact thing.

Carolyn Kiel: And, you know, again, self advocacy continues to be important for, for all employees and with the teams. And, and you’ve mentioned before that you found that coworkers have responded favorably to self advocacy in the experience that you’ve seen.

So I’d love to learn more about that and how self advocacy helps build connections with working teams. Because I think a lot of people are quote unquote afraid to advocate for themselves, sometimes for valid reasons. So I’m so curious about your experience on that.

Jenn Grindeland: Yeah. Thank you for asking. That’s such a good question. And you’re right. It is valid reasons that a lot of times we don’t want to advocate for ourselves because there’s this fear underneath that we will be rejected or we’ll get a no, well, I guess that’s the same thing as rejection. We, we will be seen differently because we’re too pushy or we’re not easy to work with, you know, something along those lines. But when we actually do it, in my experience, coworkers are more understanding and they’re clear about how they can support you or communicate with you or, or whatever it is.

When we have clear and kind communication, which can be in the form of self advocacy, that’s setting ourselves up for a relationship that’s not confusing. We know our boundaries between each other. We know exactly how to support the other person, when to back off, what that person needs. And people find a lot of reassurance when they hear the self advocacy from someone else because they’re like, “oh, okay, well, now I don’t have to guess about how to communicate with you.” I prefer written communication, for example. So it just, it really clears things up and strengthens relationships.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, that direct communication, which can sometimes be difficult in work settings, but it’s really helpful, as you said. It sets the expectations so people know what to expect and how to help or support if needed. Yeah.

Jenn Grindeland: Exactly.

Carolyn Kiel: With the organizations that you’ve worked with, do you see any kind of, like, recurring challenges that come up in teams that bring you in to help them build that cohesion and, and kind of what’s, what can you share about that?

Jenn Grindeland: Yeah, there’s, there’s quite a few challenges that I see that show me that they don’t understand how to support hidden differences. And so one big one is micromanagement as a manager. Because they’re missing that trust piece and that understanding that people might work differently is where a lot of micromanagement comes from.

So micromanagement is one. High turnover is one. Employees not performing at the productivity levels that, that managers might expect, or quiet quitting. Employees feeling underappreciated or misunderstood or undervalued. Employees feeling overwhelmed. These are all examples of what happens when we don’t take the time to truly understand and appreciate the hidden differences in our teams.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. And I think also one of the reasons that sometimes people are afraid to either disclose their hidden differences or ask for support or be direct in what they need is because they’re worried that they’ll be viewed differently. So either, you know, managers or teammates will think that they can’t, you know, produce as much as the team needs or wants or expects. Is that a concern that you’ve seen in terms of people kind of worrying how they’re going to be perceived within their teams? And then how do you work with managers to kind of, I don’t know, combat that bias, I guess is the best way I can describe it?

Jenn Grindeland: I see it a little bit. Most of the teams that I work with are, are coming to me because they already have some sort of awareness of neurodiversity and some support of it. So, usually it’s coming because employees have already said something. Employees have said, I have, you know, ADHD or some other diagnosis. And then managers, they get kind of scared, like, “Oh, what do I do? Like, how do I support this person?” So it’s usually, it’s not necessarily the employee that’s afraid to say something, but the manager is afraid to say the wrong thing back to the employee. And so that tends to be what sparks the conversations of getting training with me because they, they want to support that employee, but they don’t know how.

Carolyn Kiel: That’s really interesting. And in some ways, it’s great to hear that you get to work with managers who are, you know, at least concerned enough where they want to have that productive and, and healthy relationship with their employees and that they’re asking for help around that. So that’s great that they’re reaching out and that you’re able to help them with that.

Jenn Grindeland: Yeah, usually if it’s, if it’s the other way around where they don’t really think that neurodiversity is something worth learning about, then I, I usually never get to have a conversation with them. Because you know, they have to get to the point where they want to do it before we can talk about doing the work.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, that makes sense.

Do you have any general advice for say, managers who have a team with a diverse range of neurotypes or, or, you know that you have people with hidden differences on your team? Any sort of general advice for someone who literally doesn’t know where to start with that?

Jenn Grindeland: Yeah, a few things. My first piece of advice is to trust your employees and assume good intention behind all of their actions. A lot of times I feel like managers can get caught up in thinking, Oh, this person wants to work from home, for example, but we don’t allow that. And they just, you know, they might start to make up their own stories about why that person needs to work from home. And they may or may not be true. But if we assume every request is coming from a good intention, that shows the employee that you trust them and they’re more willing to make sure that they’re being productive. Because, you know, in my experience, it was very clear that my employers did not trust me to work from home, which was not allowed by my employer in general, but my doctor required it for me and my recovery. I had to work from home. So, you know, they had to accommodate. And it was, it was very, very clear they didn’t trust me to get my work done, which was unfortunate because I had already worked there for three years and proven that I was very good at my job. But because of that lack of trust and that I felt like lack of respect, I didn’t feel motivated at my job at, at home, you know? I almost wanted to prove them right. So if we, if we think about it from that perspective and we trust our employees and assume the good in everybody and good intentions behind all requests and self advocacy, then we can really go far with that. So that’s, that’s the one thing.

And then the second is to start to learn about how you can be more inclusive in your, in your communication practices. So, like I said, I have that free guide on my website and it can be found at TheWorkingWell.us. And that has a lot of tips and tricks about things you can start doing today that don’t take a lot of work. They’re not hard. It’s just new habits to form, such as sending meeting agendas out in advance, keeping structured and clear defined communication. I would say, if I had to narrow it down to one thing in communication, it’s being clear and direct. As clear as you can be. Reread your emails before you press send. Are there any fluff words that I can take out? Is this as clear as it possibly can be? And then go ahead and send it when you feel good about it.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, clear and direct communication is something I hear over and over again as things that people want and aspire to. I think it’s more difficult than it seems. I know I’m, I’m the type of person who will like read and reread and reread my emails before I send them. And I’m constantly like cutting words out and cutting out fluff. It takes effort and it takes practice, but it helps everyone, no matter what. I think everyone benefits from that.

Jenn Grindeland: So I do that too. And it’s, it’s a practice, you know, you get better and better at doing it over time and there’s less you have to cut out. But I will say there’s this app that I use called Witty. W I T T Y. Have you heard of it?

Carolyn Kiel: No!

Jenn Grindeland: It’s a browser extension where it will… As long as you’re writing an email from a browser, you know, it doesn’t work on an external mail application, but if you’re writing an email from a browser or you’re writing a post on LinkedIn or whatever it is from that browser that you have the extension on, it will underline in red any fluff words or any words that are vague and provide recommendations that you cut them out or you switch them to different words that they have a list provided for. And that app has helped me a bunch with being more clear in my written communication.

Carolyn Kiel: That’s cool. All right. Witty. I’ll have to check that out. Very cool.

Jenn Grindeland: It’s free as an individual user and, I think if you’re writing something really long, like an article or a blog post, it only will do a certain number of words. But for me, it’s, it’s very useful and, and basically anything that I write is within that word count.

Carolyn Kiel: Oh, that’s great. Yeah, that does sound really useful. Awesome. Thank you for that.

So yeah, Jenn, how can people, what’s the best way for them to get in touch with you if they want to learn more about the type of work that you do?

Jenn Grindeland: I love to meet with people. And on my website, there is a area for you to schedule a meeting with me if you want to meet with me and just talk and get to know each other. That’s that’s my favorite way to connect with people. And so my website is like I said, the working well dot us. And I think it’s under the contact page or something where you can reach out or schedule a meeting with me and my email is on there as well. And that’s, that’s my favorite way. You know, if people want to connect on LinkedIn, that’s always an option too.

Carolyn Kiel: Awesome. Yeah, I’ll put your website link in the show notes so people can find it there.

Yeah, thanks, Jenn. Thank you so much for being on my show. You know, last question, is there anything else that you’d like our listeners to know or anything that they can do to help or support you?

Jenn Grindeland: Thank you for that. If you don’t already know this from listening to Beyond 6 Seconds, these statistics of people in the U. S. workforce who are neurodivergent, invisibly disabled or chronically ill is very high. If you include all 3 of those, you know, I haven’t seen a study that includes all three, but if you add up percentages from each of the studies, it’s up to 50 percent of the U. S. workforce meets one of those categories. So my biggest takeaway that I want listeners to have is that you have these type of people in your teams, unless you’re a team of one or two, you know, maybe you don’t. But a lot of times I’ll get asked the question, “well, why does this apply to me? We don’t have invisibly disabled people on our teams.” Well, that’s the point. It’s invisible. You can’t see it. You don’t know. And if you don’t know, that might be indicating a culture problem where people don’t feel comfortable enough to disclose and to say something. And I’m not saying people need to disclose in order to have a positive company culture, but that is just something if people never feel comfortable talking about it, then that’s probably a bigger problem.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, absolutely. Great words to end on.

Well, thank you so much, Jenn. It’s been great talking with you today and thanks again for being a guest on my podcast.

Jenn Grindeland: Thanks so much for having me, Carolyn. This was great.

Carolyn Kiel: Thanks for listening to Beyond 6 Seconds. Please help me spread the word about this podcast. Share it with a friend, give it a shout out on your social media, or write a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player. You can find all of my episodes and sign up for my free newsletter at beyond6seconds.net. Until next time.