Part 2 of 3 in the Neuroinclusive Series

Let’s look at the first five daily practices a little closer. Universal design benefits everyone in the workplace. Consistent team norms and ways of working bring clarity and a calmer environment for everyone, not just neurodivergent folks. They also support people working in a second language, caregivers navigating compressed hours, part-time or field-based roles, and early-career teammates building confidence. You will reduce cognitive load, make decisions cleaner, and create fairer ways to contribute – without adding bureaucracy. Keep the norms visible, review them lightly but regularly, and notice how trust, energy and follow-through improve across the whole team.  

We will cover the remaining five practices in Blog 3, so you can phase changes at a sustainable pace.  

1. Psychological safety, every day 

Safety is built in moments – it’s how you respond to challenge, who you credit, and whether standards are upheld consistently. 

Team inclusion norms 

Name “challenge without blame” as a team rule, clarify the guardrails and focus on challenging ideas not the person – model it when you’re under pressure. Try a quick pre-retro before risky work: “What could go wrong, and what would we do?” 

Rotate opportunities who speaks first, credit ideas and contributions in the channels were raised for visibility, and ensure guardrails are clear – behaviours won’t move past.  

Signals it’s working 

• Risks surface earlier in the open. 

• Ideas get refined publicly (not inside chats). 

• Decisions improve through counter-examples. 

Watch Out 

• Don’t confuse “nice” with “safe”: Safety needs clear guardrails and consistent follow-through when behaviours slip. 

• Cautious language creeps in: People use “just”, “sorry”, or self-edit mid-sentence. 

• “Speak up” without protection: Messages invite voice but there’s no follow-through. 

• Performative vulnerability: Sharing without accountable change. 

• Dissent moves off-channel: Challenges or dissent moves to separate chats or conversations. 

Leader nudge 
Once a week, share: “Here’s something I changed my mind on after you raised your concern – and what I’ll do differently.” 

This also supports colleagues who 

2. Sensory-aware, decision-ready meetings 

Pre-reads and shorter meetings support cognitive diversity and help people join prepared, best supports individual contributions, and make cleaner decisions with less cognitive load. Camera-optional with captions-on is a simple equity boost. 

Team inclusion norms 

• Label the decision type up front (Inform · Consult · Decide), set agenda standards so people know why they are there, limit to what’s needed to decide, and move detail to an appendix. 

• Send agendas 24–48 hours in advance (based on pre-read length and decisions needed) 

• Place an inclusive summary at the top (key context, decision, asks, infographics) 

• share concise notes and action owners within 24 hours 

• schedule 25/50-minute meetings with buffers for bathroom breaks, water refills, action urgent  

Signals it’s working 

• Fewer “Can we recap?” requests, clear ownership and accountability, and decisions don’t re-open. 

• steadier post-meeting energy. 

• Increased participation via chat/document comments and clearer pre-read contributions. 

• People who seldom spoke in meetings start contributing in pre-read threads, chat and document comments. 

Watch out 

• Invite lists grow: Inviting everyone “just in case.” 

• No asynchronous path: no asynchronous path for time zones. 

• Buffers squeezed: Buffers squeezed out, leaving people rushed and unfocused. 

• Pre-reads ignored: Pre-reads ignored, decisions re-opened repeatedly. 

Leader nudge 
Block 5–10 minutes between meetings. Tell the team why (“thinking + bio breaks”) so they copy the habit. 

This also supports colleagues who  
 

3. Structured 1:1s 

Predictability lowers social and cognitive load. Separate development conversations from 1:1s so careers don’t get squeezed out by core delivery or urgent actions.  

Team inclusion norms 

• Consistent cadence day/time weekly/ fortnightly, don’t cancel last minute and reschedule if needed to the nearest possible opportunity.  

• Simple agenda sent / feedback tool updated 24 hours ahead: wins · blockers · top three priorities · support needed. 

• Development 1:1s scheduled separately with regular cadence, with time protected. “We’ll do development next time” – and never do 

Signals it’s working 

• Fewer surprises. 

• Actions carry week to week with clear momentum and faster unblockers. 

• Anxiety dips because people can prepare. 

Watch out 

• Surprise feedback creeps in: updates move to status only, and coaching drops. 

• Manager airtime dominates: Manager holds most of the talking time and actions don’t carry week to week. 

• Cancellations signal low priority: Frequent cancellations or last-minute shuffles (nothing says “you’re not a priority” faster). 

• Norms doing the job: Using 1:1s to fix what norms should prevent. 

• Behaviour shifts: Behaviours start to change from their typical. 

• Development drifts: Development conversations start to drift, “we’ll focus on development next time.” 

Leader nudge 
Open with: “What would make next week 10% easier?” Close with: “What did I do that helped or hindered this week?” 

4. Communication channel norms 

Most friction arises from miscommunication and confusion across communication channels. Support your team by creating clear communication channel norms that everyone uses.  Map where to ask, where to decide, and where to track – then publish response windows to protect deep focus and productivity time for mixed-neurotype, hybrid teams. 

Team inclusion norms 

• One-pager: tools, use-cases examples, response windows (same day chat, 24 hours email), urgent path for stakeholder support. 

• Preference flexibility (voice notes, email, chat, phone call, Teams/Zoom) and choose what supports clear thinking. 

• Template library pinned in central location (intranet, SharePoint/Notion). 

Signals it’s working 

• Fewer “Did you see my message?” pings. 

• Decisions easily identified and located.  

• New joiners ramp faster because norms are accessible and easy to find in a central location.  

Watch out 

• Team norms declared, but leaders bypass: side-channels, late-night @here, or WhatsApp workarounds. Your behaviour is the policy. 

• Urgent creep: casual “urgent” tag becomes routine and makes everyone always on. 

• Decision sprawl: Decisions buried in chat and duplicate tools for the same job, and the source of truth isn’t updated. 

• Monoculture style: mandating one format (only calls / only long emails) and raises cognitive load for many. 

• Version drift: multiple documents called “final” in different places, and new joiners asking where “the latest” lives  

Leader neuroaffirming nudge 
once a quarter, focus on one channel and ask your team to solo-storm for individual input before a 10 minute team retro. Commit to what needs to change, update your one-pager and pin it for accessibility. Surface blockers early to protect focus and energy.  

(5) Visual schedules + clarity-first tasking 

Ambiguity taxes the brain, creates cognitive load and can cause uncertainty and friction in teams. Clear outcomes up front and a single, visible flow reduce rework, lower anxiety, and let people focus on the work rather than decoding it. 

Team inclusion norms 

• Specify everything in one place: outcome, owner, review date, final due date, stakeholders, support, and what “good” looks like (add a quick example or short screen recording). 

• Keep one simple board with clear stages: Plan → Draft → Review & Update → Finalise → Publish/Deliver → Retro. 

• Maintain a lightweight decision log (date, context, owner, rationale) linked to the task and use simple naming/versioning. 

• Establish role clarity through a consistent framework (e.g. RACI) and run obstacle-first updates: “What’s blocking you? What would help?” 

• Pin the board + decision log in your wiki (Intranet/SharePoint/Notion/Confluence) as the source of truth. 

Signals it’s working 

• First drafts land closer to final requirements and rewrites drop. 

• Fewer “When is this due/where are we?” pings, and stakeholders self-serve updates. 

• Review cycles are predictable and actions close quickly. 

• Onboarding speeds up, new joiners can follow the work without feeling awkward needing to ask “silly” questions.  

• Status meetings shrink because progress is already visible. 

• Team energy steadies, deadline anxiety eases and deep-work time increases. 

Watch out 

• Status theatre: boards are only updated during meetings and key progress isn’t captured on the board, so trust slips. 

• Ghost tasks: no clear owner or due date, responsibility drifts and the work drops.

• Definition and tool drift: “done” means different things to different people; DoD not attached or out of date and the same work tracked in multiple places 

• Bypass culture: “urgent” items skip the board and don’t get updated, breaking visibility and transparency. 

• Over-templating: simple board becomes over-engineered and it’s too time consuming to use so people stop updating key progress.  

Leader neuroaffirming nudge 
“For this project we’re using RACI. I’m A; Jordan is R; Priya and Conor are C; Sam is I. If your role needs to change, flag it on the board and we’ll update the brief so everyone stays aligned.” 

These small, consistent changes make work calmer, clearer, and kinder – and they scale. Keep the norms visible, review lightly every fortnight, and notice how trust, energy and follow-through improve across the whole team. 

Run a 30-day Team Habits Sprint – we’ll help you set the norms, measure a simple before/after snapshot, and coach managers to model the change. 

Leader neuroaffirming nudge 
“I’ve converted this chat to a task with the outcome, owner, review date and a quick ‘what good looks like’ example — linking it here so the board stays our source of truth. Great clarity on your first draft; that’s exactly what we value.” 

pin it to your comms “Once a quarter we’ll run a quick solo-storm + 10-minute team retro on this channel: What can we stop posting here so people can focus? We’ll change one thing, pin it to the one-pager, and review in two weeks.” 

Each quarter, solostorm on a retro a channel before team collaboration. Ask: “What can we stop posting here so people can focus?” 

This also supports colleagues who… 
…work across time zones or caregiving windows; clear response norms protect attention and reduce stress. 

Most friction is channel mismatch. Map where to ask, where to decide, and where to track—then publish response windows to protect focus. Preference matters: some think best via voice notes; others via short bullets. 

5. Visual schedules + clarity-first tasking 

Blurb / insight 
Ambiguity taxes the brain. Clarity up front and visible progress reduce rework and worry. 

Ambiguity taxes the brain. Clarity up-front (outcome, owner, review date, due date, stakeholders, support, and what ‘good’ looks like) prevents rework and worry. Visibility keeps stakeholders aligned without another meeting. 

Team inclusion norms 

• Write the Definition of Done with a quick example of “what good looks like”. 

• One simple board for all work: Plan → Draft → Review & Update → Finalise → Publish/Deliver → Retro. 

• Lightweight decision log (date · context · owner · rationale); obstacle-first updates. 

  - Write the Definition of Done with a quick “what good looks like” example. 
  - One visible board for all work (Plan → Draft → Review & Update → Finalise → Publish/Deliver → Retro). 
  - Keep a lightweight decision log (date · context · owner · rationale). 

• Use one simple board with clear stages: Plan → Draft → Review & Update → Finalise → Publish/Deliver → Retro. Keep a lightweight decision log (date, context, owner, rationale). Run obstacle-first updates: “What’s blocking you? What would help?” 

Signals it’s not working 

• Rework, missed handoffs, repeated “When is this due?” questions. 

• Blockers discovered late; status meetings proliferate. 

• Stakeholders DM for updates because the board isn’t trusted. 

  - Rework, missed handoffs, “When is this due?” repeats. 
  - Blockers discovered late; status meetings proliferate. 
  - Stakeholders DM for updates because the board isn’t trusted. 

• Cleaner hand-offs, better first drafts, fewer last-minute rushes. People feel calmer because they can see progress. 

Watch out 

• Over-engineered fields/workflows that no one updates. 

• Tool hopping mid-project; truth scattered across apps. 

• Tool sprawl that hides the truth. One board everyone actually uses beats three that no one trusts. 

  - Over-engineering fields/workflows; no one updates them. 
  - Tool hopping mid-project; truth scattered across apps.
  - “Urgent” work bypassing the board and never returning. 

Leader nudge 
Praise visible progress, not heroics: “Draft in on time and tight—exactly the kind of clarity we want.” 

This also supports colleagues who… 
…dip in and out (stakeholders, part-time, field roles); they can see what changed and why without another meeting. 

If you want these norms to land quickly, we can co-design a compact team playbook and a 30-day measurement snapshot, then coach managers to model the habits consistently. 

If you want these practices to stick, we co-design team norms, a compact template library, and a 30-day measurement snapshot—then coach managers to role-model consistently. 
Ready to make this real? Let’s talk. 

Leader neuroaffirming nudges — micro-scripts you can use anywhere 

Challenge (invite dissent without blame): 

• “Spot the gap for me—what risk or counter-example are we missing?” 

• “Tell me where this plan breaks for your workflow; I’ll protect the space.” 

• “If you had to argue the opposite, what would you say? Two lines, please.” 

Shift (show learning and a change of course): 

• “I’ve updated my view after your input: from A to B. Here’s why—and the effect on you.” 

• “Good catch. I’m dropping X, prioritising Y. Guardrails: budget Z, date T.” 

• “I over-weighted speed; we’re rebalancing for quality. New measure: first-time-right.” 

Pre-mortem / “preview retro” (keep your retro language): 

• “Quick preview retro: 3 risks, 3 early signals, 3 tiny safeguards—10 minutes.” 

• “Pre-flight retro lite: what could trip us up next week, and one ‘abort’ criterion?” 

• “Before we ship: assumptions to test, recovery plan owner, and the first rollback step.” 

 pre-mortem on risky work: “What could go wrong? What would we do?” 

• Challenge without blame; critique ideas, not people. 

• Credit ideas where they were raised; close the loop on changes. 

• Guardrails are clear (behaviours we won’t walk past). 

  - Name “challenge without blame” as a team rule; state the guardrails. 
  - Close the loop: “We heard X → we changed Y → here’s what’s next.” 
  - Rotate who speaks first; credit ideas in the channel where they were raised. 

Signals it’s not working 

Don’t confuse “nice” with “safe”. Safety needs clear guardrails and consistent follow-through when behaviours slip. 

• Polite silence in meetings; dissent moves to DMs. 

• People hedge language (“just”, “sorry”) or self-edit mid-sentence. 

• Decisions nod through, then unravel offline. 

  - Long, polite silence; decisions nodded through then unravel offline. 
  - Anonymous questions spike; brave points arrive only in DMs. 
  - People hedge (“might”, “just”, “sorry”) or self-edit mid-sentence. 

You hear risks earlier; people refine your ideas in public; decisions are improved by counter-examples. 

Watch out 

• “Speak up” messages without protection or follow-through. 

• Being “nice” instead of naming unhelpful behaviour. 

  - “Speak up” messaging with no protection or follow-through. 
  - Performative vulnerability (overshare) vs. accountable change. 
  - “Nice” culture that avoids naming behaviours that breach standards. 

Don’t confuse “nice” with “safe”. Safety needs clear guardrails and consistent follow-through when behaviours slip. 

Label the decision type up front (Inform · Consult · Decide) and name the owner. Limit to what’s needed to decide; move detail to an appendix. 

Set agenda standards so people know why they’re there; send agendas 24–48 hours in advance (based on pre-read length and decisions needed); place an inclusive summary at the top (key context, decision, asks); share concise notes and action owners within 24 hours; schedule 25/50-minute meetings with buffers; keep captions on and cameras optional. 

• Label decision type (Inform · Consult · Consent) and owner. 

• Pre-reads 24–48 hours ahead; three-bullet TL;DR at the top. 

• 25/50-minute slots with buffers; captions on by default. 

  - Label decision type up front (Inform · Consult · Consent) and name the owner. 
  - Send a pre-read with a 3-bullet TL;DR; default to captions and camera-optional. 
  - Use 25/50-minute slots with buffers; collect decisions in a shared log. 

Label decision type up front (inform, consult, consent) and name the decision owner. Send pre-reads 24–48 hours ahead (length dictates notice). Keep summary notes to three bullets and owners. 

•  and via chat. 

• “Can we recap?” requests multiply; decisions re-opened. 

• Post-meeting fatigue; unclear ownership of actions. 

• Pre-reads are slide dumps no one reads. 

  - Pre-reads ignored; decisions re-opened repeatedly. 
  - Camera policing; people look/feel drained afterwards. 
  - “Can we recap?” requests multiply; action owners unclear. 

• Clearer decisions, fewer revisits, and lower post-meeting fatigue. People who seldom spoke start contributing in pre-read threads. 

• Treating captions as optional. 

  - Slide dumps masquerading as pre-reads. 
  - Inviting everyone “just in case”; timezone clashes with no async path. 
  - Captions treated as optional “nice to have”. 

Pre-reads that are actually slide dumps. Limit to what’s needed to decide; move detail to an appendix. 

• Teams that declare norms but leaders who ignore them. Your behaviour is the policy. Leaders bypassing norms (side channels, @here at night). 

• Casual “urgent” tags that make everyone always-on. 

• Decisions buried in chat and duplicate tools for the same job. 

• Mandating one style (only calls / only long emails). 

• New joiners asking where “the latest” lives.