Working In Acceptance

 

At The Productive Pessimist Ltd, we're proud to say that, in all the areas we offer coaching, training, and consultancy, we do so from lived experience.

That means when your organisation books autism awareness training with us, that session will be taken by our Neurodiversity Lead, Morgana, who is autistic herself. It means any training course around autism, ADHD, and neurodiversity more widely you book through us will have been developed in consultation with Morgana, as her autism is co-present with ADHD (as is the case for an increasing number of individuals, particularly women and girls.)

What does it mean to 'Work In Acceptance?'

When we say that we work in acceptance, we don't just mean 'one of the remits The Productive Pessimist holds is the acceptance niche of diversity training.'

We mean we work in acceptance, the same way a professional swimmer works in water. Acceptance determines what we do, and how we do it.

So - what is 'acceptance'?
. Acceptance is believing people when they tell you about themselves, their limits, and their aspirations. 

An example I often use to illustrate this comes from my time in employability support.  A colleague would regularly mock the attitudes of our clients with the following commentary: "They come in here wanting to be astronauts, but they can't read or write, they don't have a driving licence, and they've never left Lowestoft!" Unfortunately, his attitude was taken up by the majority of the team (which was a large part of why I left).
My response, which I provided in an all-staff email just before I quit, was:
"If someone with limited literacy, who is unable to drive, and who has never been outside of their home town comes in and tells us their dream job is to be an astronaut, our job is to get them as close as possible to that dream.

The first thing you do is ask them what excites them about being an astronaut, as this is likely to help identify a job that's more achievable (because becoming an astronaut is very difficult, even for people who have top-tier everything, and are absolutely flawless...)

They may, for example, identify that their primary motivation for wanting to become an astronaut is that they are interested in space - that actually suggests several potentially more achievable job roles:
. Assistant at a science/space focused museum
. Learner Support Assistant with a focus on science
. Contributor to Astronomy magazines/blogs (if they are genuinely illiterate, we could help them start a YouTube channel where they talk about space, which could lead to other opportunities)
. Maintenance crew at an astrodome, or in a museum with astronomical exhibitions
. Bookshop assistant at a store which has a strong space/astronomy focus
. Artist, working with the planets as their primary inspiration/motif
. Running children's art and craft provisions around 'space'

. Personal Assistant to a researcher

Obviously, there will be skills they need to gain, areas they need to work on - but that's what we do here; we help people identify those areas, and we ensure they can access relevant training.  The most obvious actions, to help them work towards any of the job goals above, will be:
. Gain a basic literacy qualification
. Identify relevant museums and bookshops

. Look into what additional qualifications would be needed to become an LSA"

That's what 'working in acceptance' looks like. Working in acceptance means not allowing your assumptions about someone's competence or capabilities to get in the way of helping them work towards a goal they've identified for themselves, however impossible that goal may seem for them to achieve. Your job isn't to judge the goal; it's to help that person get as close to it as they can.

. 'Help' is another key aspect of working in acceptance. You're not 'doing it for them' - you're doing it with them.  

Our training, consultancy, and coaching sessions feature a lot of 'now go and do' - this not only avoids 'death by PowerPoint', and accommodates different learning styles, but it means our clients genuinely connect with what they're hearing. They get to find out what their barriers might be, at a time and place when they have support available to help them work through those barriers.

. Finally, acceptance means focusing on the problem the individual or team you're supporting has brought to you, and not jumping in with the things you perceive as a problem.  

To use our 'person with low literacy levels, no experience, and several barriers wants to become an astronaut' example, the problem they've brought is they want to work in an area where they're significantly focused on 'space', which is a strong interest of theirs, and they can't see a way to get from where they are to where they want to be.

The problem isn't "they're illiterate", or "they can't drive" - those things may be barriers, but they are NOT the things you should begin by focusing on.  If you solve problems in the right way - and you solve the right problem - you often find barriers fall away quite naturally.  That's why Productive Pessimism starts with the question "is the problem I'm seeing the problem I should be solving?" (spoiler alert; it usually isn't.)

Acceptance - Believe the person when they tell you who they are, and what their problem is.

Understanding - Appreciate the way they think, work, and learn, and adapt your style to meet theirs, rather than demanding they do things your way.

Empower - Your focus should always be helping people become capable of acting for themselves, not making them dependent on you.  At The Productive Pessimist, we don't just solve problems and 'fix things' - we help you understand how the problem happened in the first place, and we give you a tool kit so you can tackle it yourself next time.


If you would like to book Equity, Diversity, Access and Inclusion training, including Autism Inclusion, with us, or you are interested in coaching, consultancy, or training around Inclusion, Management, Neurodiversity, or Strategy, please email us theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com, or call us on 0748 2017 927 (Tues-Sat, 8.30am-6.30pm)