Autistic networking…

We all know networking is vital to get on in the world but so much of it happens in pubs, bars, informal settings and similar where we autistics are not at our best. So, how to do networking autistically? I’d say it’s time to tap into that collecting instinct that many autistics have and reframe the whole thing by playing to our strengths. I have a pretty good network myself, but I’ve not got it by doing endless post-work socialising…

Many autistic people operate at their best online and that can be an advantage in these post-Covid times. If you have a poor memory for faces (as I do, made worse by the fact that I avoid looking people in the eye) then how great is it to talk to people on video conferences when their name appears underneath their face on the screen? No more embarrassing forgotten names – result! I also make a point of writing down the names of everyone I’m in a meeting with – that gives me a written record of who I talked to when, plus helping me remember the names. I even jot down factoids to jog my memory based on what the person has shared on the video call – as for example the video conference classic “has a really cute puppy”. Or the never-to-be-forgotten “has cat which likes to stand on laptop keyboard with bum turned towards camera”.

If you struggle to know when it’s your turn to speak (particularly on phonecalls) then what a blessing it is to be able to put your hand up or type in the chat of a video conference! When I give talks about autism, I get a lot of autistic people in the audience, and while few of them want to actually speak, I get some great interactions going in the chat. It’s not a million miles away from using social media to interact – you get time to construct what you want to say, read it back to see if it still makes sense, and the same goes for written responses you may get in the chat. And emoji functions are also a bonus – how helpful to be able to put a smiley face or a thumbs up next to a remark we like, rather than having to work out a form of spoken words that will convey “I like this, I’m not being sarcastic, and I’m not meaning to be weird either”.

So modern working has a number of ways of facilitating networking for autistic people in real time, but how to follow up and build an actual network? I’m a big user of professional networking sites such as LinkedIn to help with that. So after a meeting I will take my list of names of people I’ve spoken to and look them up online and invite them to connect. That gives me effectively an online directory of people I know so that when I’ve forgotten who they are, or have forgotten who I know at a particular organisation, I can look them up. I think I’m using my autistic instinct to need to collect things or construct sets to build up as many people as possible that I know across as many organisations as possible. I also write lists of people I know at particular organisations or who have particular interests – all of which helps me connect.

Organograms are also really great because they’re a way of making connections between people (and work areas) visible. If I’m learning a new area that I’ve just reached out to, I’ll often draw out the web of how people there connect to each other. So I’m using my autistic skills of visual thinking and pattern recognition to get a handle on how groups of work colleagues operate together and how they relate to me and my work.

Finally, of course, there’s no getting away from the need to actually talk to people to build and maintain a network, but that can be done in an autistic-friendly way. One to one chats (with real or virtual coffee) are much easier for me that big group meetings, so I try to have a regular check in with key contacts on a regular basis. Having a repeating appointment in my calendar prevents me forgetting to do it, and meeting regularly (rather than just when there are big issues to discuss) allows chat about the small things that build up a relationship. As for example – how is the really cute puppy doing? Where is the cat this week?

But really a lot of my best networking comes from the network of autistic civil servant colleagues I’m building up. When I was first diagnosed I thought I was the only autistic civil servant at my level in the organisation. Now I know there are heaps of us. And those autistic civil servants are a ready-made network of like-minded and supportive people. These days it’s a rare civil service department where I don’t have an autistic contact! There’s absolutely no harm in seeking out people with a characteristic or trait in common or using existing staff groups to build up the network of who you know. There are lots of ways of building up a network – it really doesn’t have to be all about those exhausting after-work drinks.