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Skills versus management

longman

We are usually concerned with finding work in the first place but I wondered to what extent people with autism are affected when they reach that age, around 40, when there is much pressure to move into management.

There has long been a short-sighted policy in this country, more so than other countries so far as I can tell - that you are too old to have useful skills by the time you reach 40, and unless you have made it into the management stream, you risk redundancy, or limited prospects.

In Britain, for some reason, we under value skill and ability, and think that management is the only form of merit (which anyone can see, from the mess they make, is frankly nonsense). We think that skill and innovation is only possible for the young, and that older people are less adaptable and less valuable. So we discard experienced skill.

This must have implications for people with autism who, even if they find a career, come to a point where their specialist skills are no longer valued, and are pushed towards management or slung out.

But for people with autism, management is a difficult arena, relying heavily not only on "people skills", "team Leadership" etc but social skills - engaging with senior managers at social functions that are deemed essential to success.

I wondered if any discussants on here had experience of this transition in the employment world who could contribute ideas on the subject.

It affected me in that by 40 I was redundant (during that recession), having found it harder and harder to keep on doing specialist work, and being quite phobic, from bad experiences, of trying to be a manager, and fitting in to management. I changed from industry to teaching, where however I met the same barriers, and stayed as a plod teacher (though I believe I was a good one) because I couldn't move into management grades (Principal Lecturer etc) or was perceived as not good team leader/manager material. So it capped my career progression, which didn't bother me that much, as at least I kept in work I liked until retirement.

It isn't just that it is hard for people with autism to find work and stay in work for any length of time, there are barriers later which greatly disadvantage those who do

  • Thanks for responding Narra.

    You and I in different ways have been able to continue in employment, and perhaps management is more understanding now than it was in the 80s and 90s.

    My point was not to be negative but to raise an important question, which is whether people on the autistic spectrum might find themselves unable to continue in the workplace.

    There are as you say many contexts of the use of the term manager, but there are jobs around still where there really is a shift towards team management at least, rather than just being able to specialise as a "cog".

  • Longman,

    Although you have put quite a simple point forward, I find it quite a complex question to answer, however I shall try and have a go.

    The word management in a modern workplace setting is often abused and miss-used, for example my step daughter will often complain about certain managers within her workplace, however when you actually examine their actual role, they are never involved with any strategic decision making, but in a modern service workplace setting the title manager has become a honorary replacement for the less popular title of supervisor.

    Management does cover a whole range of roles including ones were you do not necessarily need the hard “people skills” and I am an example where I am both autistic and I have a senior management role within a FTSE 250 organisation.  In my current role within a project team, I am valued for being different and solving problems before others members of the team can often spot these.  Workplace social functions, (unless they are essential) I avoid and this is regarded as being quite acceptable.

    In terms of your midlife experiences with redundancy and changes within your workplace, how you are describing this comes across as the same sort of experience which I heard on Radio Nottingham from a young nerotypical person this morning.

    To try and bring this answer to a close, I sense that you are focusing on the negative and you have many of the necessary skills and experience to thrive in a changing workplace.  When I have been in this type of corner I have undertaken a SWOT exercise on my own skills and then gone through this again with someone who knows me well to give me a more rounded picture of where I am and what I can potentially do.