Creating a Neuroinclusive Profession: Congratulating Tim Vogus on New JMS “Says” Essay
The Frist Center for Autism and Innovation celebrates Deputy Director Dr. Tim Vogus on the publication of his new “JMS Says” essay, “Creating a Neuroinclusive Profession: Overcoming the Double Empathy Problem,” in the Journal of Management Studies. In this compelling piece, Vogus blends personal experience as the father of an autistic son with years of scholarship in organizational behavior to offer a practical blueprint for building academic and professional cultures where neurodivergent talent can thrive.
The What
Vogus centers on the “double empathy problem,” a well-documented phenomenon in which neurotypical and neurodivergent people often misunderstand each other because they bring different communication styles, expectations, and contexts to the same interaction. Rather than treating difference as a deficit, the essay reframes neuroinclusion as a two‑way responsibility that spans mindsets, everyday practices, and institutional structures. Drawing on both lived experience and the research literature, Vogus demonstrates how the double empathy problem manifests in hiring and onboarding, peer review and collaboration, mentoring, and leadership—and how better design can transform these friction points into drivers of performance and belonging.
Key takeaways and recommendations from the paper include:
- Shift mindsets from “fixing individuals” to redesigning environments. Embrace a strengths‑based view of neurodiversity and the mutual work of communication across differences.
- Make interpersonal practices explicit and predictable. Examples include providing written instructions, offering time to process, checking for shared understanding, and avoiding unnecessary reliance on unspoken norms.
- Redesign structures to support success. Calibrate hiring and evaluation toward demonstrated skills and clear criteria, ensure accessible sensory environments, and normalize accommodations as standard, not special‑case exceptions.
- Treat inclusion as a professional competency. Neuroinclusive leadership is teachable: align incentives, train managers, and codify inclusive routines in how teams plan, meet, and deliver.
The Why
The practical impact of neuroinclusion is twofold: it is ethically right and organizationally savvy. When institutions adopt reciprocal understanding rather than one-sided “deficit” narratives, they unlock higher engagement, clearer collaboration, and improved performance. In research and higher education, especially, visible, stable, and fair structures (paired with transparent communication) improve outcomes for everyone, not only neurodivergent colleagues and students.
How to read
The “JMS Says” essay is open access. Please read and share it here: link to complete essay.
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