Jenn Grindeland has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s degree in Organizational Leadership. She is also a multiple brain injury survivor. With this background, she teaches leadership skills designed to support equity and inclusion for employees with non-apparent, invisible disabilities, as well as neurodivergent employees.
During this episode, Jenn talks about:
● How her life changed when she had her first traumatic brain injury (TBI)
● Why inadequate job accommodations during her TBI recovery hurt her relationships at work
● How she teaches teams to better support employees who are neurodivergent and/or have non-apparent disabilities
● Why she thinks many people are scared to advocate for themselves in the workplace
● Advice for managers who want to support the people with disabilities on their teams
Subscribe to this channel for more personal stories from neurodivergent people from all walks of life! I also appreciate all your video Likes, Comments and Shares!
Thanks so much!
Carolyn
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Carolyn Kiel: Welcome to the
Beyond 6 Seconds podcast. I'm your host, Carolyn Kiel,
and on today's show, I'm speaking with Jenn Grindeland. Jenn has a Bachelor's degree in
Psychology and a Master's degree in Organizational Leadership. She's also a multiple
brain injury survivor. With this background, she teaches teams
leadership skills designed to support equity for and inclusion of neurodivergent
and invisibly disabled employees. Jenn, welcome to the podcast. Jenn Grindeland: Thank you, Carolyn
. I'm glad to be here. Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. Happy to have you here and
learn more about your story and the type of work that you do. So you mentioned in your bio that
you've had multiple brain injuries. How did your life change after your
first traumatic brain injury or TBI? Jenn Grindeland: Yeah. My first TBI was when I was 15. So at that age, there was a lot
of changes happening anyways with maturing and growing up. So, for me, it was a big social
difference that I had to learn how to navigate
social settings with
this new brain injury that I had. Specifically that, that looked
like, you know, I couldn't be around loud music or lots of stimulation. So I was a sophomore in high school. In school I would get headaches
really quickly with reading. So doing homework assignments, tests,
I needed a lot of extra time and I needed to take a lot of breaks. Because there was a point where, I could,
I would read two, three sentences, and I would have a headache for four hours. If I wanted to get
anything done,
I had to really space out my time. So between those two things, I would say
were, were the biggest changes that I had. Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. And were there things that
you had to relearn how to do? Jenn Grindeland: I would say for
that, not, not in the sense of, you know, some people have to
relearn how to walk and talk. I, I didn't have that. But relearning how to advocate
for myself in a, in a new way. I guess that's not really relearning,
but just learning in a new way, how to a
dvocate for my needs and,
and learning what those needs were, because those had changed a lot. Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. And did you put in like special
either coping mechanisms or systems? Like you mentioned that your
ability to read changed dramatically because of the headaches. So did you have systems around
that in order to be able to get your schoolwork done? Jenn Grindeland: Lots of timers
that I still use to this day. And that was, you know, 16 years ago. So, But that and I did
a lot of vision
therapy. So I learned how to control
my eyes and the way that they, you know, worked together. So that that's the biggest thing
is time management was my system. And and I worked with the
accommodations person at my school to get extra time and a half on tests
and The ACT and stuff like that. Carolyn Kiel: And did it impact
your relationships with other people, like your classmates at
school or friends and family? Jenn Grindeland: I would say a little bit. My friends were pretty supportive,
I me
an, my family too, but I didn't really share the details in depth
with my friends because I was still navigating and figuring it out myself,
going to lots of doctors, trying to get answers that I wasn't receiving. So with my, my friends, it was
kind of like they would support me, but I also didn't really ask
for a lot of support, you know. If there was loud music, I
would just kind of deal with it. And, you know, I didn't have
those skills in place right away to really say something. And so I wo
uld say the relationships
didn't change that much because of my my own fear of them changing. So I tried to keep them as normal or
as similar to before as, as possible. And then with my family, I would
say that we definitely got closer. Me and my mom specifically, because she,
you know, I couldn't drive yet when it happened and she was taking me to all my
appointments and she was there hearing all the things that the doctors were
saying and she was advocating for me in a way that I hadn't seen b
efore, because
I never really needed it to that level. Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, it sounds like the
advocacy piece is, yeah, difficult as a teenager when it's something that
you have to suddenly try to learn and, and, and your life changes so much. But yeah, that seems
like a big piece of it. Yeah, absolutely. So a couple of years go by. You go into the working world. And you wind up having two more TBIs. Leading up to that, what kind of work
were you doing at the time and what was life like when you
had those two TBIs? Jenn Grindeland: I had a pretty fun job. I was working in sports
in higher education. So I ran collegiate recreational sports. So club sports and intramural sports
at a college here where I live. And it was a lot of fun. I kind of fell into it. It wasn't the type of work that
I was planning to do from, but I just kind of fell into it. And it was a lot of fun when it happens. And then the two TBIs were back to back. They were six months
apart from one another. And that really
changed the team dynamic
there because, you know, people tend to be really supportive and understanding
for the first four to six weeks of my experience after a brain injury. And then after that,
questions start to appear. Why aren't you better yet? When are you going to be back to normal? Why aren't you contributing
the way that you used to? Why aren't you going
above and beyond anymore? You know, it was just, I was
still very much part time. I wasn't back to full time due
to my recovery from t
he first one when the second one happened. So, the timeline just started all over and
that patience from my peers didn't reset. So that was my experience in the
workplace after my brain injuries. Carolyn Kiel: Like what kind of
symptoms did you have, or, or maybe it's better to say like what kind of
changed in, in the way that you were coping or going about work and life? Jenn Grindeland: My symptoms
were very similar to the symptoms that I experienced when I was 15. So a lot of headaches, nause
a,
light and noise sensitivity. When I was 15, I had some anger issues. That did not repeat itself when I had
the second and third brain injuries. I think a lot of that has to do with
the fact that I found mindfulness before that, and that really supported my, my
mental processing of what had happened. And again, it was a huge social
barrier, what happened, because I could not leave the house. You know, my, I was working with a
vestibular physical therapist throughout the second and third recove
ries. And my therapy was literally
stepping outside and walking back in. And that was my walk for, for the hour. I had to do that, you know,
two, three times a day. And I would slowly work my way
up to go outside, take five steps, turn around, come back in. At that time, I lived in an apartment
where I had to walk down a hallway downstairs in order to get outside. So it was a bit of stimulation. But considering that was the barrier
or that that was like the threshold that I was working with, the
re was no
way I could go out with friends and go out to a restaurant and hang out with
friends in the way that I used to. And being older, 10 years older by
that point, I had matured a lot. I knew self advocacy skills and, and
my friends were incredibly supportive and their patience did not waver. Even, you know, throughout the
two years, I would say it really took me to recover from that. And that, that was a way for me to
really grow closer with, with my friends. I, you know, was away from
my
family by that point in my life and just geographically. But It was a great, I think a great thing
for my friendships because now, it's been five years, six years, actually, since
those injuries, and even now friends will ask me, "Oh, is this too loud for you? Why don't you pick where you sit?" In a restaurant, I
always pick where I sit. I'm the first one to pick where I
sit, because I want to make sure I'm facing the place that's going to have
the least amount of people walking in front of me a
nd least amount of noise. And you know, that's something that all
of my friends still respect to this day. Carolyn Kiel: Wow. That's great that your friends were so
supportive and continue to be supportive. But challenging to hear that work related
things were made more difficult and yeah, it sounds so odd to hear you when you say
it out loud, like, yeah, after about 4 or 6 weeks, people are like, all right, why
can't we go back to quote unquote normal? But I totally understand that
that can be
a lot of people's attitudes, unfortunately. And yeah. So I guess in terms of work,
because you're not, you're no longer working at that particular place. You're in a totally different business. Did you make the decision like shortly
after to leave and change your career? Or what was that process like, the
decision to change career wise? Jenn Grindeland: I would say, yeah,
it was, it was pretty shortly after. So I left two and a half
years after it happened. And I would have left
earlier if I had
the guts. But I actually ended up getting
laid off when, it was when COVID was in its beginning stages. And that was kind of the kick
that I needed to go out and start my business supporting people. I had started it about six months prior
on the side, but hadn't really been at a point where I felt like it was
responsible to quit and transition. Carolyn Kiel: What kind of work
do you do now to help employers with inclusion and working with
other neurodivergent employees? Jenn Grindeland: I teach
employers
and employees leadership skills. So I strongly believe that leadership
is not positional and that anyone in an organization can be a leader. So I teach the same skills to both
managers and employees, skills that are specifically designed to support
coworkers, peers, direct reports, supervisors who are neurodivergent,
or actually I want to say neuro distinct, I like that term a little bit
better, but neuro distinct, invisibly disabled and or chronically ill. I, I feel like I fall into
those 1st
2 categories and I have, you know, 1 of my best friends falls into the 3rd. So that's something that's
really near and dear to my heart. Leadership skills is a broad category. And underneath that category, I dig into
strategic and kind communication, self advocacy and energy management and how
all of those three skills can support people with hidden differences, is
the umbrella term that I like to use. And and then I also get specifically
into how can you be more inclusive in your comm
unication, such as using all
three forms, you know, written audio and visual forms of communication,
you're talking with people. And an example, another example is when
we send written communication or print out written communication using an off
white background with a dark font, not black, but like a dark blue or dark
green or dark brown can help neuro distinct people or invisibly disabled
people better read that material, so it's not as jarring to the eyes. So I actually have a free inclusive
communication checklist on my website that people can check out to audit their own
communication practices and get some new ideas about how they can be more inclusive
with their communication in the workplace. Carolyn Kiel: That's awesome. Yeah, I only learned that recently,
actually, to not have, like, the bright white background with the dark
black text, that that can be jarring for a lot of people with a variety of
different disabilities and differences. Jenn Grindeland: It surprised me too.
You know, I am someone who has a
visual disability and I didn't even know that trick until I, I read it
in a book about neurodiversity at work and I was like, oh wow, this
would help me and I didn't even know. Carolyn Kiel: Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah, exactly. There's so much to learn about that. So do you tend to work with the
individual employees themselves or you work with teams to help them build
cohesion and inclusion within the teams? Jenn Grindeland: I come at
it from a team perspective. I offer
my workshops and trainings
for teams to join as a whole. So they're all getting this same
language and knowledge base together and have this commonality between them. And then, if teams want to, or if
individuals want to go deeper, I do offer small, intimate discussion
groups as well as one on one coaching if someone wants to dig deeper
and talk about how this material really directly affects their work. You know, we can brainstorm
through specific situations that they're having together and an
d
work through those challenges. Carolyn Kiel: Do you bring your own
experiences as an employee with hidden disabilities in the workplace forward as
you work with teams in other workplaces? Jenn Grindeland: Definitely,
it's a huge part of it. I always start off by explaining how I
am connected personally to this work and my lived experience because I think that
provides a lot of credibility, not only credibility, but also kind of reassurance
for the people that are learning from me as well as th
at they feel validated. You know, "oh, there's someone else
who was experiencing something that I'm experiencing and she found a
way to make it a positive thing. Let me see what I can learn from her." So that's a big part of it. And I'm actually surprised
that some people don't do that. That some people, you know,
don't really bring their lived experiences into this kind of work. Because we're talking
about humans and people. Why wouldn't we talk about
ourselves and our human experience if that
can help somebody else? Carolyn Kiel: It's great to be able
to bring that lived experience. And as you said, it also brings
credibility to the type of work that you're doing because you've been there. You've been through it. So yeah, your, your lived experiences
and you know, your education because you've, you've studied
in this area formally as well. It all works together so well. Jenn Grindeland: Yeah. Which is, is, is pretty funny because
I, I was in a career beforehand that had nothing to do
with my education. I didn't mean to get into that
career, it just kind of happened. And I really missed the psychology and
the leadership of what I, you know, education piece of what I learned, and
I wanted to get back to that, but I didn't know what that would look like. And then when I had these two brain
injuries while I was working, I knew right away, this is it, I am
going to use my education to educate people on, on this exact thing. Carolyn Kiel: And, you know, again, self
advocacy conti
nues to be important for, for all employees and with the teams. And, and you've mentioned before
that you found that coworkers have responded favorably to self advocacy
in the experience that you've seen. So I'd love to learn more about that
and how self advocacy helps build connections with working teams. Because I think a lot of people are
quote unquote afraid to advocate for themselves, sometimes for valid reasons. So I'm so curious about
your experience on that. Jenn Grindeland: Yeah. Thank
you for asking. That's such a good question. And you're right. It is valid reasons that a lot of
times we don't want to advocate for ourselves because there's this fear
underneath that we will be rejected or we'll get a no, well, I guess
that's the same thing as rejection. We, we will be seen differently
because we're too pushy or we're not easy to work with, you know,
something along those lines. But when we actually do it, in
my experience, coworkers are more understanding and they're clear ab
out
how they can support you or communicate with you or, or whatever it is. When we have clear and kind communication,
which can be in the form of self advocacy, that's setting ourselves up
for a relationship that's not confusing. We know our boundaries between each other. We know exactly how to support
the other person, when to back off, what that person needs. And people find a lot of reassurance
when they hear the self advocacy from someone else because they're like, "oh,
okay, well, now I do
n't have to guess about how to communicate with you." I prefer written
communication, for example. So it just, it really clears things
up and strengthens relationships. Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, that direct
communication, which can sometimes be difficult in work settings, but
it's really helpful, as you said. It sets the expectations so
people know what to expect and how to help or support if needed. Yeah. Jenn Grindeland: Exactly. Carolyn Kiel: With the organizations that
you've worked with, do you s
ee any kind of, like, recurring challenges that come
up in teams that bring you in to help them build that cohesion and, and kind
of what's, what can you share about that? Jenn Grindeland: Yeah, there's, there's
quite a few challenges that I see that show me that they don't understand
how to support hidden differences. And so one big one is
micromanagement as a manager. Because they're missing that trust
piece and that understanding that people might work differently is where
a lot of micromanag
ement comes from. So micromanagement is one. High turnover is one. Employees not performing at the
productivity levels that, that managers might expect, or quiet quitting. Employees feeling underappreciated
or misunderstood or undervalued. Employees feeling overwhelmed. These are all examples of what
happens when we don't take the time to truly understand and appreciate
the hidden differences in our teams. Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. And I think also one of the reasons that
sometimes people are afraid t
o either disclose their hidden differences or
ask for support or be direct in what they need is because they're worried
that they'll be viewed differently. So either, you know, managers or
teammates will think that they can't, you know, produce as much as
the team needs or wants or expects. Is that a concern that you've
seen in terms of people kind of worrying how they're going to
be perceived within their teams? And then how do you work with managers to
kind of, I don't know, combat that bias,
I guess is the best way I can describe it? Jenn Grindeland: I see it a little bit. Most of the teams that I work with
are, are coming to me because they already have some sort of awareness of
neurodiversity and some support of it. So, usually it's coming because
employees have already said something. Employees have said, I have, you
know, ADHD or some other diagnosis. And then managers, they get kind
of scared, like, "Oh, what do I do? Like, how do I support this person?" So it's usually, it's n
ot necessarily
the employee that's afraid to say something, but the manager is afraid to
say the wrong thing back to the employee. And so that tends to be what sparks the
conversations of getting training with me because they, they want to support
that employee, but they don't know how. Carolyn Kiel: That's really interesting. And in some ways, it's great to hear
that you get to work with managers who are, you know, at least concerned
enough where they want to have that productive and, and healt
hy relationship
with their employees and that they're asking for help around that. So that's great that they're
reaching out and that you're able to help them with that. Jenn Grindeland: Yeah, usually if
it's, if it's the other way around where they don't really think that
neurodiversity is something worth learning about, then I, I usually never
get to have a conversation with them. Because you know, they have to get
to the point where they want to do it before we can talk about doing the work.
Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, that makes sense. Do you have any general advice for
say, managers who have a team with a diverse range of neurotypes or, or,
you know that you have people with hidden differences on your team? Any sort of general advice for
someone who literally doesn't know where to start with that? Jenn Grindeland: Yeah, a few things. My first piece of advice is to
trust your employees and assume good intention behind all of their actions. A lot of times I feel like managers
can get caught
up in thinking, Oh, this person wants to work from home,
for example, but we don't allow that. And they just, you know, they might start
to make up their own stories about why that person needs to work from home. And they may or may not be true. But if we assume every request is
coming from a good intention, that shows the employee that you trust
them and they're more willing to make sure that they're being productive. Because, you know, in my experience, it
was very clear that my employers did
not trust me to work from home, which was not
allowed by my employer in general, but my doctor required it for me and my recovery. I had to work from home. So, you know, they had to accommodate. And it was, it was very, very clear they
didn't trust me to get my work done, which was unfortunate because I had
already worked there for three years and proven that I was very good at my job. But because of that lack of trust and that
I felt like lack of respect, I didn't feel motivated at my job at,
at home, you know? I almost wanted to prove them right. So if we, if we think about it from
that perspective and we trust our employees and assume the good in
everybody and good intentions behind all requests and self advocacy,
then we can really go far with that. So that's, that's the one thing. And then the second is to start to learn
about how you can be more inclusive in your, in your communication practices. So, like I said, I have that free
guide on my website and it can be found at TheWor
kingWell.Us. And that has a lot of tips and tricks
about things you can start doing today that don't take a lot of work. They're not hard. It's just new habits to form, such
as sending meeting agendas out in advance, keeping structured
and clear defined communication. I would say, if I had to narrow it
down to one thing in communication, it's being clear and direct. As clear as you can be. Reread your emails before you press send. Are there any fluff words
that I can take out? Is this as clear a
s it possibly can be? And then go ahead and send it
when you feel good about it. Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, clear and
direct communication is something I hear over and over again as things
that people want and aspire to. I think it's more difficult than it seems. I know I'm, I'm the type of person
who will like read and reread and reread my emails before I send them. And I'm constantly like cutting
words out and cutting out fluff. It takes effort and it takes practice,
but it helps everyone, no matter
what. I think everyone benefits from that. Jenn Grindeland: So I do that too. And it's, it's a practice, you know, you
get better and better at doing it over time and there's less you have to cut out. But I will say there's this
app that I use called Witty. W I T T Y. Have you heard of it? Carolyn Kiel: No! Jenn Grindeland: It's a browser
extension where it will... As long as you're writing an email from a
browser, you know, it doesn't work on an external mail application, but if you're
writing
an email from a browser or you're writing a post on LinkedIn or whatever
it is from that browser that you have the extension on, it will underline in red any
fluff words or any words that are vague and provide recommendations that you cut
them out or you switch them to different words that they have a list provided for. And that app has helped me a
bunch with being more clear in my written communication. Carolyn Kiel: That's cool. All right. Witty. I'll have to check that out. Very cool. Jenn Gr
indeland: It's free as an
individual user and, I think if you're writing something really long, like
an article or a blog post, it only will do a certain number of words. But for me, it's, it's very useful
and, and basically anything that I write is within that word count. Carolyn Kiel: Oh, that's great. Yeah, that does sound really useful. Awesome. Thank you for that. So yeah, Jenn, how can people, what's
the best way for them to get in touch with you if they want to learn more
about the type o
f work that you do? Jenn Grindeland: I love
to meet with people. And on my website, there is a area
for you to schedule a meeting with me if you want to meet with me and
just talk and get to know each other. That's that's my favorite
way to connect with people. And so my website is like I
said, the working well dot us. And I think it's under the contact
page or something where you can reach out or schedule a meeting with me
and my email is on there as well. And that's, that's my favorite way. Yo
u know, if people want to connect on
LinkedIn, that's always an option too. Carolyn Kiel: Awesome. Yeah, I'll put your website link in the
show notes so people can find it there. Yeah, thanks, Jenn. Thank you so much for being on my show. You know, last question, is there
anything else that you'd like our listeners to know or anything that
they can do to help or support you? Jenn Grindeland: Thank you for that. If you don't already know this
from listening to Beyond 6 Seconds, these statistics o
f people in the U. S. workforce who are neurodivergent,
invisibly disabled or chronically ill is very high. If you include all 3 of those, you
know, I haven't seen a study that includes all three, but if you add up
percentages from each of the studies, it's up to 50 percent of the U. S. workforce meets one of those categories. So my biggest takeaway that I
want listeners to have is that you have these type of people in your
teams, unless you're a team of one or two, you know, maybe you don't. Bu
t a lot of times I'll get
asked the question, "well, why does this apply to me? We don't have invisibly
disabled people on our teams." Well, that's the point. It's invisible. You can't see it. You don't know. And if you don't know, that might be
indicating a culture problem where people don't feel comfortable enough
to disclose and to say something. And I'm not saying people need to
disclose in order to have a positive company culture, but that is just
something if people never feel comfortable
talking about it, then
that's probably a bigger problem. Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, absolutely. Great words to end on. Well, thank you so much, Jenn. It's been great talking with
you today and thanks again for being a guest on my podcast. Jenn Grindeland: Thanks so
much for having me, Carolyn. This was great.
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