Asperger Awareness A Key to Success for IT and Technical Managers eBook Stephen Plowright
Download As PDF : Asperger Awareness A Key to Success for IT and Technical Managers eBook Stephen Plowright 
If you are a manager of technical people, you will already have an intuitive understanding that many of your personnel have natural traits and abilities in common that help to make them good at what they do. In many technical teams, around half of the workers will score significantly higher than average on an Asperger test. This book explains the benefits of understanding Asperger traits.
Distilled to the relevant and concise facts, this manual is easily read and absorbed by busy managers. It is also useful for technical people who want to better understand their own traits and abilities, and also their rights in the workplace. For those interested in further reading, books are suggested at the end of each chapter.
Asperger Awareness A Key to Success for IT and Technical Managers eBook Stephen Plowright
AA is an illuminating reading that points out many aspects that link people of different abilities for the success in team works where a wide pattern of expertises is required.Product details
|
Tags : Amazon.com: Asperger Awareness: A Key to Success for IT and Technical Managers eBook: Stephen Plowright: Kindle Store,ebook,Stephen Plowright,Asperger Awareness: A Key to Success for IT and Technical Managers,Lulu,COMPUTERS Information Technology,COMPUTERS Social Aspects General
People also read other books :
- Dark Chemistry The Dark Series Book 4 edition by Catherine Lee Mystery Thriller Suspense eBooks
- The Jason Voyage eBook Tim Severin
- Basic Fish Cooking edition by Renee Shelton Cookbooks Food Wine eBooks
- The Maiden Tale Sister Frevisse Medieval Mysteries Book 8 edition by Margaret Frazer Literature Fiction eBooks
- Murder on Santorini Sliding Sideways Mystery Book 9 eBook Emily Senecal
Asperger Awareness A Key to Success for IT and Technical Managers eBook Stephen Plowright Reviews
Part management guide, part applied psychology, Asberger Awareness is a playful, practical, and immensely readable aid for anyone involved in the world of IT.
The book's central thesis is that many IT workers - programmers, engineers, and other technical staff - possess traits reminiscent of Asberger's Syndrome, a mild manifestation of the Autistic spectrum of traits.
These traits include precision, perfectionism, creative brilliance, and a strong sense of right, all of which make for great IT staff and which benefit greatly from a management style that is attuned to these values and needs. This book is perfectly designed to help staff and management alike work in a way that best suits the "Asberger style" in order to maximise both efficiency and workplace well-being.
Plowright explains that by allowing such workers the space and trust they need, managers stand to gain a far more motivated and productive workforce. He details in a very direct and practical way the best management strategies for encouraging a healthy technical staff workforce, backing up his methods with clear explanations and evidence. Yet the book also employs humour and wit to great effect, keeping it readable and enjoyable.
Asberger Awareness is all about getting results. Creating the best possible workplace environment and culture is its central tool for maximising the productivity of IT staff. Its mixture of humour, education, advice, and insight is grounded in the author's rigorous psychological research and long experience as a senior IT worker with Asberger traits himself. It offers staff and managers alike a fruitful opportunity for improving the ways they do business in exciting and sometimes surprising ways.
Plowright understands the delicate balance that goes into creating an ideally-functioning team, and his empathy and know-how both help to create a book of incredible value for anyone in the IT industry.
A great introduction to the benefits and challenges that can arise when managing employees with Asperger's or Asperger's traits.
Although directed at those in the IT and technical areas, the information can certainly be applied to varying degrees in other settings (in fact, I think I may pass it on to my boss the next time she is in town!). As one of the reviewers put it, "Diversity once understood and valued can only enhance productivity and knowledge."
Plowright opens the book with a description of what Asperger's Syndrome (AS) is and also references the informal Autism Quotient (AQ) test developed by Simon Baron-Cohen to look for AS tendencies. As he points out, many individuals who gravitate to technical areas of work may have high AQ scores, or AS tendencies, even if not diagnosed with Asperger's.
The labels aren't as important as recognizing that people who have these tendencies often bring similar strengths and challenges to the working environment and will perform best when those are taken into account.
Of course, any of these could also be perceived as a weakness, such as when direct honesty comes across as arrogance. The author provides a number of examples of how AS traits could be aggravated by conditions within an office environment, such as extreme focus making it difficult to deal with too many demands or the sudden addition of new tasks, or with perfectionism causing deadlines to be missed.
He continues with a discussion on how to optimize an employee's ability to work by reducing the stress caused by his or her innate tendencies. "The keys to reducing work related stress," he says, "are order, clarity, interest, and autonomy." I couldn't agree more!
Many individuals who do quite well as part of a technical team face much greater challenges when given a management role. While acknowledging that this may not be a good move for everyone, Plowright offers some suggestions for how to handle a new supervisory role, including using a mentor to give some guidance during the transition period (and beyond, if needed).
I would highly recommend Asperger Awareness to anyone who is in management, especially those in areas that attract a higher number of individual with Asperger's or AS traits. It could also be helpful to the individuals with AS themselves to assist in identifying their own strengths and challenges and give them some direction on what types of accommodations could improve their working experience and output.
As the author, this is really an introduction rather than a review.
I wrote the book after 30 years working as an IT engineer, and observing the successes and failures of managers in getting the most out of their technical staff. Also having done some study in psychology, I decided to look into the traits that make good engineering, technical, and scientific staff.
In 2001 Wired magazine published an article on the prevalence of Asperger traits in technical workers. It turns out that these traits can be ideal for highly skilled technical work, and people with these traits are attracted to such jobs. The result is that in many technical workplaces, around half of the workers will score significantly higher than average on an Asperger "AQ" test. This has profound implications for the management styles and techniques that will work in these environments.
In the book I briefly explain the nature of these traits, and the history of Prof Asperger's work. I then discuss how to maximise the benefits of the Asperger traits in the technical workplace, and how to minimise any disadvantages.
The book is based on the principle of diversity. Every individual is unique, and this uniqueness should be a benefit rather than an impediment in the workplace. With some small adjustments in thinking, and an awareness of Asperger traits, managers can create a much more productive and satisfying workplace for all of their workers.
At the end of each chapter, I recommend sources (books or search terms) for those who want to find out more.
AA is an illuminating reading that points out many aspects that link people of different abilities for the success in team works where a wide pattern of expertises is required.
0 Response to "⇒ [PDF] Free Asperger Awareness A Key to Success for IT and Technical Managers eBook Stephen Plowright"
Post a Comment