I have blogged about my experiences at the Simmons School of Management Leadership Conference. One session had me boiling inside – and they didn’t even have a Q&A session! I thought I’d write a bit about the session that bothered me, and why it bothered me, as the themes are very important in a connected world.

The session was a Leadership Seminar led by Annie McKee. Many of the first statements made were very good. For example: we are living in a time of profound changes that are reshaping the social structures around us. And these shifts are causing the basic systems that had been in place to crumble as they become irrelevant.

Ok, so far I could agree with it all.

Then the conversation started to focus on what makes a  good  leader. Statements such as “leaders touch our hearts” and “good leaders move us as complete human beings, they move our mind, body, heart, and spirit”. Hmm, ok, maybe I can buy that.

But then things were said that fully engaged my resident oppositional attitude:

Humans are good at reading social cues

OK, that is just not true. EVERYONE is not good at reading social cues. For instance, adults on the Autism spectrum may not be able to read social cues. Plus, social cues are tied to culture. If you work in a global organization, you may be good at reading the social cues from your own culture, but if you are on the other side of the world working — there is a chance you miss certain signals because they aren’t relevant in your culture.

But, not everyone is as sensitive to this topic as me, so I kept listening. Then I heard this:

Good leaders know how to draw people to them, and how to use and manage emotion in a positive way

OK, so good leaders can manage their emotions, use emotions to influence others, and are good at reading social cues. Basically they can’t have any sort of Executive Functioning Deficit. The things listed as signs of good leaders are the opposites of symptoms of many disabilities.

Then the conversation switched to the discussion of mirror neurons:

Mirror nuerons are what make us physiologically attuned to pick up social cues

Well that is not exactly what mirror neurons do. Marco Iacoboni, the neuroscientist best known for his work on mirror neurons, had this to say about the hype:

I think there are two key points to keep in mind. The first one is the one we started with: mirror neurons are brain cells specialized for actions. They are obviously critical cells for social interactions but they can’t explain non-social cognition. The second point to keep in mind is that every brain cell and every neural system does not operate in a vacuum. Everything in the brain is interconnected, so that the activity of each cell reflects the dynamic interactions with other brain cells and other neural systems.

So mirror neurons have a specific specialized purpose for interpreting actions, not non-social cognition. Of course the first thing I thought when these neurons were mentioned was: what about people on the spectrum? Are their mirror neurons broken?

The final straw in the presentation was this statement:

If you lead, how do you make emotions contagious across the airwaves?

This is just crazy. You can’t just send emotion over the airwaves, you have to be sure you are transmitting over a frequency that can be picked up by everyone you are supposed to be leading. So this means adjusting that frequency so that people on the autism spectrum, people from all cultures, countries, and creeds are able to receive the signal and decipher it.

This presentation cut to my core for several reasons:

• My daughter is on the spectrum. I would never her want to be at a professional conference where someone said she was “broken”, or even “dangerous”
• I think culture is vital to innovation. Perhaps this presentation would work if we had a pan-global identity – but we don’t. We have to work at making our intentions known, and cutting other people slack when they don’t “get” us right away.

I’m more convinced than ever that there is a great need to educate people about what it means to be on the autism spectrum, and how by just changing our views of “broken” and “dangerous” can enable very smart, focused, creative people to contribute even more to our society.

That is one way I hope to show leadership in the future.

This past Saturday I attended the Simmons School of Management Leadership Conference. EMC is one of the main corporate sponsors of the event.

Here’s my recap of how the day went for me:

Opening Remarks

In addition to the leaders of Simmons School of Management, leaders from the primary corporate sponsors gave the opening remarks. Bill Teuber, Vice Chairman of EMC, represented EMC. I really appreciated that he explained why he had a reason to be at a women’s conference. He talked about the strong women who have influenced him at home and in his career. He also talked about his understanding of this Chinese proverb:

Women hold up half the sky

He explained that organizations can’t get where they need to be if only half the sky is being held up. He spoke about how inclusion requires an unwavering focus from the top down, and tactically that requires programs, accountability, and patience. He also said that inclusion is an absolute priority at EMC.

Opening Plenary Session

The opening plenary session was given by Maxine Clark, Founder and CEO (actually CEB – Chief Executive Bear) of Build-a-Bear Workshops. Her idea to create Build-a-Bear was based on her childhood, her retail experience, and a coversation with her daughter. Her advice:

• Dream big, no matter what your business may be
• Do what you love and find the connections that bring innovation
• Create an environment so great things can happen
• If you try and fail but learn, it really isn’t a “mistake”
• One important skill she looks for in interviews in curiosity

Morning Concurrent Sessions

During the morning, there were five sessions to choose from. I chose a Leadership Seminar with Annie McKee. Overall, the session was good. Her message was to be a good, whole person if you want to be a good leader. I am going to write an entire post about things she said because I believe some of what she advises is quite dangerous to innovation. Her advice would would work if we actually lived in a flat world, where the culture was entirely homogenized. But we don’t, and actually our differences are what spark innovations. But more on that in another post…

Afternoon Plenary Session

After lunch, Charlayne Hunter-Gault spoke. She talked about her work working with the victims of violence against women in Africa. She began and ended by saying:

There has never been a time like this

She spoke several times about the suit of armour crafted for her by her grandparents and her community. She was given a first class sense of self, so that she had a form of protection when she had to walk through an angry mob to her dorm as one of the first African American women to attend the University of Georgia.

Afternoon Concurrent Sessions

Again in the afternoon there were five different sessions to choose from. I attended the Negotiation Workshop given by Mimi Donaldson. I was also lucky enough to be at the same lunch table with Mimi. She is very funny, and uses that humor to help you think about yourself in the topics she is discussing. She went over the six steps of negotation:

1. Prepare
2. Set Limits
3. Push the Pause Button
4. Listen
5. Be Clear
6. Close the deal

Closing Plenary Session

Diane Keaton gave the closing session. I really liked her session – she spoke about her career and how lucky she has been, and how all the big breaks were connected to each other. And how the first lucky thing that happened to her was to have had such a wonderful mother.

It made me think of my mom, and then made me wonder what kind of mother I have been for my children, and hope that I have given them a good start so that they can be very lucky.

There were other bloggers from EMC at the conference, I’ll post links once they post.

I was able to attend the Simmons Women’s Leadership Conference courtesy of EMC’ Office of Diversity. It was wonderful. I connected with a Senior Manager from my part of the world (Florida), ladies from RSA, ladies from our IT and Shared Services depts.

I also spent alot of time with fellow EMC blogger Polly Pearson.

I have some video I need to edit, and some better coverage of the conference, but I am still processing some of the things I heard. I tagged my tweets with #swlc, so did other EMC ladies. Check it out in a twitter search.

As a preview for what I’ll blog about…there were a couple of speakers that really got to me. One speaker talked about leading but talked as if the world is flat and we all communicate and listen on the same frequency. And an amazing Southern woman put a spotlight on why culture and family and community matter so very much.

Over in my other blog where I talk about everything, I made this post about a kindergarten teacher in Florida who had her class vote on whether they thought a little boy who had been sent to the office should be allowed to come back to class. It’s been reported now that the boy is in the final stages of being diagnosed with an Autism Related Disorder (ASD).

Not only did the children vote on whether the little Aspie should be allowed to return to class, but he was made to stand in the front of the room while the other children told them how they felt about him and gave their “final answer”. They all told him he was disgusting and annoying, and he was “voted off the classroom”.

The educational spin is that the teacher had been doing a lesson on tallying. Now, this blog is about work – and I work in education for a global company. I cannot imagine doing this with adults and not being punished. Let alone a kindergartner, let alone a kindergardner with Aspergers!

What do you other education folks think? What in the world was this woman thinking?

You know, kids don’t grow out of Asperger’s and other ASDs. That means we work with folks on the spectrum right now. Just because someone acts in a strange way that you may find annoying, does that give us free reign to get rid of them?