Managing for Inclusive Excellence With Dr. Keivan Stassun
By the time graduate students have made it to Dr. Keivan Stassun’s astrophysics lab at Vanderbilt University, they’ve proven their intellectual heft in all kinds of ways. But, Stassun notes, a lab is like an office environment: social dynamics can be ever present and can play an outsize influence. The way we communicate often muddies the real work at hand. Implicit norms around communication in Stassun’s lab left some of his autistic students and colleagues out of the mix.
Keivan Stassun, Ph.D. Is a MacArthur Genius, the Stevenson Endowed Professor of Physics & Astronomy and a Professor of Computer Science and Management at Vanderbilt University, and the Director of the Frist Center for Autism & Innovation. Listen to our interview here.
18 years ago, when his first born son was born and soon thereafter diagnosed with autism, Stassun had an a-ha moment. “As a research scientist running an active astrophysics research lab I began to think about how my experience as a dad with an autistic child could help inform how I was managing my research team, with the idea that the day might come that my own son might be in a position to want to move into spaces like my lab.”
“And so if I wanted to be helping folks like my own son to be successful, I needed to begin thinking about how I managed my team. I began to intentionally recruit autistic students here at Vanderbilt to join my research lab. It became an imperative for me to involve my entire team in the business of making the team truly inclusive of everyone, including the autistic folks that I was beginning to include in the lab.” Fairly quickly, Stassun realized that the way the lab communicated needed to change, especially team meetings and norms around work-focused conversations. Conversation is such an important aspect of working in a team, he notes, especially in a lab environment or research environment, and so he made it more inclusive. For example, long before the pandemic, Stassun allowed employees to attend the weekly lab meeting virtually, because being in the room with the bright lights and hubbub of the whole team might be overwhelming to neurodivergent colleagues.
He says, “I came to realize that some of the autistic students I invited into my lab initially were not comfortable being in team meetings because the conversations were boisterous at times. There was a lot of innuendo and double entendre and nudge nudge, wink wink kind of stuff, which can be second nature to a lot of folks.” The autistic members found it confusing. At times they just felt uncomfortable because they didn't understand what was being communicated. And the fact is that much of the conversation really had nothing to do with the work of the lab.
Create New Habits
So Stassun changed the norms of communication in team meetings. He asked the team to focus on precision in their communication and to say what they really meant. “What are we asking of one another in any interaction? And let's be very clear about the purpose of that interaction and make sure that we are being as precise as we can and that it's focused on the work at hand. And let that happen in a friendly way. But if we allow too much of the stuff that has nothing to do with the work at hand, that's gonna end up creating barriers to folks who want nothing more than to bring their ability and their talent.”
In order to do that successfully, people needed to communicate as consistently as possible. Stassun made sure that every team meeting had an agenda, and that it was stated in advance with clear objectives.
As team leader, Stassun needed to hold himself accountable to keep the team on topic, because old habits die hard. “I consistently guided the conversations during those meetings. Initially, it was very common during a team meeting for some side conversation to strike up around, I don't know, the football game that weekend.” If a side topic was relevant to the team but not on the agenda, Stassun would ask them to save it for the end of the meeting. “It required me to constantly play goalie in managing those conversations and those dynamics, being ever mindful… people want to be part of creating this inclusive environment and communication is so important to that. But I need to be the coach at any given time, reining it in, structuring it, keeping it focused, maintaining that sense of precision in communication while inviting opportunity for folks to bring additional topics.”
It actually didn't take long before that became second nature, Stassun says. "I knew that I had succeeded when maybe something might go a little bit off topic or somebody might introduce a new topic and other members of the team would jump in to say, “‘It would be a really interesting thing to talk about, but maybe not right now. Let's stay focused.’ People began to kind of adopt for themselves and sort of self-regulate, to make sure the environment was always structured and calm. We all became helpful to one another in remaining focused and communicating.” Along the way, Stassun’s neurotypical colleagues came to appreciate the usefulness of team meetings, the discipline of precise communication, and the flexibility to work how they needed to work. It was a win-win.
As I interviewed Stassun, I realized that we so rarely say what we really mean in society and especially at work. Add in our different neurotypes and personalities and you realize that communication is often SO CONFUSING! I'm the opposite of precise and linear. I am very happy to go in a million different directions and assume it will all get to the right place. I have worked with autistic and neurotypical people who have said to me, “I don't understand what you're saying. Where are you going? What's the point?” And so it's been a real learning for me to sort of get myself on track and try to hem in.
Coaching For Effective Communication
Stassun also coached his autistic colleagues on their communication skills. “At times I had to help my neurodivergent team members structure their own communication. If an autistic team member planned to discuss a topic that they were very interested in, for example, they might get very excited and start gushing about the topic. “Their brain was just firing. At times I would say, ‘You know what, I really want to make sure that we're all able to follow along with your really interesting and creative brainstorming … Why don't you say one more thing about that train of thought? And then let's pause and let's make sure that the rest of the team really understood what you were trying to convey. And if not, then let's have some questions from the rest of the team to make sure that you're able to really share with us everything that's in your head. We want to follow along. Why don't you just say one more thing, and then let's take a pause.'”
Autistic children are labeled often as having “special interests,” which is why they get so excited and why they can focus for hours and hours. Teachers can call this inflexibility, because transitions to new activities can be challenging when you’re so into what you’re doing. In adulthood, we learn to become more flexible but the passion remains. I asked Stassun about his experience with special interests in the lab.
“I have tended to treat those as intrinsic attributes of a person. What one person might call inflexible, I would call an area of hyperfocus and ability. I have tended to not want to try to change the person around that kind of thing. Transitions can be hard… springing something on someone that's unexpected can be dysregulating. My approach has been to say, I'm gonna regard those as more or less hardwired things. That's just part of how that brain works. And so I'm gonna respect those things.”
After all, you don't get to a graduate lab in physics at an excellent university without having that strong drive; surely the lab is the place to unleash it all. That's why you're there, I responded to Stassun.
Stassun agrees, “What an amazing thing that I've met this brilliant individual and they have learned to make it in the world so far by having certain kinds of guardrails in their brain, right? And certain kinds of ways in which they're able to pivot or not in certain circumstances. So I'm going to work with that. They are the expert on their own brain and how it works well and how to best unleash it... I'm going to take my lead from them in that regard.”
Managing For Inclusive Excellence
Keivan Stassun manages for inclusive excellence.
What does inclusive excellence mean to him? “I think there's a deficit-based perspective that too often swirls around how we think about including people in different spaces. It's important that we maintain the notion of a standard of excellence, and that when we are talking about including folks in different activities, we're not at all talking about lowering or changing some standard of excellence. Excellence is the standard. Excellence is the goal. And the reason that we want to be inclusive in our workplaces and in our learning environments is because it is only through the inclusion of the full diversity of human mind that we can achieve true excellence. It makes explicit the link between achievement of excellence and performance and innovation and inventiveness and creativity. It links all of that that's wrapped up in excellence with the need to be inclusive of all kinds, including neurodivergent folks.”
I asked him, what has he learned about his own brain after all these years?
“I'm constantly looking for patterns in things, seeking connections between ideas and people. I guess I'm kind of a connector.” This ability to connect manifested in Stassun’s ability to “see in each member of my team their abilities and strengths. I could see all of those things in people and that allowed me to connect the various individual strengths and interests and quirks and differences in the team in order to allow the team as a whole to work as an organism.”
Connectivity is something most leaders seek, thinks Stassun. “There must be at least something that draws us around seeking connections. I think of that as so integral to what it means to be a leader. I think anyone who's called to leadership or who finds himself in a leadership role has an interest in seeing those connections and finding ways to make connections.” I agree!
Morra
P.S. I want to give a huge congratulations to my friend Amanda Morin. Amanda is a neurodivergent activist, award-winning author, and nationally recognized speaker. She was recently honored with the Difference Maker Award by A World of Difference: Embracing Neurodiversity, a nationally broadcast PBS program produced by Beacon College. The episode premieres on October 4, 2025 here: PBS – A World of Difference. For more details, click here: https://www.amandamorin.com/press