ABSTRACT
A coach is about to start a team coaching engagement in a subsidiary of a global corporation. The engagement was requested by the local president who feels the leadership team needs to collaborate more effectively. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Steglitz Brazil had to adapt its strategy, changing its focus from exports to supplying the rising domestic market demand. There were common themes in all interviews. The team members attributed to their former president's leadership style the fact that they had gotten used to a silos culture which was no longer consistent with their strategy. Neurodiversity can be positioned as either a form of disability or a valuable form of cognitive difference. Neurodiverse people learn to cope in a neurotypical world by ‘masking’ – adopting learned behaviours to try to fit in, rather than being their authentic selves. The team might be paralleling Tom by also ‘masking’ to create superficial harmony.
