Working With and CelebratingAutistic Colleagues
Module 1 · Why this course, this language, this lens › 1.5 Know your shape
Subsection 1.5

Know your shape: a self-assessment

~10 min

Why a self-assessment in this course

Before we spend six modules on team practice, spend ten minutes on how you tend to work. The friction you'll have on any team is shaped at least as much by your own defaults as by anyone else's.

Most workplace conflict on a neurodiverse team is read as a values fight or an interpersonal problem. Often it is neither. It is a collision between two people's default operating shapes that nobody has named out loud. Once the shapes are named, the bridge gets shorter.

This assessment uses a four-shape model (Square, Triangle, Circle, Squiggle) common in nonprofit organizing and group decision-making practice. It maps your tendencies across four working styles. You will get a primary shape and a secondary shape; nobody is one shape, and most people shift under stress. The result is a tendency, not a label, and no shape is better than another. The four shapes — plus the working preferences each teammate names for themselves — are what we will trace through the rest of the course.

Take the 16 questions below. Pick the option that most closely matches how you actually behave at work, not how you would like to. There are no right answers.

0 of 16 answered

1. A new project lands on your desk Monday morning. Your first move is to:

2. A teammate asks you a direct yes/no question in a meeting. You're inclined to:

3. The team is stuck in a circular conversation. You feel pulled to:

4. Your strongest contribution to a team is usually:

5. Under stress, your worst tendency is most likely to:

6. You're given an ambiguous brief with no clear deliverable. Your reaction is:

7. In a meeting, you most often notice:

8. Your ideal Monday morning is:

9. When you give feedback to a colleague, your default mode is:

10. Your team is debating between two strategic options. You're most likely to:

11. What drains you most at work?

12. When somebody pushes back on a decision you made, you tend to:

13. The role you'd naturally take on a campaign team is:

14. When you have to make a decision with imperfect information, you usually:

15. A coworker is visibly upset in a meeting. Your first instinct is to:

16. Looking back at your career, you're proudest of:

Your shapes profile

Save this result. You'll see callouts later in the course labelled "Through the shapes lens" that reference these four shapes. Your primary and secondary shape are your best mirrors for the working-with-autistic-colleagues advice that follows. The downloadable worksheet below gives you a one-pager to fill in.

Template

Shapes × Neurodiversity Self-Reflection Worksheet

A one-page worksheet to record your primary and secondary shape, identify three friction patterns to watch for with autistic colleagues, and name three concrete commitments. Use it after you finish 1.5 and bring it back out in Modules 3, 4, and 5.

Download worksheet
Two things to remember
  1. Nobody is one shape. Most people have a clear primary and a strong secondary, and we shift under stress. Read the result as a tendency, not a label.
  2. No shape is better. Every shape brings a contribution and a blind spot. The question is never which shape wins; it is which shape leads which moment, and who covers the blind spots. On a neurodiverse team, that question is constant.

Action: Complete all 16 questions, read your result, download the worksheet, and slide to continue to the Module 1 checkpoint.