Divided Attention

Life Lessons

Divided Attention

Lean into you: Whomever you may be.

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Like many, I’ve been diagnosed with ADHD. I’m a high-functioning over-achiever carrying a lifetime of ill-fit experience. I rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. How can she be … when she’s…? I was inconsistent to many who tried to fit me into a square box. As an individual contributor, I left managers confused about whether I was leading the team or running the show individually.

They usually learned how many buckets I had my tentacles stuck to for the company's benefit when I went on holiday or left for maternity leave.

The biggest challenge most people have is communicating outcomes the way leadership needs to hear it to be supportive.

Not being able to communicate my intent was a huge problem. I covered it by being exceedingly good at information dumping and oversimplifying details. I received bad advice in my younger years.

Work harder, do more. You’re a minority. You will always need to prove yourself.

Where’s the room in that statement for making mistakes or saying ‘nay’ to leadership? This advice births a culture of mistrust and well-intentioned dishonesty.

I needed help communicating how focused I was on outcomes when my perception of how to get the outcome defied the logic of those I reported to.

How does this look?

Two weeks before a planned deployment, I have already managed the roadmap, talked to the developers, and am on top of what needs to be done in the first stage. I am awaiting the second stage so as not to complicate things. The final stage has been documented but is ready for any agile adjustments, given that I have thought through and discussed all the possible outcomes with my developers. Meanwhile, my director looks for the outcome and does not see how it’s happening. He/She thinks I’m ultra-focused on the wrong things as my focus has moved to the next aspect of delivery.

Ultimately, my developers and teams had great confidence in carrying out the desired deployment to the extent of not needing my approval at the final stages. I had adequately included them in the decision-making process to the point that they knew my executive mind and its rationale.

Another time:

This looked like me putting in strategy maps because I recognized the disconnection between idea conception and idea delivery. Messaging was lost between sales and project management/delivery as individuals dropped the ball or spoke only from their context. In that role, I discovered considerable holes in documentation and specifications delivery. This lack contributed to a never-ending stream of firefighting by directors and C-suite with disgruntled customers at stages of delivery too late to rectify.

Strategists were finally able to document their ideas in all their messiness. Sales and documentarians began to be very specific in how they voiced what was included in a deal and what was not. Ultimately, the delivered product could be roadmapped based on promises and developer/designer input for deployment, with thought processes and change management captured throughout.

Did I do anything? Not particularly. I created a map and gave it to my people, trusting they would follow it.

Months later, my former Director of Technology thanked me for putting the process to capture strategy in place.

My success was measured through feedback loops with immediate colleagues and cross-functional team leaders. Seeing gratitude and the motivation to progress was enough for me to know this was what was right in my role to support them in their endeavors. How does this translate to the budget? We would see fewer firefights as teams could rally around strategy and create a solid foundation for subsequent projects.

During this time, I learned about my ADHD diagnosis. I also learned from talking to white male friends who had easily gained their leadership roles how easy it was for THEM to admit when something could not be done to their managers. The bad advice I had received in my younger years had set me up for failure. Had I been more honest with leadership and told them like it is, would things have been better?

Not necessarily. Women are treated differently in STEM than men, especially women of color. The bar to prove yourself is always ready to smack you in the face should you forget, even for a moment.

With the diagnosis of ADHD, this alien way of thinking where I am able to look at a system and diagnose root causes is normal. How do I explain my diagnosis remains the challenge.

I took a low dose of ADHD medication for six months. For the first time, I had one track running through my mind. Until I took the medicine, I could not realize how many tracks were running simultaneously in my mind. It was refreshing! I felt calm and restful for the first time since the pandemic. I would never have known what ‘normal’ was supposed to feel like were it not for the medication.

As a Director of Product, I carried out my usual diagnosis of situations, relationships, and problems. Nothing about my logic centers changed with the medication. I was still very much me.

What did change was my tolerance to alcohol. I could not drink while on the meds. I also lost my appetite and lost 15 lbs. After six months, I decided that I had learned enough about my condition to experiment with going off the medication.

The real growth was in acknowledging my mind worked differently than others.

My relationships changed. For one, describing the situation to my mother had her recognize the same inherited from her mother to me. We were all the same. Repeated patterns define us as different from the rest. This is normal. I felt blessed to see the healing of self-acceptance happening with her.

We all were high-functioning women with a distinct high focus and a distinct lack of focus. She never earned a university degree, which haunted her later in life when she compared herself to others who could do less daily but had achieved academically.

We are the women who make Thanksgiving dinner while raising all the kids, feeding all the neighbors, dressing to the Ts, and still have time to work and manage an untold number of hobbies and responsibilities. Give us a problem, and we’ll sit there and solve it for you. We are the type of women you leave in charge knowing that we will fight that fire and put it out while keeping a steadfast calm.

I am normal, for someone with ADHD. That’s the way to think. I went from thinking “something is wrong” to thinking “everything is right.”

A weight had been lifted concerning relationships with friends and colleagues. Self-acceptance and acknowledgment of my limitations anchor my admitting and adhering to my boundaries. I had a reason to stop.

My relationship with my husband changed. He understood and acknowledged that I needed order over chaos, why I couldn’t cross a messy space without getting distracted with cleaning, and why I needed sessions of ‘talking it out’ to get all the way down to the root of what was the issue I needed to face.

The advice I follow to help align my focus:

• Prioritize with lists
• Question limiting beliefs
• Fact over fiction
• Journal your thoughts
• Face fears head-on

My belief in myself transformed. Previously, I felt I was a pretender, someone disguised as something else. My ‘WHY’ was wrapped up in meeting some invisible rung of a ladder I perceived I had to climb. I would think that I needed to be perfect and hide my imperfections. How would I screw things up this time? Would the same feedback haunt me?

My focus changed from being self-centered to helping others with straight-laced white-man honesty — and guess what? It was well received!

I have a superpower of focus, and I understand now why I can do what others find difficult. My motto has become, “What if it all goes well.” My secret power is knowing I can do anything I set my mind to.

I have no problem stepping back from unsafe ledges.

I needed to reset and find my why. I took a temporary step back from product management.

As a Director, you’re tasked to raise the profit margin and motivate a workforce in conditions stacked against you. Few products give customers real impact and trust following a higher calling. As a PM are you effective in squeezing work out of stretched developers and designers while showing growth to the boardroom — all the while working in a deficit? With the deck stacked so, how can I promise growth?

I took a step back from Product to focus on writing and coaching. Both bring my gaze inward and outward. Altruistically helping others overcome what I find difficult also helps me learn and lean into my new thinking and mindset.

I now see life through an objective lens, attention-focused — no longer divided.