Executive Coaching Of Leaders With ADHD
When members of my family began to be diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) a few years ago, I started to study it in earnest. Since then I discovered that a number of my executive coaching clients also have this diagnosis. What tools do I leverage to assist my executive coaching clients with ADHD? Let me add, these tools are helpful for many of my clients, not just those with ADHD. One other caveat: Medication is a critically important tool for many with ADHD; however, since I am not a doctor, I won't comment on that aspect of ADHD treatment.
I will cover additional tools in part two of this article since there are too many to consider in one article.
The ADHD definition I will utilize is "a disorder marked by an ongoing pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that interferes with functioning or development." Other key characteristics of adult ADHD that I emphasize include a) focus is not on ability but on not achieving one's potential relevant to ability; b) onset can be traced back to childhood and c) neurological impairments occur across multiple settings (e.g., work, home and social world).
Healthy Mind Platter
This is the base camp for launching a coaching journey! The healthy mind platter builds on the understanding that like food, our mental well-being requires a variety of inputs. You aren't going to be surprised by the contents of this platter: sleep, exercise, connecting time, time in, playtime, focus time and downtime. I recently decided to launch all my coaching engagements with a healthy mind platter review. As a starting point, I find it helpful to know a client's sleep patterns, level of physical activity and whether they already have a "time in" practice, such as mindfulness or journaling. And I monitor these areas for change as the coaching engagement evolves.
For those with ADHD, some of the healthy mind platter activities are critically important for improved well-being. Some specialists believe that after adequate sleep, which is critical for stress and emotional regulation, physical activity is the single most important treatment for ADHD. Dr. John Ratey writes, "Exercise tempers ADHD by increasing the neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine — both of which play leading roles in regulating the attention system. With regular physical activity, we can raise the baseline levels of dopamine and norepinephrine by spurring the growth of new receptors in certain brain areas."
In addition, the research is compelling in explaining how these healthy mind platter activities are vital to focus, emotional regulation and enhanced learning and memory. In other words, the platter offers important scaffolding options for someone with ADHD.
AGES
How to learn more effectively is a critical skill in today's over-stimulating, noisy and information-saturated world. For people with ADHD, developing skills to optimize the formation of memory is even more important, since they tend to get distracted more easily.
AGES is a framework to make learning stick better:
• Attention—staying aroused and alert enough to focus.
• Generation—creating connections and making associations with learned material.
• Emotion— optimizing learning with the appropriate level of positive emotion.
• Spacing—distributing learning over time.
I'm highlighting attention because of its critical importance for people with ADHD, though I encourage exploring the other three elements, too.
As one founder client said, "My brain seems to bounce around all the time." While many of us complain about the challenges of maintaining focus, for those with diagnoses of ADHD, it tends to be more constant, more disruptive and across different parts of their lives. We all understand the pitfalls of external distractions, particularly the perils of technology, and the long list of strategies to mitigate them includes the obvious ones, such as turning off text and email alerts and not having multiple windows open at the same time. I also share with my clients two easy suggestions proven to increase arousal (one part of focus): Buy a bigger computer screen and drink coffee!
Focus is largely a function of what is going on in the prefrontal cortex, which is a testy region—too little arousal, and you can't focus; too much arousal, and you get stressed or anxious and again can't focus. We are looking for that sweet spot where we have just enough arousal for optimum focus but not too much. We need two neurochemicals in the right balance—dopamine (interest) and norepinephrine (alertness)—for the prefrontal cortex to maintain optimum focus.
With the ubiquity of alluring technologies, overarousal is a much bigger problem today than is the opposite state. How do we mitigate overarousal, defined as too much electrical activity in the prefrontal cortex? Here are a couple of straightforward strategies that you can easily try out.
First, write down your ideas so that you don't need to reserve your brain real estate to keep track of them, which takes energy and space. And remember, it's often said that we can only hold approximately four thoughts in our minds at one time.
Second, you can try activating other regions of your brain, which tends to deactivate the overly aroused prefrontal cortex. For instance, focus your attention on sounds around you—that is, activate brain regions involved in perceiving information. Or go for a walk—that is, activate your motor cortex.
I encourage clients with ADHD to try out different strategies to improve attention. ADHD isn't one-size-fits-all, so we can't assume the same strategies to mitigate it will work for everyone equally.
As an executive coach, I want my clients with ADHD to embrace who they are and the unique aspects of their being that come from having ADHD. In my experience, clarity on how they are looking after their physical needs and personal proven hacks for maintaining attention are key tools for a more positive perspective on their ADHD.
In part two of this article, I will discuss other strategies for coaching founders, leaders and executives with ADHD, including ways to better perceive social cues, form better habits and set up better environmental controls.