Adults , how do you deal with other professionals
Adults , how do you deal with other professionals
Hi, I’m 46 years old and have had a diagnosis since childhood ( was call add then). And without getting to much into it have had many challenges throughout my life. I’m in a good place now where my own Strahles coupled with therapy and medication help me manage things. Up until very recently i felt like this was something to overcome with willpower but now I’m more like this is a storm I just need to ride along with an do my best. I work in software development and in my current job I’m ramping up to take on a lot more responsibilities and leadership. I’ll be dealing with people alot more as a result and I basically am looking for advice on what to do in those moments when I recognize I’m being too “much” without just having to explain that I’m neurodivergent or that I have ADHD. i know I can meet the expectations set in front of me i’m just looking to see how to smooth over the rough patches.
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Saw this post on 'All'. I do not have ADHD, but I believe I work with someone who does. I don't want to take over ops question, but perhaps add an additional question/angle that could be helpful:
- This individual is notorious at the company for overwhelming people with work requests and long list of "thoughts" about how to do things at the company that tend to spider web into every problem the company has.
- People who have tried to fulfill his requests in the past always try to start small and solve a chunk at a time, but he gets upset and says they all need to be worked on simultaneously or we'll have nothing in the end.
- He has alot of industry knowledge so our executives love him. But he ends up getting people fired because they can't help him complete his list of demands.
- I just got promoted to a position where I'm now next in line to deal with him.
How should I work with him? It's just not feasible to work on everything he wants at once. And he overwhelms me daily with long documents and emails full of random thoughts. I worry I'll be next on the chopping block if I don't figure out a way to work with him.
I'll throw my hat in. Get an idea of what his goal is, ask him to lay it out in steps. Tell him you'd like to focus on just one throughline before you move to the next. When he overwhelms you let him know that it's distracting.
Most importantly though, start working on your resume, because you're working at a company that refuses to manage expectations and does not support you. If one Engineer is causing high turnover like that and management doesn't care, that's a big red flag.
In this situation, we are both management level. I don't think anyone has tried to just flat out tell him he's making a mess of things and distracting people. Maybe being upfront about it could help avoid repeating history.
Bingo.
If he's getting people fired I'd just start interviewing. Sounds like others have tried to work through the tasks in a reasonable way and it didn't work out.
Otherwise, document EVERYTHING and CYA!
Is this in a software context? If so, mandating structured RFCs will help a lot. It will channel random streams of thoughts into constructive, actionable proposals.
Have your first RFC be about how to structure an RFC. Make a cost/benefit analysis (in real money if possible) be a mandatory part of the proposal. Commit all of them to a main branch in git even if they are rejected because you would preserve the original discussions around that particular proposal.
Basically anything that can be an epic ticket can and should be an RFC first.
Thanks, good advice. The context is technology. I'm on the tech side. The other person is outside of tech ("the business").