ADHD Coach Linda Walker: I did a survey to find out how many had actually mentioned it at work, for what reasons, and what were the results.  Now I would say about somewhere around thirty percent of people had mentioned it at work because they were at the point where they were on the verge of either losing their jobs or it was so chaotic, things were so chaotic they needed more help.  Some of them did not, a third of them did mention that they were having struggles but did not mention that it was ADHD you know.

So you really have to look at the the type of environment you’re working in.  What is the issue that you’re struggling with?  Is it something that you can you can ask help for without necessarily saying anything about the ADHD? and it’s not to be underhanded, it’s just so many people have such poor knowledge about ADHD that they really don’t know what to make of it. They see ADHD as a mental illness.  I see it as a brain difference.  It’s a different way of working and it’s not a bad thing, it’s not a good thing, it’s who you know, part of what you are, and part of the the challenges that you have like everyone else has challenges.

One example that wasn’t someone who necessarily I could talk about Dwayne my husband for example he didn’t necessarily tell them that he had ADHD, but he needed accommodations and asked for them, and he went from going through to demotions at work, he had one demotion, one job lost, when the motion again to getting to the point where he was within a few years promoted to a very very high position at the company because he got to help him and with some of the people had mentioned that got the help that they needed mostly coaching they got some accommodations but the coaching and the accommodations put together really made a difference.  Some of them have actually gotten to the point where they ended up getting a promotion.

One guy was telling me he had been working from 7:00 in the morning till 10 o’clock at night one of my very very successful clients.  7:00 in the morning till 10 o’clock at night  just trying to survive with everything that he had and the fact that he couldn’t be as as productive as he’d like to be,  he learned how to become more productive.

I had a program that he got involved in and all of a sudden his colleagues are not annoyed with him because he used to do things at the last minute working in a team, they had to do things at the last minute, waiting for him to bring stuff.  All of a sudden his colleagues are asking him in to meetings for brainstorming sessions because he’s got such a you know some of the most amazing ideas. They’re happy that he’s part of their team they and he leaves home, he leaves for work at five o’clock in the evening because he finishes his work and he feels like you know.  I could give myself permission to stop now because I have done some really good work today.  So it’s not just about the work, it’s also about the feeling that you have your self-confidence, the self you know, that the feeling of being competent and being in control of your life makes a major difference.

A lot of employers who have allowed their employees with ADHD to really thrive at work and to really support them have found that it’s been more of a competitive advantage than anything else because now they have ideas that nobody else have you known that these out-of-the-box crazy ideas then nobody’s ever thought of but that worked really really well.