92% Want ADHD Accommodations | Coach's Corner

And today, I wanna tell you about a poll I ran, one question.

And I wanna start with something I didn't do, and that is I didn't share my little survey, my little poll, with you.

I didn't send it to the Why Squirrels? listeners on my Substack newsletter or on the podcast because I knew exactly what you would say, and I wanted an honest answer from people who weren't thinking about ADHD at all.

So instead, I shared it on LinkedIn and with the readers of my other newsletter, The Nicemaker, which is a general professional crowd, uh, mainly about communication as a topic.

Now, the question was simple: picture yourself at work or in a recent job, and imagine these changes were just put into place.

And then I gave everyone a list of these changes, things like warm desk lamps or dimmers instead of overhead fluorescents, a quiet zone away from the high-traffic areas, meeting agendas sent out 24 hours in advance, written action items with every meeting, uh, written task lists and checklists along with verbal instructions, meeting-free days or focus blocks, short, flexible breaks throughout the day, staggered start and end times, remote and hybrid options, direct explicit feedback, and performance reviews.

Now, I didn't tell anyone what every item on that list has in common, um, but they probably sound pretty good to you because they're all ADHD accommodations.

So then I asked the question, how would you feel if you came into work and these things were implemented? Would you love it, like it, would you feel the same, or would you dislike it? 37 people answered.

Now, that's not some big scientific survey or study, I, I will be the first to admit, but here's what came back.

68% said they would love it, 24% said they'd like it, and that's 92% who answered positively.

8% said they'd feel the same as they do now, so no difference either way.

The number of people who said they dislike it, well, it's zero.

Nobody.

Zilch.

Not one person looked at a list of ADHD accommodations and said, "No, thanks, that would make my job worse." So now I wanna talk about why that matters to you specifically, because I know a lot of people listening to this were diagnosed later in life, and I know something about how asking for help at work tends to feel...

It feels like asking for special treatment, or it feels like you're admitting you can't handle what everyone else apparently handles just fine.

Uh, so a lot of us just don't ask.

Instead, we just kind of white-knuckle it at work.

We work late to make up for the meeting we couldn't follow.

We quietly burn out.

Here's what this poll tells me.

You're not asking for special treatment.

You're asking for what almost everybody wants.

You just feel the cost more sharply, so you're the one who notices it's missing.

Now, there's a classic example of this outside of work.

And today, I wanna tell you about a poll I ran, one question.

And I wanna start with something I didn't do, and that is I didn't share my little survey, my little poll, with you.

I didn't send it to the Why Squirrels? listeners on my Substack newsletter or on the podcast because I knew exactly what you would say, and I wanted an honest answer from people who weren't thinking about ADHD at all.

So instead, I shared it on LinkedIn and with the readers of my other newsletter, The Nicemaker, which is a general professional crowd, uh, mainly about communication as a topic.

Now, the question was simple: picture yourself at work or in a recent job, and imagine these changes were just put into place.

And then I gave everyone a list of these changes, things like warm desk lamps or dimmers instead of overhead fluorescents, a quiet zone away from the high-traffic areas, meeting agendas sent out 24 hours in advance, written action items with every meeting, uh, written task lists and checklists along with verbal instructions, meeting-free days or focus blocks, short, flexible breaks throughout the day, staggered start and end times, remote and hybrid options, direct explicit feedback, and performance reviews.

Now, I didn't tell anyone what every item on that list has in common, um, but they probably sound pretty good to you because they're all ADHD accommodations.

So then I asked the question, how would you feel if you came into work and these things were implemented? Would you love it, like it, would you feel the same, or would you dislike it? 37 people answered.

Now, that's not some big scientific survey or study, I, I will be the first to admit, but here's what came back.

68% said they would love it, 24% said they'd like it, and that's 92% who answered positively.

8% said they'd feel the same as they do now, so no difference either way.

The number of people who said they dislike it, well, it's zero.

Nobody.

Zilch.

Not one person looked at a list of ADHD accommodations and said, "No, thanks, that would make my job worse." So now I wanna talk about why that matters to you specifically, because I know a lot of people listening to this were diagnosed later in life, and I know something about how asking for help at work tends to feel...

It feels like asking for special treatment, or it feels like you're admitting you can't handle what everyone else apparently handles just fine.

Uh, so a lot of us just don't ask.

Instead, we just kind of white-knuckle it at work.

We work late to make up for the meeting we couldn't follow.

We quietly burn out.

Here's what this poll tells me.

You're not asking for special treatment.

You're asking for what almost everybody wants.

You just feel the cost more sharply, so you're the one who notices it's missing.

Now, there's a classic example of this outside of work.