Unlocking ADHD, Autism, and Other People Who May Not Think Like You With Rita Ramakrishnan

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Timestamps:
00:00 — Cold Open & Intro
03:42 — Reshaping the Table: Neurodivergence Beyond “Fitting In”
06:39 — Inputs, Processing, Outputs: Every Brain Works Differently
07:38 — ADHD & Autism: Rita’s Lived Journey of Late Diagnosis
16:18 — Fuel and Friction: When ADHD Becomes a Superpower
22:44 — Hyperfocus: The Double-Edged Sword
26:44 — Rethinking Performance Reviews: Outcomes Over Outputs
28:00 — Justice Warrior Mode: Fairness as a Trait, Not a Flaw
32:17 — Coaching Kids (and Teams) Without Micromanaging
33:46 — Myth-Busting: “Does Everyone Have ADHD Now?”

Rita Ramakrishnan (00:02.734)
Folks with ADHD have an inherent sense of what’s equitable and what’s fair. And sometimes when things seem unfair and inequitable, they will go to the mat.

So, my ADHD was my superpower in that state. So being able to context switch, okay, there’s a massive crisis right now. Well, I have delayed emotional processing. I’m not going to have to focus on my own feelings right now. I can focus and hold face with the people around me.

Let go of your preconceived notions about how things ought to work or how things must work because they’ve always worked that way.

Skot Waldron (00:36.00)
When I’m not hosting Unlocked, I’m speaking at events all over the world. I’m helping leaders and I’m helping teams communicate better. I’m helping them build trust faster and actually enjoy working together. I’ve spoken for companies like The Home Depot. I’ve spoken at national architectural firms. I’ve spoken for pharmaceutical company offsites. I’ve spoken at associations, you name it.

With 99% of attendees of all those events, over 1800 people have reviewed me at this point. 99% of them saying they got some value. That’s pretty awesome. Even the caterers have thanked me. And if they are thanking me and they’ve heard a lot of talks and they’re busy doing their jobs, that’s saying something. If you’re an event planner looking for a speaker who’s really easy to work with, trust me, I want to be the last thing you’re worried about on event day. I’m going to take care of you. And who actually delivers value for your audience that they are going to use on Monday morning when they return to the office, then let’s talk.

Neurodivergence is the term that we use for when we’re describing somebody whose brain processes things a little bit different or how they learn or maybe even how they behave. It’s just different from what’s considered neurotypical. So, I am fitting into that neurotypical bucket because I haven’t been diagnosed. My son, my nephew, and Rita, who’s going to be on the show today, are what we call neurodivergent. They’re the ones, their brain works a little bit different. It fires a little bit differently and there are scans or science that tells us this despite what people in the 70s and 60s and 80s even wanted you to believe that it was all made up. It’s not, it’s real. And we have to come to terms with that. Now, the cause of all these things, I don’t know, we’re not gonna get into that, okay.

We’re gonna talk about leadership. We’re gonna talk about the idea of neurodivergence, where the superpowers are, where the hindrances are, how do we navigate this in the workplace? If you are a leader who is neurotypical, as am I, this episode is definitely for you because you are going to have employees who are neurodivergent and you’re going to have to learn to navigate that world to get the best out of them because I promise you there is gold there and it takes patience and communication, and it takes trust, and it takes some coaching, and it takes curiosity. And that is what we’re gonna preach on the show today. So, Rita, here we come.

Skot Waldron (03:28.671)
Welcome to the show.

Rita Ramakrishnan (03:31.00)
Thank you so much, Skot. It’s great to be here.

Skot Waldron (03:33.00)
Well, I hope it is, and I hope that it’s still great when we’re done, because that will mean I did my job and that you did your job.

Rita Ramakrishnan (03:40.00)
Yeah, we’ll keep our fingers crossed.

Skot Waldron (03:42.00)
Yeah. Okay. Very cool. Hey, let’s start out. I want to start out by something that I may be heard you say or read somewhere that you’ve said, about neurodivergence and, that it’s not about making room at the table for those who are neurodivergent but it’s about changing the shape of the table itself. And I was always; I’m kind of fascinated by that phrasing. What do you mean by that?

Rita Ramakrishnan (04:16.00)
I mean that the idea of inviting someone to sit at the exact same table as you put pressure on the person to operate, to sort of fit in and feather into an existing structure. We run meetings in a very specific way. We operate in the workplace in a very specific way. And you are invited to join us in this very specific way and mold yourself such that you can operate the way we all do. And I think we need to fundamentally change the way we think about that because all of our brains are a little bit different, all of us operate a little bit differently.

And so, when we’re changing the nature and the shape of that table, what I’m saying is let go of your preconceived notions about how things ought to work or how things must work because they’ve always worked that way. Start from a place of curiosity and say, what are the ways in which you work best? What are the gifts that you bring? And have this conversation, not just for someone who’s neurodivergent, but for every person at that table. Because when you start to ask those questions, when you start to get curious, you’re actually going to create new ways of working that are supportive for everyone.

And as a business or as a team, you’re going to see an extraordinary amount of yield, an extraordinary amount of increased productivity, and honestly just increased engagement and happiness in the workplace as result.

Skot Waldron (05:26.00)
Well said. And, you know, we’re going to focus on neurodivergence in this episode, but really we’re kind of talking about everybody. I mean, I think we’re going to apply this to almost everybody just because of the way that we are different and that we, you know, it’s this idea that not everybody thinks like me, not everybody talks like me, not everybody is shaped like me or looks like me or whatever. And I think that that acceptance, that of permission is really important. And what we’re doing now, and especially with younger generations coming up in a super diverse world and what they live in and what they experience that it’s, you know, diversity of thought, thinking, look, whatever is no longer, it’s a non-negotiable, right, in the workplace now, are you seeing that?

Rita Ramakrishnan (06:24.00)
A 100% and I think we need to changing the way we speak about this as well, right? The language that we’ve always used or historically used has been neurodivergent versus neurotypical, right? Neurotypical, you fit within a box, neurodivergent, you don’t fit within that box.

But when we talk about neurodiversity, what we’re really saying is, you know, it’s a series of inputs, processing, and outputs. So, the way our brains work, we take in a lot of information from our environment, the context that we’re in, we process it certain ways, and then we have outputs.

And so, a neurodivergent brain, fundamentally, the inputs that you take in, the way in which you process them, therefore the outputs all look a little bit different. Trying to pigeonhole people into neurodivergent versus neurotypical, to me, is extraordinarily limiting because the way I see the world and the way we’re all starting to see in the data and the research is telling us that it’s really just about cognitive diversity. This is true for everyone. The way in which we perceive and experience the world looks a little bit different. And when we create space for everyone to be cognitively diverse and to explore that for themselves, we’re creating a lot more possibility for us and for that.

Skot Waldron (07:30.798)
How did you get into this? Why are you focusing on this? Tell me a little bit about your own journey.

Rita Ramakrishnan (07:38.00)
Yeah, I think neurodivergence is really part of my lived experience. I have had severe ADHD my entire life. I wasn’t diagnosed until I was in university. And so, talk about executive function challenges. You know, a kid growing up, at that time, they didn’t even believe girls could have ADHD. So, while it was clear that I had inattentive type and I was struggling, you know, to pay attention in school or to connect in certain ways with other kids, people didn’t have language to associate that with that.

And so, for a lot of people, and I think this is particularly true as well, when you’re thinking about from an intersectional perspective, I came from a South Asian community. I traveled a lot with my family. We grew up partially in Asia. You don’t talk about things like ADHD or neurodivergence. And so oftentimes, you know, you’re growing up and it’s considered a personal failing. You’re considered lazy. So that was a big part of my stories. I got diagnosed first with ADHD in university, having language and a framework then to start to think about you know, what these conditions mean, allowed me to create support structures for myself to be more effective.

I was also diagnosed as being on the spectrum actually just a few years ago. And so obviously now we know a lot more about autism spectrum disorder and we know that the spectrum is extraordinarily wide and the way in which it presents looks a little bit different for girls, for boys, for a lot of different folks. And so, the reason this is a huge passion project for me is as someone who was diagnosed late in life, as someone who had to make sense of this for herself and come up with what I needed to be successful in life, and who was able to sort of harness the gifts that came with it, I’m not alone. There’s a very large population of people that are now getting diagnosed later in life, and they’re forced to make sense of it for themselves. And so, I think it’s really important, not just for me, but for all of us to engage more thoughtfully and productively in conversations around how we support these people and create communities for these folks to engage with each other so we can learn from each other, help each other, and just experience the world in a more natural state.

Skot Waldron (09:45.00)
Why are people just now getting diagnosed later in life? I mean, I’ll say, my wife is undiagnosed, but there are definitely some signals there, especially in, like I said, in the pre-show, through perimenopause that reveals certain things that are going through with hormones and other things. But there’s also some ADHD behaviors there. And as a female, it didn’t go, it was undiagnosed and there was never any testing by her parents or anything like that.

Now, my son was diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety about four years ago. And we had him talking to a child therapist and going through different things with that and breathing exercise and different things, right? To help cope with what he was doing.

And so, I look at the generation now versus the generation then. And I look at females versus males. And can you talk about that? I mean, gap and is it real or is it just perception from me?

Rita Ramakrishnan (10:56.00)
So, for the longest time, the diagnostic criteria that was used to evaluate people and diagnose people was based on observed behaviors in young boys. So, you have a very narrow spectrum of behaviors that you’re evaluating people against. Now we know more about what ADHD looks like and other types of neurodivergence looks like. We have the technology, right? We’ve got FMRI. We’re able to sort of see different presentations and we have a wider sample to look at. And so, we’re seeing different types of ADHD, but there is this forgotten generation, particularly women, right? Women who had inattentive type or had other types of ADHD and were largely ignored.

Literally, they didn’t think girls could have ADHD. Like it just wasn’t diagnosed. And so that started changing. And the DSM-4, I believe, or DSM-5 was updated a decent amount of time ago, but it takes time for that to then proliferate, right. And for people to be educated and for practitioners to be educated and even educators to understand what those signs are because typically now you’re getting diagnosed because teachers are sort of seeing these behaviors come up in school. They’re seeing the executive function challenges.

Not sure what the story was for your son, but it gives him the opportunity at a very young age to sort of identify what this means for him and come up with those strategies he needs.

Skot Waldron (12:18.00)
That’s powerful. And I think it’s powerful for young females today to understand that, you know, and I’m going to throw my little spin out there too. And there’s a cultural stigma with that, you know, girls need to act a certain way. And when they don’t, something else is wrong or they force themselves to act a certain way despite no natural tendencies or behaviors and things like that.

So, I don’t know if that plays into it too. Have you seen any of that?

Rita Ramakrishnan (12:49.00)
Certainly, I think there are gendered stereotypes that come up. The other component as well is if it’s not a problem, why diagnose and why fix? So, a lot of women who have ADHD are extraordinarily high functioning, right? You’re talking about business executives who have led the charge and ended up in really powerful places. Now, they’ve had to work really hard to get past executive function challenges, and they’ve had to fit themselves in a box to be able to do that, but they’re extraordinarily high functioning, and they’ve been able to utilize some of the strengths and the skill sets that come with their ADHD in order to move forward in life.

So, when you see someone who is extraordinarily successful, it’s hard to them look at them and say, yeah, of course you have ADHD, you have this thing, and we should think about support for you. People look at them and say, you don’t need support, you’re totally fine. So, I think that’s a big part of it too.

Skot Waldron (13:36.00)
Hmm, that the mask we all wear, you know, and, learning to cope and, learning to wear the mask and learning what, how to act and what to say so that it doesn’t come across a certain way. And I’m not discredited, not only maybe as a woman and our corporate structure, but also with neurodivergence is as part of that too, is what mask am I wearing?

Have you seen this show up in the corporate space? So, you coach people in business and in life and what kind of, I don’t know. Do have a story you could share about somebody that you’ve worked with that went through this process?

Rita Ramakrishnan (14:16.00)
Yeah, you know, I have an existing client now and she basically runs a portfolio of companies for a billionaire couple. So, think family office style. They have media companies, have nonprofits, things like that. So very high-powered individual, very high-powered job. Now context switching is something that has to happen constantly because she has multiple teams that she has to jump between in order to make sure that things are running smoothly.

This is one of those areas where her ADHD, right? Being able to jump between things is actually a massive strength for her. It allows her to jump from one thing to the next thing without missing a beat. That being said, she works with largely quote unquote neurotypical leaders in most of these places and her business partner, the family that she supports, they tend to operate in far more traditional ways. And so, you have to sort of think about, this is a person that is using her strengths to the best of her ability, but there are certain challenges, right? Like, having to walk into a boardroom, having to operate in a very specific way, meeting preparation, being able to make decisions. She’s very good at making decisions on the fly. And one of the gifts that comes with ADHD quite frequently is fast information processing and pattern recognition. She’s able to make those decisions quickly, but then she has to move backwards and catch the team up on that logic. So, you have both sides of the coin, extraordinarily successful woman, but it takes a toll.

So, having to mold yourself to fit within the context of a box, right, of practices and ways of working that are not necessarily designed for you is exhausting. It’s exhausting. And so half of the work that she and I do is we think about her energy patterns. We think about the times of day where she should have certain types of meetings. We think about how to change specific practices or how to automate some things around her to make life a little bit easier.

The word of the day is ease, right? Like how do we get you to a place of stasis where you can operate in a way that’s a little bit more natural to you without having to exhaust yourself and the exhaustion is real.

Skot Waldron (16:18.00)
How do you see neurodivergent traits showing up? Like, do you see them showing up in corporate environments or in business environments more as fuel? Or do you see them showing up as friction? Or is it both? And is it both?

Rita Ramakrishnan (16:38.00)
It’s both. It’s both and.

Skot Waldron (16:39.00)
Yeah. So, how do we look at this thing, right? Cause I think some people will look at this as, I got to manage my ADHD or you know, this individual over here can’t keep their crap together. So, like I’ve got to make sure I’m on them. I got to like check in every five minutes. Hey, remember what I asked you to do, et cetera, et cetera. Right? Cause maybe they get distracted and they’re bouncing from this thing to that thing. And that things like, focus. No, I need you to focus on this one thing. So, I don’t know.

How do we treat it as something like that we don’t need to manage as much as a superpower, right? Or some kind of gift or some kind of strategic advantage.

Rita Ramakrishnan (17:24.00)
Yeah. So, I’m going to use an example. I’ll use myself as an example.

For a while I was the head of employee engagement and internal communications for a very large company that was like in perpetual crisis. So, every day, like new, new stories would come out and it would be chaos, right? Like, no, this company is doing this. And therefore, employees in London versus, you know, like, London versus North America would have different perspectives. You have to sort of jump in and do various things, big projects, small projects, all sorts of stuff like that.

So, my ADHD was my superpower in that state. So being able to context switch, okay, there’s a massive crisis right now. Well, I have delayed emotional processing. I’m not going to have to focus on my own feelings right now. I can focus and hold space for the people around me. So how do I support them in their needs? Like what are the things that need to get done?

Hyper focus is something that comes up pretty quickly as well. So, something needs to get done and it’s crunch time, well, watch me go. You can unleash me at something, and I will spend 10 hours getting that thing done. I’ll do it better in 10 hours than the average bear can do over a two-week period.

Now let’s talk about friction. Something that’s actually an ADHD trait but not often discussed is what we call the justice warrior. Folks with ADHD have an inherent sense of what’s equitable and what’s fair. And sometimes when things seem unfair and inequitable, they will go to the mat to try and rectify that wrong, even if it has nothing to do with them. And that’s something that I saw all the time. Business isn’t always fair. It’s not always the most equitable thing. Sometimes you have to make the best decision out of a series of poor choices. And so that’s going to cause friction because you are constantly arguing with the other folks in the room and saying that this is, this doesn’t make sense. It’s not fair. We should go for this other choice.

So, to answer your question, it is friction and it is fuel. And the way in which we have to talk about this is to understand where that friction point exists and to say, what support do I need to manage those friction points? If I’m always late to a meeting, maybe that’s something that I automatically add into my calendar is a 10-minute buffer in between meetings or educate people even in like an automatic confirmation that goes out. Hey, I may be up to 10 minutes late. Please don’t take this personal. This is what that’s going to look like.

It’s time blocking in your calendar is something that’s really important. So, putting deadlines in earlier than they actually need to be done to sort of trick your brain and get that dopamine release to get you to a finish line a lot earlier than you need to be. There are a million different tools and tricks and tips that you can start to put into place strategies you can start to put into place to manage those challenges and those points of friction.

And so, once you’ve started to evaluate that for yourself, and this is something that I do with a lot of my clients, most of my clients will call it sort of an operating system refresh. We take a look at each of those challenges and we say, what tools do we have at our disposal? How do we experiment with these things to see what’s going to work for you? And then what can we establish and structure so that you have your toolbox, you can use those things, and then all you need to focus on is your fuel, how to use your strengths in the best possible way.

Skot Waldron (20:33.00)
Hmm. There is a book I just picked up. It was prior a month ago or so. I’m still kind of getting through it. I read little chunks, little chunks. It’s called ADHD is Awesome. Do you know that book?

Rita Ramakrishnan (20:50.634)
No, but if you, this is my bookshelf.

Skot Waldron (20:55.00)
Very nice. Very nice. It’s really well read. So, the author, it’s a husband and wife team and the husband has the ADHD and the wife does not. And she adds her little commentary throughout about living with somebody with ADHD and working. There are a couple that work together. They produce videos and all types of stuff. And, you know, they’re talking about the real aspects of ADHD and what some of the things are that are hard, right? But I just this morning read about the hyper focusing aspect of it. He says, as a musician, if he has an idea for something, he’ll go in his studio and write it and be done with it. Lyrics, music and production in like three hours. And he will hyper focus. And sometimes he said he looked down and there’s a burrito sitting next to his keyboard where he assumes his wife brought him a burrito while he was working, but did even notice that she had done that. Because he won’t eat, he won’t sleep, he won’t do anything until that task is like done, because he’s so into it.

So, I can see that being an awesome superpower, as long as we direct it and know where to put it. On the other hand, having that be my son’s thing with video games. You know, in one sense, could be great, because he could get really good at a specific video game. He’s just hyper-focused on the thing. But then if I’m not careful, he will stay on it for eight hours and not realize that he’s been on it for eight hours. And so just learning how to direct and shift and set up boundaries can, I think, really help and enable people in a good way.

Rita Ramakrishnan (22:44.3)
Yeah, I think this is actually true for everyone, but particularly for folks who are neurodivergent. I say this often, the greatest gift that you can give to yourself is self-awareness, self-knowing. So be kind to yourself with this, but put down an inventory, sit down with a piece of paper and actually write down all of the things that are challenging for you that may or may not be associated with your ADHD, whatever that executive function is.

Hyperfocus is great, but sometimes I completely lose track and I’ll go down a boondoggle. And I’ll try to clean my kitchen and then somehow I’m like going through my toolbox and putting up new shelves and doing strange things. Okay, cool. This is a challenge.

What are the ways in which I can set myself up for success or what support do I need from the environment around me, the people around me? Do I set reminders for myself? Do I time box things? This is something that’s also quite common in my world is little Pomodoro timers, for the Pomodoro methods. You can easily time box yourself and not go too far into hyperfocus. It’s also recognizing that there are some tolls that come with all of this as well, right? Like mental illness is extraordinarily pervasive for folks who are neurodivergent. Depression, anxiety, there is, and burnout can happen as well if you’re overly hyper-focused on too many things.

So, setting yourself up for success means taking the time, creating that inventory. Knowing yourself, knowing what it looks like when you’re completely dysregulated and when you’re regulated and coming up with the strategies to get you back to stasis is critical.

Skot Waldron (24:16.00)
Can we talk about performance reviews?

Rita Ramakrishnan (24:21.00)
Yes.

Skot Waldron (24:24.00)
I want to hit on this because I mean, I’ll coach executives and you know, we’ll do personality testing, and we’ll do kind of behavioral stuff and look at how somebody is reacting to something else. And some of you really frustrated with somebody about something or need to do a performance review. Can they measure? Should they be measuring everybody on through the same lens, like through the same measurements, through the same whatever?

I mean, what exceptions should we make and which exception should we not make? I mean, I don’t know if neurodivergent individuals want to be treated on the same scale or they like, no, no, no, no, I need some exceptions because of, you know, executive functioning is a hard thing for me right now. So, I don’t know. What are your thoughts on that?

Rita Ramakrishnan (25:12.00)
Yeah, as you know, I’m an executive coach and I focused on sort of leadership consulting and coaching right now. But in a previous life, I was the chief people officer of a technology company. So, I’ve designed performance processes for a number of different organizations. And truth be told, I’d rather stick a fork in my eye than have to do that too many more times. But I think overall, the philosophy around the way we talk about performance management in organizations needs to change. We are extraordinarily outputs focused. Right?

So, when we think about how most performance reviews work. You’re expected to put down like a self-assessment. These are all the things that I did this year. Look at all of these, like decks that I created, and this is the dollar value, how much I sold and whatnot. And they want to sort of see this inventory in that way. Your manager will respond to that. You might get some peer feedback coming in depending on how it’s structured. I think a lot of performance management processes say that they’re about supporting an individual’s growth within the organization, helping them be more effective.

Really what they’re about is business decision making. Do I pay people more? Do I promote some people? Do I let some people go? So, I think fundamentally we need to change the way we think about performance management organizations.

One is organizations need to make a decision on what the heck they’re trying to solve for. If you’re truly solving for helping your employees, be the best versions of themselves and you’re focused on growth, then it shouldn’t be this giant process and it should be more personalized. It should have spaciousness and space to have the conversation around my biggest challenges are executive function and these are the support structures that I might need. And as a boss, this is what I need from you in order to help me be more effective. So that’s one.

The second change that needs to happen is we need to stop focusing on outputs and we need to focus on outcomes. And we have this extraordinary rigidity in terms of how work needs to be performed and where it must be performed. And to truly harness and unlock and unleash the power of a neurodivergent workforce, what we need to do is focus on the outcomes and say, it doesn’t really matter how you get there, right? These are sort of the goals that we’re trying to get towards. And yes, we need to check in, but the how is up to you. And so, if you need more support or you need to structure in a slightly different way, that’s okay. But when you focus on the outcomes versus the outputs, things around executive function, people stop being so nitpicky about that.

And so, I’m to get off my soapbox right now about the design of performance management processes and check in. Did I answer your question?

Skot Waldron (27:33.00)
Yeah, I mean, it’s just the way we think about it, I think, is doing the damage. And talk about through the lens though, of someone with ADHD. Do you want to be held to the same standard as everybody else? Do you want some exceptions made? How do you think about that from your side of an employee?

Rita Ramakrishnan (28:00.00)
Yeah, so as an employee, as an individual, I want to be held to the same standards. I want… this comes to justice warrior, right? I believe in fairness. So, hold me to the same standard as someone else, but don’t be focused on how I get the work done. I can achieve extraordinary things for this business, but I’m going to do things in a way that’s more conducive to the way my brain operates. And so that might mean that I only take meetings during specific windows of the day.

That might mean that at specific points, I need to go off and meditate in order to, to reset my brain and my body and get back to a place of stasis where I can be productive and effective. I think changing the barometer and saying, because you’re neurodivergent, we’re going to expect less from you is treating this as a disability. And I agree. Like most neurodivergent conditions are legal disabilities. And I agree that we need to think about accommodation.

So absolutely, to the extent that you need accommodations in the workplace, engage in that conversation. But I think that’s an extremely limited point of view. And I think the average neurodivergent person can achieve extraordinary things. Like, why wouldn’t we be held to the same standard? Why wouldn’t we expect more from ourselves when we have all these great strengths that we can utilize to drive extraordinary outcomes?

Skot Waldron (29:16.866)
Because in school, kids are given certain accommodations, right? So, whether it’s sitting in a certain seat, whether it’s given extra time on a test, those types of things, do you think those are helpful?

Rita Ramakrishnan (29:32.00)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think when we think about academic environments, they don’t necessarily model the real world. And so, in the real world, if you had something that you had to get done in a workplace, people may give you a deadline, but how you structure that work between now and that deadline is sort of up to you, right? So, you can sort of take as much time or as little time as you need between now and then to get something done. It’s rare that you’re going to be stuck in a room and said you have an hour to this one thing. And so, to the extent that it helps someone be more successful by giving them extra time, absolutely. Like take those accommodations in the academic environment. And those do extend to the business environment as well.

Over stimulation and overstimulating environments. There’s a lot of research done around office design and you know, even paint colors that are more conducive to like lighting types and paint colors and things like that, that are more conducive to helping someone with ADHD. And so, if that means that I’m going to ask HR and say, Hey, I actually need a quieter desk or something a little bit further away from a window or closer to a window. I need noise canceling headphones because there’s too much stuff happening all the time, or I need more time working from home or, or these types of things. Those types of accommodations, you should absolutely ask for those. And again, this comes down to that self-awareness. Know yourself and know your needs.

Skot Waldron (30:53.354)
Exactly. And as you get older and more mature, I mean, you know, my son is 13, almost 14. I don’t know how aware of himself yet he is to like sit down and go through the list. You know, what’s really cool about the book though, is number one, it’s helping me sympathize more with him. I can’t truly empathize with him, but I can sympathize by saying, yeah, that’s you know, for the 12th time reminding you to do the thing that you need to do. Like it’s understanding that he gets distracted and can bounce from thing to thing, or his sock has been laying there for six years. You know, it’s like, how do I guide him and coach him up and not micromanage him? Right. Cause he doesn’t want to be micromanaged. He gets frustrated with it. but how do I coach him in a way and be somebody there to help when needed, let him shape it how he wants to shape it and just give the direction, make sure there’s fail safes in place, notes, whatever that need to happen in order to achieve the outcome.

And think that’s what I hear you saying about the business world is that when we focus on the outcome, we shouldn’t worry so much about how we get there. It’s about getting there is what we really want.

Rita Ramakrishnan (32:17.00)
It’s about getting there. In the case of your son, actually in the case of everyone, it’s about sitting down and saying, hey, this is something that keeps happening. Like I keep forgetting to pick up the sock or yes, I know. It’s about sitting down with your son and saying, let’s have a productive discussion about this. I have to remind you 12 times to get any one thing done. And I get it. It’s because it jumps out of your brain. So, what are some experiments that we can run? Like what is it Post-its?

Is it you have a Post-it on a specific wall and that’s your task list and you can crunch them up at the end of the day. Is that what it looks like for you in order to make sure that you’re on track and I’m not micromanaging you? If that doesn’t work, is it technology? Like there are a million different apps and task managers and things like that that help with that. I use Motion. So, I’ve got my tasks, and it automatically moves things around my meetings to make sure that the things that I want to get done get done.

I have a whole bunch of things automated with Alexa in my apartment right now to make sure that the lighting is optimized for my energy patterns and levels throughout the day. So it’s really, your son is going to have to sit down with himself and sort of understand this for himself. But I think there’s a lot of conversations right now from parents asking, how do I support my kids through this? Eventually, they’re going to be an independent adult that’s having to figure this stuff out and set up their own structures. But at this stage, it’s really about helping them have those conversations with themselves. Helping them run the experiments and figuring out what works.

Skot Waldron (33:41.00)
You ready for a lightning round?

Rita Ramakrishnan (33:42.00)
Let’s do it.

Skot Waldron (33:43.00)
Okay. What’s a myth about neurodivergence that you’d love to kill forever?

Rita Ramakrishnan (33:52.00)
Everyone has ADHD right now. People are making it up. Yeah. That’s the most common thing. Why does everyone have ADHD? This is a made-up thing. That’s the biggest myth.

Again, the diagnostic criteria has widened. We know more about it. We know more about ADHD traits. And I think, it behooves us to take people seriously when they start talking about their challenges and offer support versus judgment.

Skot Waldron (34:18.00)
Okay, I’m totally violating my lightning round idea here, because I want to ask you about this. In a world where it does seem like everybody’s popping up, self-diagnosing, right? Whether it’s an online assessment or they just keep doing behaviors and then they self-label that as ADHD or they’re using it as a casual term of, there’s my ADHD, you know, kind of popping up. Or I will even notice with younger people like Gen Z that they almost want a label in order to distinguish themselves or to be different or to write. And I don’t know if that’s just perception again.

So, in a world like this, do you think there is a casual nature to what’s happening with the labels of neurodivergence, whether it is autism or ADHD or whatever? And do you think there’s an issue with that or no?

Rita Ramakrishnan (35:21.00)
I do think there’s an issue. I’ll use an example; I was on a solo trip with a bunch of other solo travelers. And I met this lovely woman. Let’s call her Julia. Julia comes to me, and she hears about what I do. And she’s like, oh, I have severe ADHD. I’m also ADHD. I’m also ADHD. I have autism and I have severe ADHD and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that’s why I’m X, Y, and Z. And she starts listing out a bunch of traits. But to be honest, not grounded in any research. Like she starts listing out, you know, that she’s argumentative, that she’s this, that she’s that. I think we are in a danger zone where people are using it. They’re, one, self-diagnosing, they’re taking the label, and they’re using it as an excuse to justify behaviors without doing anything about it.

I think there is perhaps people want to feel affinity, and so they want to take that label and they want to apply to them, so they feel part of a community. Great, cool. What does that mean for you? What are you going to do about it? I think we run into a danger zone when people decide to pathologize and to diagnose themselves without thinking about what does this mean for you? What does this mean for the people around you and what do you want to do about it? And if you want to be part of the community, you know, I’m a “you do you” kind of person. Like I can’t control the world around me, but I can encourage you to think about, okay, instead of just saying that this is a behavior trait that’s associated with your ADHD, which is undiagnosed and she actually told me, she’s like, I’ve spoken to two psychiatrists. They told me, I don’t have it, but I’ve still decided that I have it. Okay, cool. You’re using it to justify X, Y, and Z behaviors that are not actually that productive in society.

What do you want to do about it? What does that mean for you? What are the support structure you’re going to put in for yourself to be able to address those challenges? It’s the question that I have.

Skot Waldron (37:06.00)
That’s good. That is really good. Okay, we got you back lightning round. You ready?

Rita Ramakrishnan (37:10.00)
Yeah.

Skot Waldron (37:11.00)
For real this time, Rita.

Rita Ramakrishnan (37:12.00)
For real.

Skot Waldron (37:13.00)
Ok. Don’t let me break my rules. All right.

What’s a trait that you saw as a weakness that you now see as a superpower?

Rita Ramakrishnan (37:23.00)
Distraction. Distraction. I used to say, you know, you give me a task. It’ll be very around about I’ll do 15 other things then come to it, but the way in which I come to it is different right. If I do something almost immediately, I’m going to have one way to do it by delaying it. My cognitive power has probably in the background identified other ways to solve a problem and I can take a more thoughtful approach.

Skot Waldron (37:50.00)
With a daily ritual that helps you thrive.

Rita Ramakrishnan (37:54.00)
Meditate. Yeah, meditation and mindfulness daily.

Skot Waldron (37:58.00)
And morning, afternoon, evening, what’s your thing?

Rita Ramakrishnan (38:02.00)
All of the above. So, in the mornings, I like to reset with a meditation, but I also have a one and a two-minute meditation practice that I used to reset during the day if I’m ever feeling dysregulated.

Skot Waldron (38:13.218)
All right, that’s awesome. Okay, what’s one change you think every manager can make tomorrow to better support neurodivergent employees?

Rita Ramakrishnan (38:23.00)
Ask the questions and start with curiosity. Hey, are there things that we could be doing differently that would enable you to be more successful? Like, how might we partner to help you be more successful? What are some of the needs that you have that we haven’t discussed? Operate from a place of asking questions, not making assumptions, and create space for individuals to advocate for themselves. And be vulnerable. Share your own challenges, share your own ways of working so that they can learn from you as well.

Skot Waldron (38:52.00)
Cause we all got them. Yeah. We all got them. So, I think that that’s important. And thank you for sharing this. Thank you for doing the work you do. I think it’s needed and it’s helpful.

And I think in a world where we are more accepting of ADHD or disabilities or diversity in some way, shape or form – that this is a very important topic to talk about, and as more and more people are being diagnosed because the technology is readily available and we frankly have more people on the planet with access to this type of technology that as we learn to navigate it, it’s gonna be so crucial to keep asking those questions. I always talk about moving from critique to curiosity.

Ah, that problem, that person just, Bill just can’t remember these things. It’s really annoying me instead of just going to Bill and asking him, what can I do to help? I’ve noticed that you keep forgetting this thing. It’s not about not having the conversation. We need to have the conversations, but it’s about asking and bringing them into the process. They know them probably better than we do. So, let’s ask them.

Rita Ramakrishnan (40:09.00)
Exactly. Exactly.

Skot Waldron (40:11.00)
Cool. If we want to get in touch with you, you also have a cool like cohort thing going on. Tell us about that.

Rita Ramakrishnan (40:20.00)
Yeah. So, I do a lot of individual coaching, but one of the things I find is particularly useful for folks who have ADHD or who are neurodivergent is being in community with others. So, I do have a cohort -based program. It’s a coaching program where we walk through critical strategies. We talk about operating system refreshes, and we help you be the best version of yourself together. So, it’s an eight-month program. It’s the next cohort will be kicking off in about six weeks. If you want to learn more, feel free to reach out directly on LinkedIn or head to my website, www. www.iksana.com.

Skot Waldron (40:58.00)
So cool. Rita, I love it. I love the work you’re doing. Thank you. And it is a personal thing. I also have a nephew who has autism. And so I’ve been talking to my brother a lot about it and his anxieties and as they think about his future and his dreams and will he be able to function as a normal person in society and like just all the things we’re going through a parent’s brain about these things and the work you’re doing is going to be so important for future leaders and for our current leaders. So, thanks, keep it up.

Rita Ramakrishnan (41:32.00)
Sounds great. Thanks so much for having me, Skot.

Skot Waldron (41:38.00)
As I said on the interview, I can’t truly empathize with individuals that are neurodivergent. I can only work to sympathize. I can only work to understand. And this book is opening my world. I am looking for, I guess, just a little bit of patience now. I’m looking for a little bit of understanding, I’m asking questions, and it’s teaching me. And I’m so grateful for that perspective. It doesn’t mean I don’t get frustrated, and it doesn’t mean that I don’t get impatient. I do, because I’m human. But it also causes me to take a breath, to try to ask some questions to understand what’s going on.

If you are somebody that is neurodivergent, I hope you understand that there are gifts you have to give to the world. And while you may think that you’re broken, maybe you don’t, but maybe you do. You’re not. You are built and designed the way you’re supposed to be built and designed. There are, like I said, you can impact the world in ways that other people can’t.

And I hope that you’re going to find and look for that gift. You’re not going to be like everybody else. And there is something special about that.

If you want to find out more information about me or check out the show notes where there’s going to be more information and links to the things referenced in this episode, visit skotwaldron.com. And lastly, I’m asking for a little bit of love, just a little bit. So please take a moment, follow, rate the show. The algorithm is like that; it helps me get the word out. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. And until next time, stay Unlocked.