#18 📂The PM Interview and Organization Part 2 (Strategies)

When disabilities, accommodations, Miro boards and OKRs collide into a story about organization.

Now with emojis in each title to distract your ADHD eyes. And alt-text to my disabled friends.

Part 8 of 13 of the Product Manager Interview and Executive Function (EF) Series. Scroll to the bottom to see the domains of EF I’ll be covering in no particular order.

1. The PM Interview and Executive Function Overview

2. Task Initiation

3. Flexible Thinking

4. Self Monitoring Part 1

5. Self Monitoring Part 2

6. Planning and Prioritization

7. Organization (Part 1 Feelings)

8. Organization (Part 2 Strategies)

🌋Takeaways

• ADHD is a disability and you can qualify for accommodation

• Adding accessibility to case interviews can benefit people with and without disabilities

• The emotional burden of trying to hold back fear can prevent you from using your energy on stuff that matters

• Finding your dream job can be a more effective goal than just finding a job

• Make digital whiteboards a standard for online interviews

• How could you make the digital interview process more accessible?

🐼Want to learn more about ADHD and talk?

🐕‍🦺Introduction

Last week I threw all my emotional baggage on the table for you to wallow in with me. This week I’ll explore some strategies to address organizational challenges and a surprise topic. When I started writing this article, I thought I’d share some ADHD-friendly Miro boards I created on how to answer case interview questions. I’m still going to share those with you. However, in the process of testing my ADHD Miro boards, I went down the unexpected road of learning more about accessibility accommodations. As a result, the big takeaway I want you to take this week is, “how could you make the digital interview process more accessible?”. Not just for people with disabilities such as ADHD, but for everyone. I don’t have good answers for this yet. However, I want to share a little bit about what I think and get others to join me in finding the answers.

Photo by Yomex Owo on Unsplash A pink sign with an accessibility symbol and the text “step free route”. My commentary now comes with alt text.

♿Disability and accommodations (short version)

A disability is a physical, mental, or sensory impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities¹. Accommodation refers to adjustments made to the environment, procedures, or practices in order to enable individuals with disabilities to participate fully and equally in various activities².

I bring this up as a reminder that ADHD is a disability under the American Disabilities Act. Whether or not it’s possible or practical to get accommodations for a job interview, I don’t know. I don’t think someone with ADHD interviewing is protected by the ADA (if you are an accessibility law expert, please correct me)³. However, it’s important for you to know the language for you to be an ally or at least be a little bit more empathetic to yourself for having ADHD.

💭My list of challenges

I’ve been spending the last 8 weeks trying to figure out how to get over my anxiety about case interviews. In the process, I started to think about it differently. Instead of thinking about ways to reframe my thought process to make it easier, what if I changed the process? Could I make the process more accommodating for me to improve my odds of success? These questions ran through my head:

1. Why am I spending brain power to remember what CIRCLES stands for, trying to write it down on my desk out of view of the camera, or scrambling to write down the sections on a blank doc when I start to answer?

2. Interviewers expect me to answer in some sort of expected framework. Why does it matter if it’s written down already or not?

3. My ADHD brain wants to jump to solutions, how do I slow it down?

4. How do I reduce my fear and anxiety of failure?

5. I know I can and have answered this type of case question in real-world situations, what’s different about this situation?

6. Can I reduce and redistribute the emotional energy anxiety of remembering answer frameworks to something more productive?

This made me think, I can do the same task as others, however, I may need to do it differently. Aren’t their words to describe that? Oh yeah, disability and accommodations.

🖍️Solutions for items 1-4 Miro Boards

I tried to solve items 1-4 with a visual aid. Last year I interviewed with a company that had whiteboards as a standard tool for doing their case studies. It was the first time I’ve experienced it and I never want to go back from it. Using this as a base, I thought, how could I build on this?

I’m a data visualization and attention expert and a Miro newbie, what could go wrong? I could make something to help me practice. I made two Miro boards. Keep in mind these haven’t been tested thoroughly. Both boards have the CIRCLES template filled in but you can change it to whatever you want or remove it. You are free to copy, trash talk it, suggest improvements, or use it as you see fit.

Shape Board

• Use each shape to fill out your 3-4 points for each section.

• Each shape has a time box to help you give you a sense of how long to spend on each section.

• The distinct shapes and colors remind your brain to concentrate on just one section at a time and prevent you from jumping around.

• The distinct shapes and colors can also be used to break fixation from a particular section and move on if need be.

Rectangle Board

• The board starts with offset lengths to help you concentrate on each section.

• You can change the length of the rectangles as you start each section to remind yourself to either reduce or expand your time/number of answers in each section.

• The linear structure allows you to refer back to earlier in your story easier.

• Using a digital whiteboard should be standard for people interviewing. It doesn’t matter if you have ADHD, it’s better storytelling than a blank doc or nothing at all. Some companies do this already but not all.

• Helpful? Crazy? Better ideas? Tell me in the comments or reach out to me directly.

💡Solutions for 4-6: Reframe the fear of failing to get a new job, into driving the outcome of finding the right job

What often drives my dark ADHD emotions in the interview and practice, is the fear of failing the interview or not getting a job. You (and me) need to overcome come it to create the optimal emotional state to interview. The emotional burden of trying to hold back your fear prevents you from spending time on the stuff that matters. The interview prep, practice, and evaluating if the job is right for you.

Imagine if you didn’t need the job or didn’t care. How freeing that would be to your masking and emotional burden. Now imagine finding the right job. A job that was well paid, interesting, and wanted you the way you are. You might break through a wall to get that dream job. The right job gives you energy. Fear and a bad job drain energy. The fear of failing might motivate you to practice, maybe, but at a great cost. Instead, replace the fear of failing with the desired outcome of finding the right job. Make it an OKR!

A giant pitcher with red liquid and legs burst through a wall saying “oh yeahhh” to on lookers saying “oh no”.

😒Is he really going to apply OKRs to my emotional state?

Yep. For those of you familiar OKRs (Objectives and Key Results), I’m borrowing from the approach in order to reframe my fear of failure. The basic approach of OKRs is “I will (Objective) as measured by (Key Results).” “Effective KRs are specific, time-bound, and aggressive yet realistic. Most of all, they are measurable and verifiable.”⁴

What I like about the approach is that it reframes the goal of getting a job (and the fear of not getting a job that comes with it) into something more actionable and ADHD-friendly. “Getting a job” is not a great OKR because the goal is largely out of your control and making your key results, most likely out of your control. I would argue that “finding your dream job” is a better OKR because you have more control over the act of finding a dream job than just a job. Let’s compare:

1. Objective: Get a job as measured by three KRs

   • KR1: Apply to 100 jobs within 3 months

   • KR2: Practice 3 hours a week for a total of 36 hours of practice in 3 months

   • KR3: Interview at least a week for 3 months (no control over that)

2. Objective: Get a dream job as measured by three KRs

   • KR1: Apply to 100 jobs within 3 months

   • KR2: Complete a self-assessment of job skills and determine job interest areas

   • KR3: Write 2-3 ideal job descriptions of the type of job I want

Now before you grab pitchforks and tell me these aren’t well-written OKRs, give me a second to explain. KR2 and KR3 in the dream job are things in your complete control to accomplish and are framed in a way your ADHD brain doesn’t say “make a plan”. Make the interview practice a simple subtask of achieving a more motivational goal. Kick the fear of not getting a job aside by developing and working towards your dream job. Create your own path up the mountain. You might not get there right away, but if you know what you want, you’ll get closer each time.

Photo by Jack Skinner on Unsplash A image of a brown curving path leading into a forest with tall trees and purple flowers.

✨Conclusion

Organization and accessibility go hand in hand. When you go into a job interview spending 50% of your emotional and mental burden trying to keep yourself organized, you don’t get a chance for the interviewer to see the true you. Interviews are meant to be a gauge of how successful you'd be in the role. I believe that small changes such as making digital whiteboards a standard option for interviews would increase the probability of gauging future success. It can also make the process more accessible for people like me. Why can’t whiteboards just be an accommodation and not a standard? Most interviewees will not have the power to ask for accommodation. That means we have to improve the whole system to help them. And why not? How companies do interviews change all the time. Why would updating the case interview be such a big change? What could we be doing better? I don’t have the answer yet but I want to keep asking to find it.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

🐼Want to learn more about ADHD and talk?

⏭️Next Week

Emotional control and how I managed to “fail” at a case interview yesterday and walk away without shame for the first time.

A wheel with 10 domains of executive function: organization, attention and focus, impulse control, time-keeping, planning and prioritization, self-monitoring, working memory, flexible thinking, emotional control, task initiation.

1. https://www.ada.gov/topics/intro-to-ada/

2. https://www.eeoc.gov/publications/ada-your-employment-rights-individual-disability

3. https://chadd.org/adhd-weekly/asking-for-workplace-accommodations/

4. https://www.whatmatters.com/faqs/okr-meaning-definition-example