#36⚙️ Core PM Skills - Engineering...Connections with Others (Strategies)

Strategies for connecting with yourself and others

Welcome to Tech Atypically 👋, your weekly blog that explores the intersection of ADHD, product management, and the complexities of a neurodiverse life. In each issue, I dive into the science, stories, and strategies that can help you navigate the challenges of ADHD and being a product manager.

Part 11 of the Book of ADHD Product Management, a guide navigating the basic principles of product management and ADHD.

Welcome to part 3 of my chapter on “Working with engineering teams”. In this chapter the importance of forming a connection with your engineering partners (part 1), how ADHD can get in your way (part 2), and strategies to help you connect more meaningfully with your partners (today).

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⭐Introduction

Last week was tough for me as I received rejections from two interviews I had advanced to the final rounds of. Despite feeling confident overall, the double rejections hit me hard, stirring disappointment and a blow to my ego. In the midst of questioning my abilities as a Product Manager and pondering if I should have answered differently, I allowed my dark side to surface.

It asked, “What if you didn’t get the job because everyone knows you have ADHD?”. Maybe I answered all the questions strongly (I didn’t for the record) but I was still seen as a liability to the company. Maybe who I am is a liability to others. If so, I should remove all references to ADHD and my whiskey company from my LinkedIn and interview stories. I should hide big parts of the last 8 months and just stick to my “real jobs” of tech.

I shouldn’t care what others think. But the reality is, I do have to care to a certain degree. Caring is a critical part of connecting with others. You can’t care about others until you care about yourself. You can’t give what you don’t have. You can’t connect when you have no connection to offer.

Let’s jump into the strategies.

🔥Strategies - Connecting with others and yourself

I’m going to break down Brene’s Brown definition of connection from last week’s issue for strategies. She defines connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.

1. Feel seen, heard, and valued

   1. Create a space in which you are able to listen and share your authentic self with others. You can do this by choosing to be vulnerable by sharing what you need to create that space. This includes a space that regulates your emotions and thoughts to allow you to fully listen to others.

      1. Scenario - You have a hard time trying to listen to people and respond during a meeting. You try your hardest to listen, but as soon as you try to ask a question or start thinking about a response, you lose track of what’s happening. By the time you ask the question, it’s no longer relevant and you come off as inattentive or confusing. The cycle repeats until you dread saying anything in a meeting.

      2. Strategy - Anchor your feelings to an action that you want to do. In this case, it’s listening to others. Reframe the situation with the goal of listening to the conversation. Let go of trying to respond “correctly” and just listen. Use your ADHD power to connect the various points and say something at the end of or after the meeting. Doing so gives you the space and time to come up with a more developed answer, and not tax your attention/feelings by trying to listen and say something.

2. Give and receive without judgment.

   1. Receiving feedback is hard when your ADHD reaction is to hide your head in shame when it’s bad, or not believe it when it’s good. In both scenarios, you’re avoiding processing the feeling of the feedback. More importantly, you miss out on an opportunity to connect with others. When others feel that they can’t share feedback with us, it blocks part of our connection with them leaving only superficial relationships.

   2. Example - Dreading going into a performance review or 1 on 1. You go in and try your best to not freak out and try to just get through the meeting as quickly as you can and forget it ever happened.

   3. Strategy - Reframe feedback from a judgment of you to a gift to be respected. Feedback is not a “good” or “bad” judgements of you, it’s a gift of time and information from another person. Someone has taken the time to share their knowledge or opinion with you. Listen to them, respect the gift, and decide what to do with it. It doesn’t matter if the feedback is helpful or not, make sure the other person knows you listened. Maybe their feedback today wasn’t helpful, but tomorrow it might be. Don’t let yourself miss out on that.

Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash

1. Derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.

   1. Having an emotional dysregulation disorder like ADHD means I need to be careful with the relationships I have in my life. I absorb the energy in relationships I have more easily than others. As a result, when I’m in a toxic work environment that drains my energy, I’m miserable. When I’m with people that give me energy, I’m amazing. The swing between them sucks. The challenge, however, is knowing which relationships give and take my energy.

   2. Example - Balancing endless meetings with getting important stuff done. As a PM, I’m in a lot of meetings. I could fill my whole day with meetings if I wanted to. I’d be busy, but it wouldn’t mean I was getting the important stuff done though.

   3. Strategy - Manage your calendar based on the energy flow you get from the meetings and tasks needed. Try to space out the events that give and drain your energy in a way that balances out your day.

      1. For example, I’m the most clear-headed in the morning and will do important and difficult things then. If I know that a meeting is going to drain me, I try to do it in the morning. It allows me to recharge and reassess my day at lunch instead of trying to power through the day.

      2. To balance out my afternoon with more dopamine, I tend to schedule my customer and social events in the afternoon. I get energy from talking to people (not everyone does). I’ll be tired but I know talking to people I like or to customers will give me energy. I can use that energy to get things I don’t want to do in my fatigued state.

✨Conclusion

I will never know what impact, if any, being open with my ADHD diagnosis will have on my career options. I do know however, I’m too bad of a liar to remove all references to ADHD or whiskey company from LinkedIn and interview responses. I don’t think I could mask it all if I tried.

I also know that I want to be surrounded by the people that connect with me, as I am. Not an edited version that I have to maintain, even if it’s just for an interview. I don’t have to hide myself but, I could probably improve my behavioral response answers.

I started this chapter on engineering with the intent of improving how I manage my engineering partners. How I would organize sprints and partnerships, etc. Instead, I ended up learning about engineering connections with myself and others. I like it better that way.

🐼Want to learn more, talk to me.

⏭️Next Week

What is a product manager?