The ADHD Pattern That’s Killing Your Business

Presented by Understood.org

You keep improving the idea instead of finishing the project.

In Wednesday’s breakdown, we showed why ADHD brains prefer ideation and discount future rewards. Today is about building around that.

This episode gives you three systems. A written decision log. A structured ideation window. And a clear threshold for when changes are allowed.

These systems help you move from “this could be better” to “this is done.”

What We Cover:

• Why ideas expand until you force a stopping point
• The system that turns decisions into something concrete
• How to keep ideation from leaking into execution
• Using future logs to capture ideas without derailment
• Why finishing requires leaving your strongest skill

If you're enjoying ADHD Skills Lab, you may also enjoy Understood.org’s new podcast, Sorry, I Missed This.

Listen here: https://lnk.to/sorryimissedthisPS!theadhdskillslab

 P.S. Losing work because the admin layer around your business can't keep up with you? Invisible Systems is a 90-day done-for-you sprint where I (Skye) extract the processes from your head, build the operating layer, and find the right person to run it. Six spots left at the founding price, book a call at invisiblesystem.co

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The ideation isn't an issue. It's actually a strength of ADHD founders and people in general. We just need it to be happening at the right time, not mid-project causing us to pivot right when we're coming up on the deadline.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Hello everyone, and welcome to this episode of the ADHD Skills Lab, brought to you by understood.org, the leading nonprofit helping people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. In the last episode, we talked about the idea that we don't like to bring decisions to a close. We like to stay in that ideation phase. And when it comes to convergent thinking and making decisions, we're not so good at it. Today we're going to talk about what we can do to both help us get better at making the decisions that we need to grow our businesses or just in our lives in general, as well as what we can do to honor some of that creative thinking. Because we don't want to remove it entirely, we just need to give it a frame. So we're going to go through three different things that are going to be super practically helpful for both you and your team in order to do that. And as always, I am joined by my co-founder and podcast producer, Robert Waterson, as well as uh our little baby Ember, probably making an appearance today, as usual.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Yeah, the ideation isn't an issue. It's actually a strength of ADHD founders and people in general. We just need it to be happening at the right time, not mid-project causing us to pivot right when we're coming up on the deadline.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

So many of these things, you know, often people think about, oh, we're gonna have this conversation about how you're bad and you need to fix things. And and there are there are adjustments that you can make, but this isn't about being bad. This is actually ironically about being good, but good at a particular phase of running a business and needing to get better at closing that phase out and moving on to phases or letting your team move on to phases that you're not so good at.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

What was it called? The developer phase, right? Refining and elaborating the ideas towards the solution. It's not our preference, and we need to we need to close off the ideation at an appropriate time, let the team take it through to the next step, actually close out the projects, maybe save some of those ideas for next time or next year, even though it's hard. You want to do it now.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Exactly. And look, if you want to do things now, I am right there with you. I love doing things now. In fact, when we talk about, you know, prioritization filters and all that kind of stuff, you know, there's a whole section there for ideas because I know how easy it is to have, you know, hundreds of ideas a day, maybe not hundreds, but it feels like hundreds, maybe like tens of ideas a day.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

If we can create an external solution, a sort of structural solution, then we don't need the AVHD brain to be better or to not have the biases that it has. And also, if you're the CEO, obviously you can't just be better. You can't just have your founder be better. You you need an external process that's going to help you help them.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly. And and this is as always, when we always talk about these things, these are this is about helping you as a CEO struggling with ADHD and your team. We want both people at the end of the day to feel really positive, to feel really good. We want, you know, there to be a communication solution for both parties to do their best and and perform at their best, which there is. Um, and a lot of people feel often like there's not. Okay, so let's get into the first strategy. This one is the decision moment. Basically, what this idea is, is we need to make sure that when we are making those decisions, so we've come through the ideation phase and now things are being decided on and handed off to be built out and launched. We need to have that moment be formally written down. So many times people will have a meeting. They'll be like, this is the decision-making meeting. We're gonna discuss this, we're gonna finalize it. And then they will go, right, okay, everybody happy with that? And everyone will kind of nod and will be like, okay, awesome, let's let's ship this, like, let's make this happen. It's a little bit less tangible for especially founders who struggle with working memory, and most of us with ADHD struggle with working memory, to remember what was decided on and why, and who's responsible, and all of those different pieces. So being able to have whether it's AI or a person, have written down the decision is gonna help a lot with that.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Yeah, working memory is particularly tricky with verbal information, I think we've discussed previously. So creating a written decision log, what was decided, by whom, on what dates, and I think critically, like what would need to change for us to actually revisit this decision, sort of a list of conditions to meet for a change to be justified later.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Exactly. And you know, these days with AI, like you should be able to be updating a project document using a conversation that you're having with AI or transcripts that is gonna kind of follow along with you. So, you know, whether it's in a in a document file or a Google Drive or wherever it is, you maybe want to think about having a page of the project that is just the summary. You know, these are the decisions we've made, this is what's been active, this is what's been closed out, this is who's responsible for it. Like those kinds of pieces are really crucial when, especially, you know, if you are not a founder, you don't know this. And if you are a founder, you probably know this too much. Sometimes we'll forget and we'll be like, oh, where are we at with that project? And so we'll want to go back into the file and like just have a look. You know, having a summary doc is really, really helpful for everybody to to keep track of decisions that are made because it can be a lot, you know. We're really surprised, you'll be really surprised how many decisions are involved in launching something. I mean, I've I've got a client right now who's working on a on a landing page, and it's a lot, like you know, there's a lot of copy and there's graphics and there's links, and where are things going and who is responsible for making sure that they're always live and are we gonna update them? Like all of these decisions can be a lot, and you know, we can talk maybe more on this episode about helping other people make decisions so that not everything is on the founder, whoever it's on, it's a lot to remember.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Yeah, I think I think another one of the good things about having sort of a formal written decision meeting and log is that similar to what we talked about with the time blindness, like now versus not now urgency issue, this creates a real deadline where that ideation is potentially going to be brought forward in urgency of like, oh, we're having the final meeting to make this decision this Friday. I should really think about that now rather than reactively sort of following the meeting. Kind of brings us into our next strategy, which is having boundaries around the ideation.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Yeah. And this is probably something that hopefully you guys are doing already, which is basically the idea that we can have this ideation preference, but it doesn't have to bleed into the execution all the time. So, you know, we want to give ideas a container. Once we've said this is the decision, this is what's happening, new ideas are going to happen. You know, if I go back to that landing page example, new ideas for the landing page are going to exist. They're gonna be created by the person who has ADHD as well as other people because that's just who we are. But we need it to be something that gets respected, gets put in a place where you're not gonna forget, but it isn't gonna blow up the current project. That's the goal that we're that we're aiming for, really. And just a note, by the way, if you guys want to know how to use this with your own team or your own founder, you can just go ahead and DM us ideation on Instagram at unconventional organization on Instagram, and we'll send you a GBT that will walk you through this process for your own team. So, do you want to tell us a little bit about what this idea of ideation containers are, Robbie?

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Yeah, we're basically wanting to designate a structured ideation window. Like I just said, having that deadline, decision deadline helps bring the urgency forward. I think also having a meeting at the start of this window would be helpful. I think in line with what we were talking about in terms of the brief gap and how the ADHD founder is gonna be a lot better reactively than working from nothing or working from just the starting point of just the vision, they're gonna have trouble, trouble articulating that. I think there's probably a similar thing going on. Like you were saying, a lot of these ideas happen during execution because you're reacting to seeing it.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Well, it reminds me of what we talked about before, right? Bring me something to react to. We do really well with that.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Yeah, and so again, the point is that the ideation is not a problem, it's a strength. And it's just about getting it, getting it happening pre-decision moment and not post.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Yeah. And if it does happen post-decision making making moment, having a home for it. I would a hundred percent recommend that you have back to that, you know, Google Drive or wherever you're doing things. That's just where we do it. I would a hundred percent recommend having a document, even that's just called phase two ideas, where you guys can go, oh, that's a good idea. Let's capture that, let's put that somewhere because those will become very, very important. Like as soon as you start phase two, and trust me, there will be a phase two. As soon as you start that, you can then go to this uh really amazing gold mine of stuff that you wouldn't be able to bring to mind now, like now, once it's done, but at the time when you were grappling with the building process and the thought process and everything like that was easy to to come up with. So they're very important, they just need a home.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Yeah. So sort of a future log from the project, sort of somewhere with for the founder's ideas and and everyone's ideas to land where they're being deferred, they're not being dismissed.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Exactly. That way everybody feels like they're a part of the team, their ideas are going to be valued, including the founder. And that idea of, you know, I always say to clients, it's it's not no, it's just not now. And that idea of just not now allows people to to sort of keep moving and and not get overwhelmed by things that, you know, could really bowl people over at the last minute, or really start perfectionistically ideating on something that doesn't need to be that perfect to be shipped or finished.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

It can be scope for a future project. Yeah, and I think one of the important things about this as well is having a again external structure reviewing the future log in sort of a post-project retrospective meeting.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

It's also really nice because sometimes people will have ideas about things. So one of the things, if we go back to that landing page example, is people will have ideas about what they think is going to work. And so they might say, Oh, I think we should write it like this, or we should do it like this. I think it's gonna work. But until it's actually launched, you don't have any measurement for what the thing you're doing now even is. So people, one of the things that happens a lot with websites and things like that is that people will like spend ages iterating around what they think the actual audience wants, and then they'll never actually ship it to a customer base. So they'll never find out if the customer base actually wants it. And so just saying that's great, let's put it in phase two, and then when you come back with phase two, at that point you'll probably have more data to decide if that was a good idea or not.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Yeah, those ideas can also be put forward with the results from the first execution.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Exactly. So it's really nice, especially for a team. The founder is obviously great at ideas, but the other members of the team might not be. It kind of gives them a jumping off point.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

I think also having a CEO or EA or someone that you can give those ideas to and trust that they're gonna be resurfaced later again is sort of a recurring theme of ours because part of the reason they probably feel like they have to happen now again is because you know you're not gonna resurface them later, you're not gonna hold on to them.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

And just bless the people who do. Bless the people who hold on to them and resurface them later, because that is a very important job.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Yeah, I think a good project manager who is able to capture those plans and put them in the correct place where they're gonna show up again. I'm really looking forward to Robin uh doing that for me now.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Before we get back to the ADHD Skills Lab, I want to share a podcast I think you're gonna love. It's called Sorry I Missed This from the team at understood.org. We know that our executive functioning challenges don't just stay at our desks, they follow us into every part of our lives, including our most intimate relationships, whether it's dating or longer-term commitments. Hosted by Kate Osborne, the show explores strategies that will actually respect how our neurodivergent minds are uniquely wired for love and connection. I listened to an episode called Oh Baby, it's an ADHD pregnancy, which I've been through three times now, and I loved what they said about sensory struggles we can have, how we remember, and all of those little differences you don't realize until it gets there. So to listen to sorry I missed this, search for sorry I missed this in your podcast app. That's sorry I missed this. Let's go into the third strategy. So the third strategy is a bit of a shift. It's what happens when it is actually important for there to be an adjustment because sometimes you do need to pivot. Things have happened, you know, and and the idea that the founder is bringing forward is important. In fact, this kind of comes back to the the concept that, you know, when founders leave businesses, sometimes businesses just slowly go down. You know, and and part of it can be because the founder was the source of really great ideas. But um, it reminds me a bit of Apple, you know. Apple obviously, you know, I think Apple's been doing a lot of interesting things, but there has been some conversation about is Apple as good at new ideas as it was when the original founder Steve Jobs was there.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Yeah, again, I'd I'd almost want to do like a case study of this before without looking into it. I think there is sort of a general trend of like innovative CEO founder and then hand it off to sort of a more stabilizing stable well. I think sometimes that handoff can actually help with scaling, um, like we've discussed. But I but I think also I think if you look at how many big, I think like Fortune 500 companies are still around, like 50 years later, 100 years later, I think there is sort of this thing of I don't know, there's definitely like a churn that happens, and I think part of that is I I mean, I think that that's there for a lot of reasons.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

Again, we probably have to like Yeah, we have no idea what Apple is doing.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

I'm sure they're doing great, but last I heard they've they're doing quite well relative to other companies in the AI bubble, largely by staying out of it, which I thought was interesting.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

But again, I don't Yeah, yeah. But but we do know, you know, that a lot of really amazing new innovative things occurred when Steve Jobs was was there. And and that kind of brings us to the idea of okay, let's say there is a pivot, there is a legitimate pivot, and something needs to happen and it needs to change. When you're working with an ADHD founder, or you are an ADHD founder, we want that decision and that pivot to be based on evidence. That's the key. It's not that you can't pivot, it's just that it's not necessarily something we want to do all the time based on vibes. We want to do it based on evidence.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

Yeah, we want it to be meeting a threshold, satisfying a series of criteria that justify it relative to sort of the cost, not just like the sunk cost of the effort that's been put in by the team already, but I think also, you know, you don't want to spend the whole year pivoting six times and executing one project when you could have executed six.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

So, what that means in practice is if somebody like the founder is coming to the team and saying, Hey, let's make those changes, a natural response is to say, okay, based on what evidence. And this is just good for the whole team in general, you know, based on what evidence is always the right response, rather than saying, okay, that's cool, you're the CEO, like we have to do it. It's about did you just have a bad feeling in the middle of the night, which happens? Or or did something change? Like, did the economy change? Did you get new evidence from a competitor of what's happening? Like things do change really fast, so that may happen.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

But yeah, ideally, there would be new external information, sort of results or user feedback or a competitor's move.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

Tangible evidence, not necessarily just the thing you saw on the internet either, because those things come that can fast these days.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Yeah, and if there's a legitimate case for revisiting it, then you reopen it formally. Sort of go through that initial process again and lock in another another decision, have a written log of what changed, why, and it's locked in again.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Yeah, if you are the CEO, I am telling you right now, you are not allowed to corner the person who is doing your copy or doing your graphic design and start asking them questions and trying to get them to make adjustments. If you've all formally agreed that you're not gonna do that.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Yeah, and I think it's one of those things. The idea can be good, but if nothing actually changed to justify the pivot, then the move is to store it for the future.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

Phase two, baby. That's where we need to put it. Phase two.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

If there wasn't a like concrete external trigger and it's just a I've been thinking, I think I I think this might be a better direction, then yeah, it's probably something that can wait to a till a future iteration. Yeah. And this the structure also gives the team sort of a defensible ground for holding the line as well and giving like reasonable pushback.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

Yeah, I think that's really, really true. Because often I would say that ADHD entrepreneurs, they want to be in a team that is going to push and pull with them. And not everybody is like this, but I think, you know, when you're working to a high standard and you're going really fast, and a lot of people are trying to do both, you know, speed, and you know, that's a very normal thing with ADHD, and also trying to do the precision that goes along with the speed. With ADHD, we can often get the speed, but not the precision. And so having a team that pushes back and helps build the precision that goes along with the speed, it can feel maybe it's slightly different from what you would expect a relationship with your um, you know, boss basically to be. But once you get that trust working, you've got that really nice natural push and pull and those boundaries that allow the speed to basically they can go as fast as they can go, knowing that their team is going to catch them and push back where it needs to be done.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Yeah, yeah. A lot of ADHD founders are very aware of where the ADHD is a strength, but also where the ADHD is a weakness or a limitation. And it's often very frustrating for them as well. And that pushback is often, and I this will be obviously very person-to-person, but sometimes there might be some initial resistance to getting feedback, but often it's really welcomed. It's you're right, like these are these are biases I have for like getting carried away or going too deep. And yeah, having a team who's gonna remind you to curb that when it's not helping you achieve the goals you have.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Can be really good.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

It's like bowling with the bumpers up. You feel like you're just gonna hit those goals, like you're gonna hit your target, it's really gonna be helpful. Bowling for the bumpers ups for children, but it makes it like you know, like is there another metaphor that's gonna be less embarrassing?

SPEAKER_01 19:38

I think that's the most flattering analogy.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

I'll try and think of another.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Uh the first thing that comes to mind is I think ABS braking in cars, like catching you when you weren't paying attention and you're a little bit too close to the car in front. Or I think perhaps a better example would be a wife sitting in the passenger seat who reminds you terrible example. Nobody wants to well, I think it depends. Again, I think this is where that sort of idiosyncrasity I think again.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

It's nice to know you appreciate.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Yeah, I appreciate it because I'm aware that I'm not always paying enough attention. And even if eight out of ten times it's unneeded, I still thank you because I know the inattention is an issue and it's a real issue when it comes to driving. That said, I've definitely seen people like obviously generally speaking, people hate a backseat driver. I think I think when you've acknowledged that you have an issue though, it can be it can be really welcome. So I think that that is probably the best analogy.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Yeah, it's a good balance, I think. But it is essentially, you know, it is this idea. I mean, I I have it with my own team where I'm like, hey, so I need a follow-up. I really want to follow up. You know, I've got these amazing people that I'm connecting with. I want to do follow-ups, I want to connect. I am gonna forget. It is your job to remind me, you know, or deadlines, all of those kinds of things, like having other people in your team who are happy to say, like, that's cool, but on Wednesday, you are gonna have to read that book because that person is coming on next week and you need to make sure you're prepared. Like that sort of thing is really welcomed because sometimes and and so many times, it's not that we don't want to do it, like we don't, it's not that we we never want to stop and and make the decision and have the thing shipped and have it exist. We want it to exist super badly. But we're timeline and we struggle with working memory, we struggle with so many things that mean that we sometimes are unaware, and it kind of comes back to the research we talked about about the marshmallow test and you know, preferring short-term stuff to long-term stuff, we're sometimes unaware in that moment that if we just made a decision now, then the thing could be shipped and next week we could have the cool thing of having it be done.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Often when the founder arrives with a new direction mid execution, that's potentially causing a lot of confusion and frustration, potentially even sort of silent conversations. Compliance, but again, with those feelings in the background, having this sort of formalized structure for allowing the CEO to sort of push back in a structured non-confrontational way, sort of a pre-agreed upon way, can really help alleviate some of those, I guess, failure modes. It can really stop those background, sort of hidden frustrations, hidden morale issues from I see what you mean.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Yeah, definitely, definitely. And I think I think open communication is always good. Like I was talking with Craig Ballantyne this week, and he was talking about this idea of like if you struggle with have level 10 problems, you know, the the answer to the solving those problems is often those hard conversations. And that is true, but also if you have more conversations and you have frameworks like this, it's easier to have what would maybe be difficult conversations in a less difficult way.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

I think in the same way that regular reviews make the review process seem much less sort of out of left field, what's gone wrong kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

So let's say the decision log didn't get written, it's all verbal. In that case, you know, a reverbal agreement in the room is a working memory thing. We forget, you know, ADHD founders will forget it happened, we'll maybe recontextualize it in our brain as not being a final thing, but more of a yeah, a soft yes rather than a hard decision making. You know, now we have that same conversation again. Oh, that was decided on. Actually, I had an idea. You know, we can just feel free to reopen it whenever is whenever we need to. And because that can happen, it is super important that you give that decision-making log to a specific person. It could be an EA is often a really good person here. I definitely recommend using AI to help. There's a lot of systems now, like Notion, for example, that will pull out all of the different instructions and action steps that came from this conversation, including the decision-making points that can make it a lot easier. But having someone whose job it is to update the log so that everyone can see what the decision was, when it was decided on, and who's responsible for it now.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Yeah, this can all be super fast and easy with AI now. You can take the conversation transcript, give it to a GBT that has an instruction set around like creating the appropriate log document.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Then we've got the ideation window that expands. So the ideation time is not bounded. There's not a sense of like, okay, we ideate for half a week and then we come together and we make the decisions. And as a result, the generative phase, the ideation phase, which we know from you know what we talked about earlier, is very rewarding and you know something that ADHD people like to stay in. It never ends, right? Right up until the last second, decisions are being made, designers are being cornered, and um, and things are are happening and and switching, and it causes a lot of frustration for the team. But at the end of the day, like there was no window, there was no container there. So why wouldn't the founder keep ideating? I think the only thing I would say there is that's one of the reasons why it's so important that you have that not now phase two log and you actually have it as a log. So really important. The reason we have that we can contain the ideation phase is because any ideation that occurs outside of that phase goes into the log so that it's not being lost.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Yeah, it can still be valued and sort of affirmed and captured, but it's not going to be disruptive because we've sort of acknowledged the costs involved of pivoting this late in the process and it doesn't meet our sort of formal criteria for doing so.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Exactly. Which kind of, you know, comes back to that idea of you can use a future log as a soft override. You know, if you're can communicating with a CEO and they keep changing their minds and keep wanting to do new things, having it in a yes and scenario, like yes, that's a great idea. Let's add it to phase two, let's add it to the future log, let's bring it up at that meeting that we're gonna have in a month's time, 100% locked in, ready to go. That kind of yes and situation is really gonna be helpful for keeping that container.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

I think at the same time, though, one of the failure modes is that becomes sort of the topic of conversation and it sort of becomes alternatives for the current project. It does need to be happen post-project completion. So they get taken, they get stored safely, they'll be reviewed on completion. It's important that they're not being built out and expanded upon during execution. This is happening in a review post-completion.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

Yeah, that's a really good point. I really, I really like that point, actually. It is that is really, really true. Like letting the founder use the meeting as an option to be like, and what if this happened and this would be so cool? Like kind of going, yes, and now it's written down, and now we're gonna move on to what's actually happening and the decisions that need to still be made, or the the clarification that needs to be. I think it's it can be tough.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

It's the temptation to just start projects is very real. Like get something to the point where you're like, yeah, that would be really cool. Like you sort of finish the planning phase, and then the temptation to just go to a new project and start planning that instead.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Honestly, such a temptation because it is like the research says, it is our favorite thing to do, literally.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

Well, I guess ideally, again, on the topic of leaning into that even more, I wonder if having this isn't in our notes, um, but I wonder if having a new project for the CEO to go and ideate on next is almost the answer to this, or is it is another strategy we should discuss. You know, I think we discussed last week ADHD adults significantly higher preference for ideation and good at it, but it was the non-ADHD adults that showed significantly higher preference for being in the clarifier, sort of defining and structuring the problem, and developer refining and elaborating ideas towards the solution. It's possible that having the CEO founder move on to helping with multiple teams and moving on to the next team's project ideation phase is a way to sort of pull them out of that project and let it move on and towards completion.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Yeah, I think so. And I think that's one of the reasons why you know often people say, Oh, I just want to build an entire business, just me and AI. And that's great, but there is something to be said for having teams and having people that you work with, even if it's a small group, so that you can have that collaboration and have that person who's more interested in clarifying so that they can kind of go and do that and you can go on and do more ideation for the next thing a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

Yeah, I think we've what had our first billionaire solo entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

But yeah, my guess would be probably not an ADHD founder. Might be. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

We'll have to have him on, you know what? And bring him on.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

In my experience, having the AI handle the problem clarification stage and then handle it from the developer stage onwards seems like a recipe for slop.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

Yeah, yeah. Well, it's it's getting better, but it's still it's still a complicated thing to do. I think AI can help you with executing, but it also tends to bring more idea ideas to the forefront at the moment. By the way, just so you guys know, if you do know any cool entrepreneurs who would like to come on this podcast, definitely reach out. You can just email us uh sky at unconventional organization.com. We're always looking for interesting people. The last failure mode we wanted to talk about was what happens when you have a CEO who wants to use the legitimate pivot idea as a bit of a loophole. AK I read something really great on Reddit, and now I want to change everything, and that's my legitimate reason for pivoting. It's not to say that that might not be legitimate, but making sure that there is real stakes behind a pivot.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

I think part of that is having buy-in with the CEO. I think again, like nothing, no external structure is going to be a fix for someone who rides roughshod over it. Um obviously, obviously, this is this requires a CEO who acknowledges that late-stage pivots have been an issue. They want to fix it. This is just a formal structure of almost like an accountability, a formalized accountability for the CEO and the COO to give each other pushback.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Yeah, it gives you that that framework, but at the end of the day, you need you need people to sign off on it. You need people to want to do it, which maybe if they don't want to, you can let them watch this episode and see if they change their mind.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

I think that'd probably be a point to discuss the costs. We probably covered it last episode, but the costs of all of these late stage pivots are not just the sunk cost of the work done that needs to be redone. It's also the morale, the people involved being frustrated. UA players don't want to be having their productivity wasted. The company is not better off for you know starting a half dozen projects that never got finished or that got that had their brief edited mid-execution multiple times.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

So overall, you know, decision avoidance is something that we do naturally. It's something that we do because, not necessarily because we're indecisive, but because we really love the ideation phase. And the solution that we want is not just a well, just make a decision. It's a it's a structural format that supports the sort of difficulty of staying in the ideation phase, but also acknowledges its benefits.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

Yeah, and it's also the ADHD brain just sort of discounting those future outcomes a little bit. We have a tendency to discount the the future, the future rewards a little bit more and overvalue the phase, the the ideation phase that we enjoy being in and looking for sort of treasure and and better ideas. I feel that often when I'm drafting these episodes, is that it's not perfect. It's not as good as it could be, but it's good enough. And there's always next year.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

There's always phase two. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the ADHD Skills Lab. If you liked it, leave us a five star review. It helps other people learn more about us. And thank you so much to our wonderful team for making us sound good, look good. Couldn't do it without you.