Managing ADHD employees with the 3Bs There is no one more productive than an ADHD employee 2 hours before an important deadline, doing a week's worth of work at the eleventh hour.

Even in a start-up where pace often dictates profits, sprints that are that last minute are still unusual. Why didn't they just do that to start with, if they were always capable of that? The team's confusion at the logic of an ADHD employee's chronic procrastination can often shift to frustration when the same talented colleagues somehow forget to send the financial model on time or sleep through the important meeting they scheduled for the following morning.

Why would they put themselves under that kind of pressure to achieve something incredible only to fall at the last, purely administrative hurdle? The answer is so obvious that it sounds like a cop-out: if they could do things differently, they would. It's as frustrating for us as it is for everyone else, so no one can blame a line manager for trying to 'fix' the problems with their standard management toolkit. Similarly, no one can blame the ADHD employee for getting demotivated by their failure to just 'get on with it' like everyone else..

Where does that leave managers trying to find ways to keep the innovation but boost the reliability of their ADHD employees?

As an ADHD founder and leader myself, my breakthrough on this came with the realisation that ADHD operates on three distinct levels with a range of levers that only work if applied at the right level. I call my framework the 3Bs: Behaviour, Beliefs, and Biology.

Behaviour: The Gateway Drug to Changing Beliefs
That's why my starting point is assessing whether ADHD is really the source of poor performance or whether this is a competency problem. You can be both ADHD and bad at your job, so I don't immediately assign responsibility for performance challenges to ADHD.

Underperformance usually follows trends, while ADHD can manifest differently every day. Something that was simple last week might be impossible next month for no obvious reasons. Consistent inconsistency and a sense of frustration with oneself point to an ADHD management challenge, not a performance management one. You can't mentor or train someone out of ADHD, but you can coach them to help you understand how to support them better. Research suggests that ADHD employees are more successful in workplaces that use strengths-based feedback so I employ a common one to change their behaviour: creative problem solving.

Ask ADHD team members to co-create a system for managing their traits at work. Instead of introducing new rules and ways of working simultaneously, managers can start with one or two that they introduce during a pre-agreed "joint working session". In this conversation, the problem is the situation, not the employee or something they are getting wrong. The de-personalisation of the problem is more likely to get the employee to open up and contribute to the solution if it is clear that you are not blaming them. Allowing the employee to share their ideas and input on the options gives them a sense of control and agency. The need for consistency or "streaks" of accountable behaviour help to create a positive association with following norms, asking for help, communicating clearly, and staying consistent.

Beliefs: The Mindset for Sustainable Change
Addressing fixed beliefs is a long-term project because beliefs come with many layers of mindset, desires, ambitions, and fears underlying them. Most ADHD employees arrive at your company carrying years of messaging about their inadequacy. They've been told they're disorganised, unreliable, or lazy. These beliefs become self-fulfilling prophecies that tank performance.

Some of that fixed mindset may come in the form of negative self-talk for the ADHD employee. They might tell themselves that they will only look weak and incompetent if they admit the full extent of their struggles. Maybe their still at the early stages of their journey and still believe they are 'making it up' or just need to have more discipline. The exact nature of their limiting beliefs is less important than helping them understand that, in the stories we tell about ourselves, we are not always good at separating facts and feelings.

To help build the muscle of positive self-talk and build an evidence-based case for their competence and progress, managers can reframe how they discuss performance with ADHD employees. They can replace "You need to be more organised" with "Let's find systems that work with your brain." Instead of "You're too impulsive in meetings and no one can keep up with your ideas", you can say, "Your quick thinking can be your secret weapon if we can work together on how to channel it strategically."

The Biology: ADHD is Not a Mental Health Issue
ADHD involves measurable differences in brain chemistry, particularly dopamine and noradrenaline levels. Brain imaging studies show consistent differences in the neural networks responsible for planning, focus, and impulse control. Rather than not paying enough attention, the ADHD mind is paying too much attention to everything all at once.

This means distractibility and impulsiveness aren't character flaws your employees can simply overcome through willpower. Asking someone with ADHD to just concentrate harder is like asking someone who needs glasses to squint more effectively.

Only the employee themselves can change their long-term brain's functioning and biochemistry, hopefully under the guidance of a health professional. All their managers need to remember is that ADHD is not a mental health problem. It is a physiological problem, and treating it as such removes the shame, the blame, and the underappreciation of the double-edged sword of ADHD traits.

Managers should not be trying to change their employees' brain structure but should partner with their AHDD employee to change behaviour on both sides and move to a growth mindset about their neurodiversity. The 3Bs framework provides a roadmap: accept the biological reality, actively work to reshape limiting beliefs, and collaborate on behavioural systems that amplify strengths rather than compensating for perceived weaknesses. Managers can also dramatically improve self-belief by confirming the ADHDer isn't just bad at their job, and helping them develop systems of self-accountability fit for the ADHD brain.

Some managers tell me that they want to provide support, but they don't feel it is their place, given how little they know about ADHD or neurodivergence. I advise managers who feel that they don't know enough about ADHD to help a team member to turn their support into a group project. Together, you can agree to learn through joint problem-solving, making mistakes, and trying new things. Some employees with ADHD know less about it than some managers without ADHD, so there should be no expectation for either party to be the authority on a topic that is not their area of expertise. By showing vulnerability and openness, managers provide reassurance to their ADHD team member that, even if they don't know everything, they're willing to learn and involve them in that learning journey. Perhaps lesson one could be the 3Bs.