> In my experience, the best managers can find a beneficial spot on those axes for each employee.
Agreed - I would also add that the "sweet spot" for a given employee is not fixed; it may be context/situation specific, may change over time, etc.
That is to say, you may have to be more hands-on with the self-motivated misanthrope when a situation requires close collaboration with colleagues, or be more task-oriented with the technically competent people when they're overwhelmed with tickets.
This is a very important point which I don't see repeated enough in discussions about managing and treating ADHD. As you noted, it's particularly important for those diagnosed later in life.
Treatment - whether medication or otherwise - will help you to focus, but it won't magically teach you organization, time management, note-taking, active listening, etc.
At my first job out of college, I volunteered to put together a formal training program for new hires. I did so because my onboarding was an unorganized disaster, and I (somewhat naively) thought I could spare future new hires the same experience.
A couple of lessons I learned:
1. You need clearly defined processes and documentation. If you can't clearly define your processes, you can't expect a new hire to learn them. And if you have nothing written down anywhere, your new hires are going to be perpetually lost.
2. You need buy-in from the team, especially managers/leads. It takes time to define processes and write documentation. And it takes time to actually onboard and train a new hire. Managers should recognize this and ensure these responsibilities are distributed across the team.
Agreed - I would also add that the "sweet spot" for a given employee is not fixed; it may be context/situation specific, may change over time, etc.
That is to say, you may have to be more hands-on with the self-motivated misanthrope when a situation requires close collaboration with colleagues, or be more task-oriented with the technically competent people when they're overwhelmed with tickets.