I've found the 'decision' to be creative is innate - perhaps it's part of ADHDness... I have to make an active decision NOT to look at alternative ways of doing things, and when I don't it doesn't make me popular.
Another way of viewing this could be if we reduce the push to succeed and replace it with 'play'. Kids play all the time, and things don't work but they learn and build success from those lessons. They're cognitively flexible and cognitively persistent and *because the outcomes aren't critical* (who cares if my Barbie's cardboard house would fall over with the first puff of wind? what matters is that my Barbie's house has taught me about spacial awareness, constraints and improvising with what is in my bedroom!).
I wonder what would happen if we gave time to experimenting and play as adults at work? I remember one manager telling me to just stop changing a group pain management programme because surely by now it would be 'right'? I called it continuous quality improvement instead...
This week's play is working out how I can incorporate new experiential learning activities for my 5th year medical students so they learn perspective taking when seeing patients with pain. Wish me cognitive persistence!
Hey Bronnie, what you described is what I have seen in working with adults with ADHD over the years. I view it as part of evolutionary fitness at the group level. The inverse of those without ADHD who go with the herd and occasionally deviate with expression of an alternative view. From a group fitness perspective, you want both. Recruit for both. Reward that diversity. Not artificial diversity. Two perspectives that allow for greater creative processes.
But you said it - if the leader/manager doesn't have buy in, its all for naught. Which is such a shame.
If we look at neurodiversity as normal variants (part of a requirement for evolution) I can see ADHD as fit for purpose for explorers, hunters, scouts, look-outs, leaders-in-crisis, creators, and innovators. Neurovanilla people are inclined towards stability, maintenance, normative rule-making, great for farming, developing and maintaining processes and collectivity. We need all types, we really do.
I've found the 'decision' to be creative is innate - perhaps it's part of ADHDness... I have to make an active decision NOT to look at alternative ways of doing things, and when I don't it doesn't make me popular.
Another way of viewing this could be if we reduce the push to succeed and replace it with 'play'. Kids play all the time, and things don't work but they learn and build success from those lessons. They're cognitively flexible and cognitively persistent and *because the outcomes aren't critical* (who cares if my Barbie's cardboard house would fall over with the first puff of wind? what matters is that my Barbie's house has taught me about spacial awareness, constraints and improvising with what is in my bedroom!).
I wonder what would happen if we gave time to experimenting and play as adults at work? I remember one manager telling me to just stop changing a group pain management programme because surely by now it would be 'right'? I called it continuous quality improvement instead...
This week's play is working out how I can incorporate new experiential learning activities for my 5th year medical students so they learn perspective taking when seeing patients with pain. Wish me cognitive persistence!
Hey Bronnie, what you described is what I have seen in working with adults with ADHD over the years. I view it as part of evolutionary fitness at the group level. The inverse of those without ADHD who go with the herd and occasionally deviate with expression of an alternative view. From a group fitness perspective, you want both. Recruit for both. Reward that diversity. Not artificial diversity. Two perspectives that allow for greater creative processes.
But you said it - if the leader/manager doesn't have buy in, its all for naught. Which is such a shame.
If we look at neurodiversity as normal variants (part of a requirement for evolution) I can see ADHD as fit for purpose for explorers, hunters, scouts, look-outs, leaders-in-crisis, creators, and innovators. Neurovanilla people are inclined towards stability, maintenance, normative rule-making, great for farming, developing and maintaining processes and collectivity. We need all types, we really do.
And that describes many of the high functioning adults with ADHD that I know.
I love the passage on the dual pathways Todd.
Does cognitive persistence differ at all from general conscientiousness?
How might someone cultivate more cognitive persistence?