If you’re an entrepreneur or founder who feels like you have to work twice as hard just to keep your business from spiraling, you’re not alone—and your company’s chaos might not just be “part of the job.”

Most founders don’t realize their business “vibe” is a mirror of their brain. ADHD traits like chasing dopamine, avoiding conflict, or struggling with structure aren’t just personality quirks– they ripple through your team, processes, and business operations.

Whether you’re a founder, team lead, or anyone building something from scratch, this episode will deliver a clear framework to assess your current culture, recognize what’s working (and what’s not), and take the first practical steps toward building a company that truly fits and supports the neurodivergent way you do business.

Organizational Psychologists Quinn & Cameron identified that 90% of companies worldwide fall into one of these four types of company cultures in their Competing Values Culture Model:

1. Clan (Family): Collaborative, relationship-focused, but slow to make tough calls.
2. Adhocracy (Innovators): Fast-paced, risk-taking, constant brainstorming – but often unstable and unfinished.
3. Market (Competitors): Results-driven, clear metrics, high stakes – can burn people out.
4. Hierarchy (Machine): Structured, predictable, rule-heavy – can stifle creativity.

Most founders with ADHD unintentionally create either:

1. “Accidental Adhocracy”: Innovative (read: scattered), chasing novelty for dopamine, team struggles with chaos and change, projects rarely get finished.
2. “Accidental Clan”: Warm, fuzzy, avoiding confrontation, underperformers stick around, roles are blurry, you feel more like a therapist than a CEO.

3-Step Plan to Build Your Business Culture on Purpose

1. Honestly Assess Your Current Culture

Ask tough questions—from “Who really solves problems here?” to “How many projects did we actually finish this quarter?”

2. Get Real About What’s Working… and What’s Not

List out where your accidental culture is winning—and where it’s burning you or your team out.

3. Pick ONE High-Leverage Change

Don’t try to overhaul it all. Make one intentional hire (like a project manager or COO) or put a single new process between your ideas and your team. Act, observe, and iterate.

You get to choose your culture.

The question isn’t if your ADHD is shaping your business, but how.

About the Host, Diann Wingert:

Drawing from her experience as a psychotherapist and serial business owner and her understanding of ADHD, Diann empowers founders to understand the default culture their ADHD brain creates, and shows them how to transform it into a purpose-driven environment that supports both their goals and the well-being of their team.

Sharing is Caring

Know a fellow ADHD founder who’s quietly fighting fires (or fighting themselves) every day? They might need this wake-up call, too, so be a pal and share the episode.

Want one-on-one support?

If you’re ready to intentionally design a company culture that works with your ADHD, click here to book a free consultation. It’s the first step to transforming what you’re building intentionally through expert ADHD entrepreneur coaching.

© 2026 ADHD-ish Podcast. Intro music by Ishan Dincer / Melody Loops / Outro music by Vladimir / Bobi Music / All rights reserved.

You know something? Plenty of entrepreneurs and founders launch without even realizing they're not just building a business, they're building a culture. And that culture, it's probably a direct reflection of their unmanaged ADHD traits. So today I'm going to tear a couple of pages from the organizational psychology playbook and add a neurodivergent-friendly spin. By the end of this episode, you're going to know which culture your ADHD brain is building by default, and more importantly, which one you could be building on purpose. Okay, I'm going to take just a minute to introduce the theory behind company culture, and I promise it is not going to be some boring HR lecture.

Because here's the thing: when you are a founder with ADHD, your company culture is, is just not something you sit down and design in a strategic planning retreat. It's more like something that emerges from how your brain works. You think you're being innovative? Maybe. Or maybe you're just chasing dopamine and calling it a pivot. You think you've created a collaborative, non-hierarchical structure? Cool. But maybe you have rejection sensitivity and can't bring yourself to fire anyone. I have seen these patterns with some of my clients. They come to me saying their business feels chaotic or they can't scale or they're exhausted from putting out fires. But when we look under the hood, it's because they've accidentally built a culture that requires them to fight their ADHD every single day or everyone else is fighting them.

Not just like org charts or mission statements, but the values, the norms, the unspoken rules about how shit gets done and by whom. In other words, the actual lived experience of working there. You know what they found out? Absolutely fascinating, about 90% of companies worldwide fall into one of only 4 culture types, and each of them has advantages and limitations. There's no one better than the others. The key is knowing which one you are building. Now, before your eyes start to glaze over, I'm gonna go move quickly through the TLDR or ChatGPT version because we're going to spend most of our time today on the two that matter most for founders with ADHD, I promise.

So the 4 types quickly. Culture Type 1, the Clan, aka the family. This is the we're all in this together culture. Super collaborative, relationship-focused, lots and lots of opportunities for mentorship. Leaders act like parental figures in all the best and worst ways you can imagine. People in a clan culture talk about loyalty and belonging, they make decisions by consensus. They care deeply about how other people feel and about their wellbeing. Think smaller family businesses, certain nonprofits, companies where people have been there for 20 or more years. The kind of companies where people socialize with each other outside of work when they don't even have to. The vibe— warm. The downside, decision-making can be slow as hell because everybody needs to weigh in. And when a tough call needs to be made, like letting someone go who's not a performer, it feels like an act of betrayal.

Culture Type 2, the Adhocracy, aka the innovators. This is the Silicon Valley darling. Move fast and break things, just ship it. Innovation, risk-taking, constant experimentation. If clan culture is a family dinner, adhocracy culture is the brainstorming session that never truly ends. People in adhocracy cultures are encouraged to try new things, challenge the status quo, take some risks. Leaders are seen as visionaries and disruptors. I'm talking Google, Facebook, hell, really any tech startup regardless of the size. The vibe is exciting, dynamic, and high energy. The downside? Well, it can feel unstable AF. New people can get intimidated by the pace, and nothing ever really feels finished because everyone's always racing on to the next big idea.

Culture Type 3, Market, aka the competitors. This one is all about results. Metrics, scorecards, the competition, both external, you know, like with other companies, and internal between teams and contributors. Everybody knows where they stand because the numbers tell them. People in market culture companies are driven, goal-oriented, and focused on one thing only: outcomes. Leaders are tough, demanding, but crystal clear. You win or you don't. Sales organizations, consulting firms, most finance companies, they tend to create market company cultures. The vibe is intense and motivating if you dig that kind of pressure. The downside, it can burn people out. And if you are not naturally competitive or metrics-driven, it can feel pretty fucking cold and cutthroat.

Culture Type 4, Hierarchy, aka the machine, this is the most structured of the 4 types. There's a clear chain of command, defined processes, policies for every fricking thing. Stability and predictability are the goals. People in hierarchy cultures know exactly what's expected of them. They never have to guess because it's written down somewhere for sure. Leaders enforce the rules. Think government agencies, healthcare organizations, and any industry that's highly regulated, they need this kind of structure. The vibe? Orderly and clear. The downside? Innovation is almost impossible, creativity gets stifled. And if you are someone who needs autonomy and flexibility, which, hello, most ADHD brains do, this culture will feel like you're wearing a pair of shoes that's two sizes too small. So those are the four options: clan, adhocracy, market, and hierarchy.

Now here's what the organizational psychology researchers don't tell you, but I will. If you have ADHD, you don't get to choose your culture from a neutral standing point. Your brain is already voting and that vote, it's not always in your best interest. So let's talk about what your ADHD is building while you're otherwise occupied. The first one is what I'm going to call the accidental adhocracy, when innovative is code for scattered. All right this is one, the one I see with most founders with ADHD because on paper it looks pretty great.

You're innovative, you're agile, you pivot quickly, you're not afraid to try new things. Your pitch deck probably looks fantastic, but the reality, you've probably started 47 different projects this quarter and finished maybe 3. Your team gets whiplash from the constant change in direction. And you genuinely cannot tell the difference between a strategic pivot and your ADHD chasing the next shiny object. Here's what this looks like in actual practice, you announce a new initiative on Monday, everyone scrambles to reprioritize. By Wednesday, you've had another idea that's even better.

Of course, by Friday, you're researching something completely different and your team is standing there going, so are we still doing the Monday thing or… You call it iterating, they call it chaos. And this is true even if they have ADHD too. Trust me, I know from whence I speak. And look, I'm not saying you are not actually innovative. ADHD brains are remarkably good at making connections other people don't see. We spot patterns across industries. We think laterally. We're not afraid to try weird shit. I mean, we've always been the weird ones our whole lives anyway.

But here's the problem: your novelty-seeking isn't strategy, it's symptom management. Your ADHD brain is desperate for dopamine. New ideas provide dopamine, so you keep on generating new ideas, not because they're all good ideas, although it seems that way at the time, and not because they serve your business vision, but because your brain is literally trying not to feel boredom, like ever. And boredom for an ADHD brain, this is not mild discomfort like it is for the normies, it feels like actual suffering. You've probably heard me refer to the way we treat boredom as a life-threatening condition.

Because that is how freaking acutely and intensely we feel it. So we create change, we create urgency, we create novelty because it feels better than sitting still with something that's working but isn't exciting. And the cost of this accidental adhocracy, it's real. Your team burns out trying to keep up with your brain, even if they love you. They will start quietly implementing only about 60% of what you announce. Because if they stick around, if they stick around, they've kind of learned to wait and see if you still care about the same thing next week. You're always in startup mode, never getting to scale mode because you can't stick with anything long enough to optimize it. And turnover is high because the best people need some stability and you're not providing it.

I had to learn this one the hard way myself. So I am not putting down anything that I haven't had to pull up myself. I had honestly no idea how much chaos and confusion I was creating with my constant ideation and novelty seeking. Until a team member interrupted my latest infomercial about the best idea I had, asking, uh, so boss, where does this fit into our quarterly strategic plan? And shortly after that, so does this take priority over what we have already committed to? You know, I consider myself pretty freaking self-aware, but I honest to God never saw that coming. It was a rude awakening, but a really, really important one. So if what I'm saying right now is kind of landing hard, just understand that we need this wake-up call. And it comes when we realize that what we're calling innovation is costing us. It's costing us more than money, more than time, more than energy, more than opportunity cost. It's costing us staff turnover too.

All right, ready for the next one? This one is the accidental clan, when collaborative is code for conflict avoidant. Now, this is the other culture that ADHD founders most frequently create by accident. It's a clan culture, but it really isn't. It looks like clan culture, but it's really avoidance dressed up as collaboration. Let me go on, it's kind of sneaky too, because it tends to look good from the outside, just like the other one. You care about your people, you've created a family atmosphere, everyone feels valued. It's also warm and fuzzy, what could be wrong? Until you realize that family atmosphere means nobody really has clearly defined roles, which means you're creating gaps and overlaps, I promise.

Collaborative can mean you can't make a decision without buy-in from everybody on the team. Or everyone feels valued actually means you can't expect me to fire the person who's been underperforming for the last 8 months. That'll trigger my rejection sensitivity just thinking about it. Here's what else it looks like, you've got someone on your team who's fine, not great, not terrible, just fine and they're nice. They've been with you for a while and they really need this job and you know it. You also know that they're not performing at the level that you need and every time you think about having that conversation, your conflict avoidance kicks in and suddenly you're like a 12-year-old again, getting picked last for dodgeball. So instead of addressing it, you just work around them. You take on their work yourself, or you redistribute their responsibility to other team members. And you tell yourself, I'm just supporting them through a rough patch.

Meanwhile, your high performers are watching you avoid this and they're thinking, okay, so this is a place where mediocre effort is totally fine, good to know. Why do founders with ADHD default to this so frequently? Well, rejection sensitivity is real as hell. For many of us, the idea of someone being upset with us, disappointed in us, or God forbid, not liking us feels genuinely dangerous, especially if you are the grown-up version of a kid who was the difficult one, the too much kid, the one who was always in trouble for shit they couldn't even help so you overcorrect. You become the nice boss, the understanding boss, the boss who gives 47 chances because you wish someone had given you half that many. Boundaries are hard when your ADHD brain struggles with emotional regulation too. I mean, where does your responsibility end and someone else's begin? Hell if you know.

So everyone's problems become your problems, and suddenly you're less of a CEO and more of a therapist who occasionally does some business on the side. The cost of this accidental clan culture is no joke, underperformers stay way too long because you can't bring yourself to let them go. You can't scale because creating systems feels unfriendly and impersonal. Your team has learned to come to you for absolutely everything because you've trained them that you'll take care of it. And you are absolutely exhausted from managing everybody's feelings while your own are held together with coffee and a mask that's probably slipping just listening to this. Now, if you're wondering if I made this mistake too, you would be right. In a previous business, my private psychotherapy practice, I saw one family for 18 months without getting paid a dime.

There were 3 kids that really needed a lot of psychological support while their parents were going through a really ugly divorce. Each of the parents told me to get payment from the other person, and as time went by, I was told by both of them that everything was tied up in legal fees and they needed to get their house ready for sale. Of course, I asked for payment on a regular basis, but I never stopped seeing those kids. Now mind you, Dad was dropping them off while driving a Bentley and wearing a Rolex. So yeah, I only had to learn that lesson once, fortunately. Some of my clients need help with that too. The wake-up call when you have created an accidental clan culture tends to come when you realize that being liked has become more important than being successful, being effective, not to mention being able to pay your bills and maybe have a bit of self-respect as a business owner. And if it isn't obvious, that same niceness is actively preventing your business from growing, even if it isn't quite as egregious as mine was.

Now, before we move on, I wanna be really clear about something. Neither of these cultures, adhocracy or clan, is inherently wrong. They're not bad company cultures. The problems happen when they're unintentional. They're what happens when you let your unmanaged ADHD traits drive instead of strategy. Oh, and for the record, your ADHD isn't the problem either. Your lack of awareness around how it is affecting your company culture is the problem. Because here's the thing, those same ADHD traits that create accidental chaos, they also create intentional innovation. The same sensitivity that makes you conflict avoidant makes you deeply attuned to the needs of your team members and clients if you learn to pair it with some structure.

So let's talk about what it looks like when you build a company culture on purpose instead of by accident. Gearing up for the intentional adhocracy where innovation is strategy, not a symptom. The difference is this: you are innovating in service of a clear vision, not instead of one. In an accidental adhocracy, every new idea gets equal weight because your brain doesn't know the difference between this could transform the business and ooh, this sounds like fun. Everything feels equally urgent and exciting when we're desperately seeking dopamine. But in an intentional adhocracy, you've got a filter, a framework, a way to evaluate whether this new idea actually serves where you're trying to go, or if it's just your ADHD jonesing for some dopamine.

An intentional adhocracy in practice looks like this, you still generate a fuck ton of ideas, that's not going to change. And honestly, why would you want it to? That's one of our most valuable traits. But now those ideas go through a vetting process before they make it to your team. Maybe it's a quarterly planning session where you review all the ideas you've had and pick the top 2 that are aligned your annual goals. Maybe it's hiring a COO whose job is to say, not so fast, when you come in hot with a new direction. Maybe it is a literal spreadsheet where you track your ideas, their potential ROI, and the opportunity cost of pursuing it now. I have been using a version of this vetting process in my own business and have incorporated it into my coaching framework because I believe in its transformational process.

Now, the point is not every idea makes it to execution. Boo-hoo. They're not all deserving of it, trust me. And that is nothing to do with you being less innovative, that's simply you being more strategic. Your ADHD strengths in this kind of company culture are considerable. You've got pattern recognition that lets you see opportunities before your competitors do. You've got genuine creativity, not forced brainstorming bullshit that real connection-making across domains makes possible. You've got high risk tolerance, which means when there is a strategic opportunity, you're willing to move on it while others are still hemming and hawing. And you've got energy for the new, which keeps you from ever becoming stale, stagnant, or outdated. But to make this work, you need specific people in specific roles.

First, you need a COO or director of operations. This is your counterbalance. This person's job is to take your vision and translate it into a process. They're not there to crush your creativity or rain on your parade. They're there to build the container that lets your creativity produce actual results. When you come in and say, I think we should completely rebuild how we onboard clients, the accidental adhocracy response is great, let's do it now. The intentional adhocracy response from your COO is love it, let's pilot it with the next 3 clients. Measure the results, and if it works, I'll build the rollout plan for Q3. See the difference? You still get to innovate, but now there's a process that turns innovation into implementation.

Second, you need a project manager, this is your complement. Where you're great at starting, they're great at finishing. Where you generate ideas, they bring them to completion. Your job is to cast vision, make connections, and spot opportunities. Their job is to take that and create timelines, accountability, and outcomes. I recently celebrated reaching episode 300 of this podcast, and I did not hit that milestone by doing every damn thing myself. I am the one generating the content ideas, doing the interviews, and bringing the creative energy. But somebody else handles the editing, the scheduling, the distribution, the social media promotion, literally every single bit of the technical backend.

The division of labor is what makes intentional adhocracy work. You're not doing it all. You're doing what you are uniquely good at and creating opportunity to grow a team of other people doing what they're uniquely good at too. Now, here are the guardrails you need to make this strategy sustainable. Quarterly focus, not monthly pivots. You revisit your priorities every 90 days, not every 90 minutes. An idea parking lot, ysou've heard me talk about this before. Could be literal or digital, somewhere you capture every idea so your brain knows it's not lost, it's not forgotten, it's not wasted, but it's not automatically going to happen either.

Metrics to know if the innovation is working. You need data, not just this just feels good, but this is actually producing the outcome we wanted. You know what else you need? Kill switch criteria. Before you start any initiative, decide what would make you stop. How long do you try it? What results would indicate it's just not working? Because without kill switch criteria, you are going to keep everything alive on life support indefinitely. And hoarding useless ideas is not a good look for any business owner, not to mention it's a massive energetic drain. So make sure you have your kill switch criteria and intentional adhocracy lets you keep the innovation.

You know, we need that. It keeps our ADHD brains happy, but builds in enough structure that we actually get to finish what we start and let me tell you, that feels so much better. All right, now we're gonna talk about intentional market. Hmm, you didn't think I was gonna say that, did you? This is where your hyperfocus becomes a competitive advantage. Now you might be surprised to hear market culture can work really well for ADHD founders, not for all of them, but for the right ones. And here's why, market culture is all about clear metrics, results, and competition. And for an ADHD brain that can be incredibly motivated and create awesome focus because there's no ambiguity. The scoreboard tells you if you're winning. You know what's hard for ADHD brains? Anything vague.

Grow the business, improve client satisfaction, build the brand visibility. What the hell does that mean? How do you even know if you're succeeding? You know what's easier? Hit $50K in revenue this month. Close 5 new clients, get podcast downloads to 10K per episode. Those are concrete, measurable, and you know exactly where you stand. So of the 4 ADHD drivers, interest, challenge, novelty, and urgency, if challenge is a big one for you, you might do really well with an intentional market company culture, especially if you spent your whole life up to this point being underestimated or told ready, you're not living up to your potential.

An intentional market culture gives you the chance to prove them wrong with numbers, baby. And your ADHD strengths in this company culture are hyperfocus when the stakes are clear. When you know what you're aiming for and why it matters, you can get into a flow state in a way that literally shocks and awes other people. Market culture can give you that clarity, performance under pressure. So many people with ADHD perform best when there's urgency, when there's a deadline, and when there is something real on the line. Market culture creates that naturally the ability to pivot fast when the market shifts, when the data tells you what's not working, you're not emotionally attached to it. You change direction quickly, high energy when chasing a goal.

When you are in pursuit, you are unstoppable. Market culture is basically pursuit mode as a business model. You're welcome. But here's what you have to watch out for because this is not for everybody. First, you need a people and culture person, this is your counterbalance in this kind of company culture. Because while you're watching the numbers, somebody needs to be watching the humans. Market culture can burn people out fast so you need somebody whose job it is to pay attention to morale, workload, and sustainability. This person's job is to remind you that the team leader who didn't hit their numbers this month might be dealing with a family crisis. Or might need additional training or might be in the wrong role. You're focused on outcomes, they're focused on your people.

Second, you need a strategist. This is your complement because the risk with market culture and ADHD is that you'll compete just because competing is stimulating, not because it's the right competition to win. The strategist helps you pick which battles to fight, which metrics actually matter, which markets are worth pursuing, and which ones are just shiny objects dressed up in competitive language. My assistant Sarah prepares a very detailed spreadsheet for me every month where every metric in my business that's worth looking at is available for my review. Podcast growth is a great example, we track rankings, downloads, reviews, all of it. That metric watching keeps me engaged and motivated to keep on going. We also track LinkedIn followers, email subscribers, invitations to collaborate, lead magnets and how they're performing, free consultations, and the number of clients I see.

I can see progress or lack thereof and make adjustments accordingly. I really did not enjoy doing this for quite a while. But I'll tell you what I also hate more, wasting time and effort on things that aren't working. So the numbers over time took the emotion out of making hard decisions. If you want to implement an intentional market culture, there are some guardrails you need. Don't compete just because it's stimulating, make sure the competition serves your actual business goals, not just your dopamine needs. And remember, humans aren't just numbers ever. You can measure their performance, but you can never measure another person's worth. Don't confuse the two. Build in recovery time for you and your team.

Market culture at full intensity is not sustainable 365 days a year. You're going to need to build in rest periods. And also know when good enough is actually good enough. Not everything needs to be optimized to the nth degree, even in a market culture company. Sometimes 80% is the just right answer so you can move on to something that matters even more. An intentional market culture with an ADHD founder lets you use your competitive drive and your ability to hyperfocus on clear goals. As actual business advantages instead of just personality quirks. Now I need to cover the one company culture that's never going to work, and that's okay. I guess you could call it the elephant in the room, and it's hierarchy culture.

You know I was going to say that, right? Because if you're listening to this and you have ADHD, I'm quite sure you're not building a hierarchy culture and honestly, I'm glad. Here's why it won't work, your brain literally rebels against rigid structure. You might create the processes, print them out, laminate them, put them in a binder, and then ignore them the first time they feel inconvenient. Or you might hire people who love compliance and procedure, but then you'll resent them for actually complying with the fricking procedures. Because part of you will feel like they're being inflexible, even though flexibility is exactly what you hired them not to be. Hierarchy culture requires consistency, and ADHD brains are many things, but consistently consistent is not one of them. It's like forcing a left-handed person to write right-handed. Technically possible, deeply uncomfortable, produces inferior results.

Now, there is one exception. If you hire a COO who genuinely loves structure and process, and you actually stay out of their way and let them build the hierarchy culture on the operations side while you stay in your innovation lane, it could work but that's not building hierarchy culture. That's you delegating it to someone whose brain actually works that way. So if hierarchy isn't your jam, there's absolutely no reason to force it. Just build one of the other cultures intentionally instead. Now I really want to make this as practical as possible. So I'm going to give you a 3-step action plan. You've probably had at least 77 realizations about your business and your brain is spinning with, what do I do? What do I do, so here's what I want you to do.

Step 1: Identify your current culture honestly. Not the one you wish you had, not the culture you tell people you have on your about page, the actual culture you have right now. Ask yourself these questions: When there's a problem in the business, do people solve it themselves or do they come to you? If everything ends up on your desk, you might be in an accidental clan culture where you've trained people to be dependent. How many projects did you start this quarter versus how many did you finish? If the ratio is like 10 to 2, you're probably in accidental adhocracy. Can you fire someone who's not working out, or do you agonize about it for months? If it's the latter, that's clan culture with a side of rejection sensitivity.

Do you have metrics that you actually look at, or do you just go with your gut? If it's all gut and no data, you're definitely not in market culture, which is fine, but you should know that. And when was the last time you followed one of your own systems? If you can't remember, hierarchy culture is most definitely not your current reality. Now, the truth might hurt a little bit, but that's how you know it's accurate. That's also probably why you listen to this podcast, there are many others. Just don't judge yourself for what you find, let's get honest about it.

All right, ready for step 2? Name what's working and what it's costing you because here's the thing, it's never all bad. Your accidental culture has probably produced some pretty damn good outcomes along with the chaos. What's working? Well, maybe your innovation has led to new revenue streams your competitors haven't even thought of yet. Maybe your collaborative approach is attracted talented people who love the family vibe. Maybe your competitive drive has grown the business faster than playing it safe ever would have. Write down what's actually working, yes, this is step 2. Your ADHD brain will wanna catastrophize and decide everything is broken it's not. What's costing you?

Now you need to be honest about the actual cost. Team turnover from the chaos, revenue lost from lack of follow-through, your own fricking burnout from doing everyone's job because you can't delegate. Opportunities missed because you were attracted and distracted by something shinier. Write it down because your ADHD brain will also want to minimize the cost and convince you that it's all fine, it's not all fine, we need both lists. What's working and what's costing you.

Step 3, identify one hire or one structural change. Do not under any conditions rebuild the entire company culture, I know you want to. I know your brain just heard intentional adhocracy with a COO and a project manager and quarterly planning and an idea parking lot and thought, great, I'll implement all of that by Friday. No, you fricking won't. Pick the highest leverage change. The one thing that will have the most impact if you're in an accidental adhocracy, either hire a project manager or someone with operation skills, or create a new idea approval process. Even if it's just you and one other person having a conversation before you announce anything to everyone else. If you're in an accidental clan, either hire someone who's comfortable with conflict to be your COO or integrator, or create a performance review system with actual consequences, not just friendly feedback.

If you're building an intentional adhocracy, create your idea filter. In fact, I really want to encourage you to start there. It could be a simple spreadsheet, could be a quarterly review process, could be a business partner that you give veto power. Just something that stands between your brain and your team's execution. If you're building an intentional market culture, build in regular team check-ins that aren't about the numbers, they're about how people are actually doing. One change, start there, see what shifts. Because here's the real point to all of this: your ADHD isn't going anywhere. The question is whether you're going to build a business that works with your brain or one that requires you to fight yourself and other people every single day.

Most founders with ADHD are doing the latter. Sadly, without even realizing it, they're building cultures that punish their natural wiring and then wonder why they're so exhausted and burned out and why their business feels so hard. You get to choose your culture. You get to build something intentionally instead of accidentally. But first, you have to know what you're actually building. Then and only then can you decide, is this serving me? Is this serving my business? Is it serving my team? And is any of it sustainable? If the answer is no, well, you now have a framework for what to change and how to change it.

Hey, it's Diann, if this episode landed for you, and I mean really landed for you. Won't you share it with another ADHD founder who's building something? They probably need to hear it too. And if you want to work through which culture you want to be building for your specific business, that's something I can help you with in a one-on-one coaching engagement. I'm Diann Wingert, this is ADHD-ish, and I'll be back next week with an inspiring guest interview.