Need to Stop Oversharing at Work?
Hands up if you've ever overshared at work and immediately wished you could crawl under your desk until everyone else leaves? Hey, me too!
While oversharing in the right company is just sharing, sometimes us ADHDers are a little more comfortable sharing than others. This can be embarrassing at best, or credibility-damaging at worst. Ideally, we want to work out where is safe to share and where isn't as best we can. While I will never write about reducing the fun sharing between two humans who are vibing, I do want to help you manage the oversharing that comes from overexplaining, over-apologising, and over-justifying our actions, decisions, and omissions.
Introducing a Project Management Tool (stick with me) to Help with Oversharing: The RACI Matrix
The RACI matrix is a helpful tool for determining who plays what sort of role in a project, and it's very transferable to our conversations at and about our work. If you know up front who you are dealing with, then you can choose how much to share and how much of their input to take on. RACI stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed and we are about to dive into what each of these means...
This is just one of the project management tools I LOVE for ADHDers. When adapted to suit your needs, project management skills allow us to externalise our executive functions. This makes them easier to manage, including helping us have less mental load, do more of the important stuff, and serve our clients better! If you'd like my help externalising your executive functions so you feel more in control, let's talk!
Responsible
This is the person responsible for delivering a set task or project, if you are a solopreneur this is probably you pretty much all of the time. If you delegate a task, that person is the responsible person in this instance.
How much information does a responsible person need?
People who are responsible for delivering tasks for you need enough detail to do the right work, at the right time, and to the right standard.
They will hold information on the ground operations and may need information on changes that impact their work. They need to know the how not necessarily the why.
Responsible people will vary in how much you need to share, and with the right, trusted teams you may wish to share more. If for example, your ADHD may make something you need to do to support them more challenging, disclosing your ADHD and explaining a way to work with you could be an appropriate and helpful approach.
If someone is responsible for completing a task, you don't need to tell them the background information around why you have outsourced that task unless you want to! They just need enough to do their job!
Accountable
In short, this is the person who will feel the consequences if something isn't done. Your accountant may be responsible for your tax return, but if they submit your returns late you will still be accountable to HMRC and receive the fine for being late.
If you own a business, this is you! This may be a project lead, your boss, a client, or any number of other people in a 'leadership' role within an organisation or group.
How much information does an accountable person need?
An accountable person doesn't necessarily need to know 'the weeds' of a problem, but they do need to know about significant issues that may result in changes to what (or when) you deliver your part of the work.
Ideally, you will give this person updates on the situation as it stands and what's needed for getting back on track (or as back on track as possible)
If for example, you have had ADHD paralysis on a task and are running late with something but will still get it finished before larger consequences it's time to tell you accountable person. They will need to know there is a delay, they will need to know when to expect your contributions, and if there is anything you need to complete this work. If the time delays have changed the end result, they'll need to know that too.
They don't need to know all of the difficult feelings you have around this situation and you do not need to seek reassurance from them about your difficulties - especially if they are not someone who is gentle with you. You can be matter-of-fact about the work, and process the feelings with a trusted person.
For routine updates and progress reports, get clear on the targets that matter to them and focus your reporting around those measures.
Consulted
These are the people we trust to give input on a specific situation, problem or topic. The boundaries around your communication with people in this group may vary, but when it comes to managing your ADHD at work they may be a trusted colleague, a coach, or a friend in another company doing a similar role.
How much information does a consulted person need?
This role is less about depth and more about specificity. Being clear about what you are asking this person to consult on will help you set parameters around what you share. For example, for an ADHD-savvy coach, you may go into detail about your specific struggles on a given block. For a work-person-who-doesn't-get-ADHD, you may talk about the same problem but ask them specifically about workflows, alternative approaches, or other technical aspects of the problem.
Be clear about the questions you want help answering before you start a conversation with a consulted person, and give them the information they need to help with their area of expertise and no more.
A consulted person has A say, not THE say - they are adding information to help you make a decision. You don't need to over-explain to walk them through every moment, but it's helpful if you share enough to get their accurate take.
Informed
In all of my years managing projects, working with multiple stakeholders, action groups, and volunteers - this is the loudest group sometimes. These are the people who are not involved in the decision making or work process but instead just need to be told what is happening as it impacts them.
How much information does an informed person need?
This group only needs to be told about changes - not the process or reason for how you got there.
You can help them ADAPT to changes, but they cannot influence them. It can help to write out a script in advance if you will be talking to someone who will push for more influence.
For example, if you are changing your working hours to suit your productive rhythms, you might consult a long term client to make sure the change suits them. A prospective client would just get the new hours, with no expectation that you'll explain why those are your hours!
It helps to work out who plays which role in advance, so taking some time to see how much you actually need to share before a conversation can help you prepare and avoid nervous oversharing. Here are a couple of my final thoughts to help you use the RACI matrix in your day to day:
Find space for external processing: I'm an external processor, I need to talk things out. I know I need to have conversations with my trusted people about big things - identify who these people are for you and make the time to connect with and process with them.
Own your decisions: Share your decision and how you'll help people adapt to work with the decision, NOT how or why you made the decision. That's your information, all they need is how it impacts THEM.
Ask for time: If you think you might slip into an overshare with an unsafe person, take a small moment to compose yourself. Think of the information THEY need out of the conversation, and be OK with telling them just that - even if that feels like withholding. Not everyone has a right to know what's in your mind, especially if they won't be gentle with it.
If you overshare?
Remember, it happens. You are a human and we ALL overshare sometimes.
Connect with people who get you and who will show you compassion, sometimes after an embarrassing TMI moment that connection can help us overcome any difficult emotions and plan ways to avoid the same happening in future.
Slather yourself in self-compassion - it happens. It's OK. You are OK!