Debriefing a neurodivergent client
This is for you if a client who already knows they are neurodivergent, ADHD or autistic, comes in sure they are the problem. Maybe past coaching handed them rigid plans and told them to be more accountable, and it landed as proof they were broken.
Your client is not the problem, and neither are you. SMART goals, fixed plans, and "just be accountable" are built for one kind of brain. Used with another, they can quietly teach the client they are wrong.
This is a debrief on their terms. They have named how they are wired, so you are not here to detect, screen, or label. Begin from what is strong.
Open two parts of their results early. Discovering Your Strengths is the ground to build on. The Five Types of Work shows where their energy is highest and lowest.
Then adapt the debrief: three changes, and one reframe.
- Put the plan where they can see it. Written and visual, not held in their head. Working memory is often where these plans break.
- Check in more often, in smaller steps. A month between sessions is a long time to hold a thread. Shorter touchpoints keep the work in reach.
- Pace the plan to their energy, not the calendar. Read The Five Types of Work. Schedule the draining kind in short bursts. Put the energizing kind where it pulls them forward.
Now the reframe. Many neurodivergent clients spend real effort passing as neurotypical. That effort is called masking, and it is tiring because it is real work.
So that exhaustion is worth listening to: it often points at a real strength the client learned to hide. In Uncovering Your Blind Spots, each blind spot is the shadow of a strength.
If your client has a Superpower profile instead, open their Systems and Superpowers sections. These describe what your client runs on and how they work best. The strength they have been hiding often sits right there, written up as something to build on.
Now design around it. Pick one thing they have masked that the report shows as a real strength. Ask how they could use it openly, in one specific place this week.
Then land it as you would any debrief. End on one small step, cued to something they already do, written on one page. For this client, the format is part of the point.
Say one line plainly. This is career development, not a diagnosis and not a substitute for professional or medical support. You are reading working style and strengths, nothing clinical. If something clinical comes up, medication, a formal diagnostic evaluation, or real distress, hand it to the right professional.
How they are wired stays. You are handing them a structure that finally fits it, so they can stop running someone else's plan.
Coaching questions
This is not a script to run in order. Once your client sees that the mismatch was fit, not fault, pull whatever fits the room.
Sitting with the recognition
- What did past coaching ask of you that never quite fit?
- When you heard "just be more accountable", what did that cost you?
- Where do you spend the most effort looking like everyone else?
- What have you called a flaw that might be a strength, spent on hiding?
Widening it
- Which parts of a normal week give you energy, and which take it?
- When have you done your best work, and what made it possible?
- What would change if you built the week around that, instead of the standard plan?
Moving toward change
- What is one thing you have been masking that you could use openly instead?
- Where is one place this week to try it?
- What would the smallest, doable version of that look like?
