Sometimes Brook Noel finds it helpful to focus on details and
pursue perfection like a true obsessive-compulsive. "If
I'm going to have a real analytical week, sometimes I'll go
off my medicine, because those skills come in handy," says the
founder of Champion Press Ltd. in Fredonia, Wisconsin, who was
diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder as a teenager.
Noel says that other times, OCD can be a hang-up. "I've
had to learn to give people an assignment, let them know the
results I expect and give them the control to get from Point A to
Point B," says Noel, 31, who employs nine at the book
publisher she founded in 1997, which is on target to bring in $2
million in sales this year.
Noel says OCD motivated her to start her company because of her
desire for control. Another entrepreneur, Kinko's founder
Paul
Orfalea, started his company because his
conditions--hyper-activity and dyslexia--made him practically
unemployable. And an increasing number of people think
mental-health conditions like OCD, hyperactivity and others can be
compatible with successful entrepreneurship.
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Some of America's best-known entrepreneurs have suffered
from these conditions. Famed aviation entrepreneur Howard Hughes is
widely believed to have been an undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive
for many years before his death in 1976. And Microsoft Corp.
co-founder Bill Gates is said to display several traits associated
with an autism disorder called Asperger's syndrome (though he
has not been diagnosed with the condition).
People diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome often have average
or better intelligence and verbal development and may possess
exceptional abilities in fields such as mathematics or computers.
They may focus intensely on narrow topics and have prodigious
memories--useful skills for entrepreneurs. The poorly developed
social skills and tendency to engage in repetitive behaviors such
as rocking back and forth--both characteristics Gates is said to
exhibit--can be overcome by hiring managers to handle people and
social situations.
A study by geneticists at the University of California, Irvine,
suggests that attention deficit hyper-activity disorder is closely
associated with entrepreneurs. UCI professor Robert Moyzis found
that the allele (a version of a gene) controlling ADHD cropped up
about the time prehistoric people were starting to innovate new
technologies, develop culture and spread across the globe.
"Something happened to humans about the time this allele
arose," he says. "All of a sudden, we had what might
today be called entrepreneurs."
Today, Moyzis notes, one physical marker for ADHD is faster
reaction time. "It's hard to argue that faster reaction
time isn't a good thing to have," he says. The gene's
survival all these years suggests people who have it are somehow
doing a better job of surviving and having offspring.
Today, Moyzis thinks ADHD may be a marker for good
entrepreneurs. "I'm convinced, without any hard scientific
evidence, this kind of behavior is probably good if you want to be
an innovator, ignore the current structure and strike off in a
novel direction," he says.
ADHD entrepreneurs' weaknesses have to do with details and
routine, says Thom Hartmann, a Portland, Oregon, serial entrepreneur
and author of books on ADHD. "They're good at coming up
with ideas, identifying market niches, creatively engineering
something from nothing, selling it to other people and pulling
together a team that's motivated to follow them," he says.
ADHD entrepreneurs who do well surrender day-to-day management once
the company is self-sustaining, or sell it and move on. Those who
keep doing it all, he warns, usually self-destruct.
Without medication, Noel says, she tends to check and recheck so
many times that productivity suffers. But by talking with her
doctors and others, she has been successful at controlling the
downside of OCD, while taking advantage of the upside. Now she
regards OCD as just another facet of her business personality:
"Any [type of personality] is going to have both strengths and
weaknesses."