Whether or not experience inevitably led to expertise, they agreed, depended entirely on the domain in question. Narrow experience made for better chess and poker players and firefighters, but not for better predictors of financial or political trends, or of how employees or patients would perform.
Make the Leader Occasionally Disappear: Several leaders of successful groups have the habit of leaving the group alone at key moments. One of the best at this is Gregg Popovich. Most NBA teams run time-outs according to a choreographed protocol: First the coaches huddle as a group for a few seconds to settle on a message, then they walk over to the bench to deliver that message to the players. However, during about one time-out a month, the Spurs coaches huddle for a time-out…and then never walk over to the players. The players sit on the bench, waiting for Popovich to show up. Then, as they belatedly realize he isn’t coming, they take charge, start talking among themselves, and figure out a plan. The New Zealand All-Blacks rugby team have made a habit of this, as players lead several practice sessions each week with little input from the coaches. When I asked Dave Cooper to name the single trait that his best-performing SEAL teams shared, he said, “The best teams tended to be the ones I wasn’t that involved with, especially when it came to training. They would disappear and not rely on me at all. They were better at figuring out what they needed to do themselves than I could ever be.”
“Danny realized that he needed to be in two places at once. Which meant that he had to find a way to deliver the signal. People will respond to what their boss feels is important. So Danny had to define and articulate what was important.”
In some of these children, such differences represent a “developmental lag,” and over an extended period of time the child (and brain) mature, albeit 2 to 3 years later than in peers. For other children with ADHD, however, this maturation does not take place, and the weaknesses persist until adulthood. It’s important to know that children can and do vary in the development of these and other executive skills without qualifying for a diagnosis of ADHD or any other “clinical” diagnosis. As is the case with almost any set of skills, children (and adults) have strengths and weaknesses that fall along a continuum.
“You have priorities, whether you name them or not,” he says. “If you want to grow, you’d better name them, and you’d better name the behaviors that support the priorities.”
To deal successfully with transition, you need to determine precisely what changes in their existing behavior and attitudes people will have to make. It isn’t enough to tell them that they have to work as a team. They need to know how teamwork differs behaviorally and attitudinally from the way they are working now. What must they stop doing? And what are they going to have to start doing? Be specific. Until these changes are spelled out, people won’t be able to understand what you tell them.
Analyze who stands to lose something under the new system. This step follows the previous one. Remember, transition starts with an ending. You can’t grasp the new thing until you’ve let go of the old thing. It’s this process of letting go that people resist, not the change itself. Their resistance can take the form of foot-dragging or sabotage, and you have to understand the pattern of loss to be ready to deal with the resistance and keep it from getting out of hand.
When you stress access to a desired activity rather than lack of access to a desired activity, you’re keeping your child’s eyes on the prize and not the work that has to be done to get it. The behavioral data we’ve collected show that this shift really is effective: we’ve seen increases in direction following and decreases in task refusal and power struggles when adults use positive statements with kids rather than negative ones.
“Sell” the problem that is the reason for the change. Most managers and leaders put 10 percent of their energy into selling the problem and 90 percent into selling the solution to the problem. People aren’t in the market for solutions to problems they don’t see, acknowledge, and understand. They might even come up with a better solution than yours, and then you won’t have to sell it—it will be theirs.
Use a self-monitoring audiotape, available at A.D.D. Warehouse (see the Resources), to help your child stay on task. This tape sounds electronic tones at random intervals. When the tone sounds, the child is to ask herself, “Was I paying attention?”
