|
Secret Brilliance
Our homes and schools are filled with Benjamins; brilliant boys and girls
who are mentally unchallenged and bored beyond belief.
Introducing Benjamin: The first time I saw
Benjamin, he was crawling under the produce counter at the local
market. Having found no treasures under the bin, he randomly selected 3
papayas and experimented with the aerodynamic qualities of each. As one
hurled past my shopping cart, I knew that Benjamin was a challenge. His
mother, two isles over and preoccupied with cantaloupe, called for her
son, “BENJAMINNNNNN!” He crawled on all fours, closing the distance
between hand grenade-papayas and Mom.
Twenty minutes later I saw Benjamin again, this time curled up on the
bottom shelf in the chip isle. As I passed his mother she looked at me and
rolled her eyes in disgust. She was undoubtedly frustrated and weary with
her son’s unruly behavior. But was he unruly? Or, was he simply brilliant?
Looking deeper: To the trained observer,
Benjamin was a smart, creative child with an active imagination. Why did
he select papayas instead of oranges? Was it because on the last trip he
experimented with oranges and deduced from the exercise that spherical
projectiles of any color, baseballs and oranges, follow the same
trajectory? But papayas, now there was a challenging shape. Would the
bottom-weighted orb follow the same laws of physics? Now he knew.
And why did Benjamin build a fortress out of boxes of chips? Why not from
canned goods on isle 6? Had he already learned that redistributing
eight-ounce cans of beans and sprouts would not be as time-efficient as
rearranging large, lightweight boxes of chips? Benjamin’s time management
skills were taking shape. Unfortunately, no one knew.
Bored Benjamins: Our homes and schools are
filled with Benjamins; brilliant boys and girls who are mentally
unchallenged and bored beyond belief. To meet this generation’s insatiable
appetite for knowledge, we must change our focus and fortify our arsenal
of parenting / teaching skills. In fact, if we apply standard business
management techniques to parenting, many of the
control issues parents face would be eliminated.
Consider stewardship: According to Stephen
R. Covey in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Simon
& Schuster), there are 2 different kinds of management philosophy or
style: gofer delegation and stewardship delegation.
In gofer delegation, management wants the
employee to do the task assigned, and only that task. Do this. When it is
complete, do that. Initiative is not welcome. Just
compliance. The benefit for the employer is that he can maintain
total control. The downside for the employer is that each employee's task
must be followed up on, monitored, and approved. This process is time
consuming for the employer and boring for the employee. Benjamin's
behavior was a product of gofer delegation.
In stewardship delegation, management takes
the time to train, teach, and guide each employee. The initial phase takes
longer but subsequently, each employee is on his own to do his job in its
entirety. Stewardship delegation is focused on
results, instead of method. It gives the employee a choice of
methods and makes him responsible for the
result. Stewardship offers clear, up front, mutual understanding and
commitment regarding expectations. The employee becomes a contributing,
innovative, responsible team member. The downside for management is the
initial training time and the need to give up control by trusting and
having confidence in the employee.
Children want responsibility: Children want to feel
important and needed . They want to be contributing members of the family. By
receiving real responsibility through training and clear expectations, a
child will gain both confidence and experience in making quality
decisions. It is important to note that a parent must not assign token
tasks designed to keep the child busy. The child must be given real
authority over specific family needs. This evolving
sense of stewardship will cause the child, when outside of the home, to
thrive in circumstances requiring leadership - thereby illuminating the
secret brilliance within. |