5

The Director

Management Functions

Imagine for a moment a boy who’s in trouble with his teacher. He knew what he was supposed to say and do, but, in the heat of the moment, he goofed. Now, he can explain what he should have done. He’s in tears because he didn’t do it. But at the time, he “didn’t remember.” How does this fit into a model of personal competence? Does this story of our little boy — who knew, but couldn’t do — have anything to do with intelligence?

Many psychologists believe that we need to allow for a sort of CEO for the brain — an executive function that makes sure we apply our potential as well as we can. Potential is one thing, using our potential well is quite another.

In this chapter, we’ll look at the skills your child will need in order to translate potential intelligence into effective action. At the end of the chapter, I’ll give you a list of Management Functions, taken from researchers who have studied metacognition, mindfulness, deficient cognitive functions, and executive functions. “The Director” summarizes these crucial skills — among the most important if your child’s Intelligence River is to flow strongly.

Why the Director Matters So Much

Imagine the most marvelous orchestra ever assembled: The world’s best musicians, playing the world’s finest instruments. Deep natural gifts combined with years of exacting training and personal commitment. Everything needed to give you the concert of your life. Everything? Now imagine that our orchestra has no director. No one who’s in charge. No one to select music, manage finances, schedule rehearsals, referee personal conflicts. No one to set the tempo, interpret the music, coordinate the efforts of the parts. Count on it — your concert just became cacophony!

The best brain in the world can’t show its worth without adequate control and management. No matter how good the individual parts of the orchestra, we still need a director to coordinate and lead them. In the last section, we looked at a model where a variety of abilities combine to give us a product called personal competence. But we should really have said potential personal competence — competence ready to be expressed. If you don’t direct your potential intelligence, it goes to waste. If the potential of a powerful brain isn’t managed well, the result is failure and frustration. Ironically, the more powerful the brain that’s being mismanaged, the greater the frustration, and the more devastating the failure.

Management Functions determine how well we actually use our potential. They are all the skills and strategies which can improve the way our intelligence makes contact with the world. They’re “where the rubber meets the road.” They are a curious mix: Some are tools (like calendars), some are mental strategies (like the methods of formal logical reasoning), some are personal characteristics (like the ability to maintain focus). All of them are either aids or blocks to a brain’s ability to show its stuff. These Management Functions allow us to apply our foundation abilities, our multiple intelligences, and our unique combination of potential personal competence so we can reach our goals in the real world.

The image of an orchestra’s conductor — the Director — gives us a remarkably accurate picture of these Management Functions and how, through them, we direct and coordinate our abilities in order to meet our goals. The Director’s job is to see that the talent of the orchestra is expressed in fine music. Using her individual package of specialized techniques and strategies, she guides, focuses, controls the overall flow of energy, and balances the contribution of the different sections — “orchestrates.” She keeps track of the overall plan and sees that it’s followed, keeping each section in tune and on time. She controls the pacing and sequencing of the music. It’s the Director who turns a collection of potentially capable musicians into a superior orchestra.

When we think of a conductor, we picture someone standing on the podium, wielding a baton. But many of the Director’s most important tasks are unseen, occurring long before the performance. She must be part of the team that lays long-term plans for the orchestra, building up weaker sections and helping strong ones develop even further. She needs to find music that will take maximum advantage of the orchestra’s abilities. She must help establish conditions that will allow the whole orchestra to maintain motivation and focus. Without the Director we have only a motley collection of individuals. With her good work, the individuals work together to give us a symphony — “a harmonious sound.” We’ll see that many of the skills we call a child’s Director are the same — tools you work to develop long before the “performance.”

You’ll see how vital and universal the role of the Director is if you reread that last paragraph and think about other kinds of directors. It changes hardly at all if we think of the director of a play, the director of a large corporation — or a parent helping direct a child’s development! Of course, the director I'm talking about here is the part of a child’s brain which does those same tasks internally.

All the theories we’ve looked at so far have skipped over this important management piece. Their concern is with the nature of intelligence — its “shape.” Even Real-World Intelligence Theory, which is all about intelligence in the world, doesn’t have much to say about coordinating all our competences effectively. But if our interest is in how well a potential is getting used, we have to strongly include the Director.

In my day-to-day work with children, problems with the Director are the most common source of trouble for kids who aren’t succeeding in school. Paradoxically, this is often especially true for kids with high academic potential, who feel with acute pain the frustration of not being able to apply their potential effectively. Here’s the good news: These critical Management Functions that I’m calling the Director are remarkably easy to improve.

In the next sections, I offer several ways to deepen our understanding of the Director. Each has something important to tell us, so it’s worth looking at each one in a bit of detail. At the end of the chapter, I’ll pull their different perspectives into a list of Management Functions — a description of the skills of a good Director.