The Great Control Trick

If you ever get the opportunity to personally spend time with me, or enough time with me, you will notice I have a tendency to use a cache of personal catchphrases. One of my personal favorites and one that I use frequently is "I just do what I'm told."

"Just ... Let ... Go"*

"I just do what I'm told" is simply the abdication of power. I like using it when there are four or more people at a restaurant and we are simply dividing the bill four ways. I know dividing by four is not difficult.  But when you start figuring the tip, adding the tip onto the bill, dividing by four, collecting the money & making sure it's all there, I am simply not interested in that responsibility.  So I tell my fellow patrons, "just tell me how much I owe."  And if it seems reasonable, I plop down whatever cash is requested.

It also works at home.  When describing what it's like to live in my house, I say, "I just do what I'm told." I have my space, my music, and my computer.  When I'm told to straighten up the house or take out the garbage, I generally comply.  The trade off is I don't have to be bothered with decisions such as paint colors, what drawer forks go in, where pillows are placed and what I'm going to eat for dinner. These decisions and many more like it are issues in a house that I have absolutely no interest in.

And it worked when I was a child. I remember when I was between the ages of 5 and 10, I liked running and jumping around. It was if I was a human Tigger.  For the most part, running and jumping outside was fine.  But running inside the house was a whole different matter.  And this would drive my father completely insane.  If he caught me running in the house, he would yell for me to return to the point of origin and resume my travels in a slower paced manner.  If he felt the miles per hour were still too quick, I would have to repeat it until I got it right.  By now, you're probably picturing a scene from "Mommie Dearest".  But in reality, as annoying as the process of returning to the original spot, I think I delighted in this game.  I delighted in my father's attempt to control this.  Just recently he reminded me of these incidents, and his amazement that I NEVER learned. I would still run. I would get yelled at. I would look at my father with the face that said, your rules make no sense, then I would walk. And when it came time to run in the house again, I did it regardless of my dad's presence.

There's Control In Compliance

What does each of these stories have in common?  The obvious answer is that I acted in compliance.  Perhaps another answer is that I gave up control.

The first answer has the connotation that I had no choice.  The connotation behind the second answer is that I chose to give up control.  And that is the Great Control Trick. By making a conscious choice to let someone else have control, you post facto, have maintained control.

To put this into more of a business perspective, the best example I can think of it to describe this is the use of Tai Chi as a martial art. Tai Chi is mainly practiced for its health benefits and in the Western Hemisphere it is typically seen as a series of slow motion movements practiced in parks in larger cities. It is commonly taught here at community colleges and martial arts studios. The fascinating aspect of Tai Chi is that for those who are extremely well trained, it can be used as a serious martial art.  When practiced this way, the movements are a form of self-defense in combat.  The expert is accustomed to the appropriate change in response to an outside force and knows when and how to yield to an incoming attack as opposed to facing it head on.  Obviously as managers and HR professionals we do not face these types of Bruce Lee's in the workplace.  But metaphorically I think there is a lesson there.  Sometimes managers and HR professionals believe only in traditional means of control: facing it head on.  Whereas by yielding to the attack it never affects you or your business and the attacker/attack continues to move past you. I would not agree that every situation should be met with a yielding perspective.  I do think the ability to yield and maintain control over a situation is a skill that can be incredibly useful. And more importantly can be a useful alternative to the approach of always facing it head on.

What About Bob

I will admit, I'm not a devout book reader anymore.  I want books to grab me by the throat, bang my brain into submission and make me bow down to its glory.  I know it's a lot to expect, but that's how I think it should be. My point is, if I make a book recommendation, I'm pretty f@#$ing serious about it. So if you have not read, "The No Asshole Rule" by Bob Sutton by now, stop reading this right now and download it to your Kindle.  Two reasons: first of all Bob's a lot smarter than me; second, this concept should be adopted by every company in the world.

The other thing about Bob is that he is writing a new book entitled, "Good Boss, Bad Boss" and for the Harvard Business Review he shared a glimpse of it with an article called, 12 Things Good Bosses Believe. I love these so much; I am reprinting the list here:
   1.  I have a flawed and incomplete understanding of what it feels like to work for me.
   2. My success — and that of my people — depends largely on being the master of obvious and mundane things, not on magical, obscure, or breakthrough ideas or methods.
   3. Having ambitious and well-defined goals is important, but it is useless to think about them much. My job is to focus on the small wins that enable my people to make a little progress every day.
   4. One of the most important, and most difficult, parts of my job is to strike the delicate balance between being too assertive and not assertive enough.
   5. My job is to serve as a human shield, to protect my people from external intrusions, distractions, and idiocy of every stripe — and to avoid imposing my own idiocy on them as well.
   6. I strive to be confident enough to convince people that I am in charge, but humble enough to realize that I am often going to be wrong.
   7. I aim to fight as if I am right, and listen as if I am wrong — and to teach my people to do the same thing.
   8. One of the best tests of my leadership — and my organization — is "what happens after people make a mistake?"
   9. Innovation is crucial to every team and organization. So my job is to encourage my people to generate and test all kinds of new ideas. But it is also my job to help them kill off all the bad ideas we generate, and most of the good ideas, too.
  10. Bad is stronger than good. It is more important to eliminate the negative than to accentuate the positive.
  11. How I do things is as important as what I do.
  12. Because I wield power over others, I am at great risk of acting like an insensitive jerk — and not realizing it.

Immediately following this list came the question, "did I miss anything?" 

Bob-I would like to add #13: Sometimes the best way to control situations is to give up control over it and just yield.

Now you tell me, did he miss anything? Hit me with #14, #15, #16, etc. Or tell me how much you love control, or how much you love to comply.


*This is a quote from the movie "Fight Club".  This is the scene in which Brad Pitt convinces Ed Norton to just let the car crash.