Who’s In Charge Here? How Much Control Is Enough?

During a transition to a team-oriented process at an electronics firm, one of the supervisors was very concerned about losing control. He had been in the leadership role for a long time and worried that the changes he was learning in his leadership training would make him look weak so he was taking steps to exert his control and prove a point. At the onset of the change initiative, a lot of tedious, repetitive tasks were required. Because of the high levels of rework a lot of time was spent dismantling partly completed circuit boards and sorting the components into reusable and non-reusable parts. Highly paid, skilled workers had to sit at benches and do this job by hand hour after hour. Not surprisingly, they became bored. They would talk to each other, crack jokes and do whatever they needed to do to make the task bearable. Their supervisor tried time after time to get them to, “Stop talking and get back to work.” At one point, we discovered that he had installed a tape recorder under one of the workbenches so he could gather evidence against them. He was sure that he could make the case for disciplinary action. “That’ll show ‘em.” Guess what? His strategy didn’t work. Besides being an illegal invasion of privacy, it was just plain stupid. What a sure way to get your employees to use all of their energy and creativity to discover new ways to avoid doing what you want them to do. After a few heated and serious “conversations,” we decided to arrange the workers around a single, round table and let them talk all they wanted to. Their productivity went way up. The number of mistakes went way down. What a surprise!

Stunningly, some leadership training still teaches the old, discredited management principles. On a website called “eHow money,” I found this advice in an article called, “How to Control Employees at Work.” “As a leader, you should reestablish the pecking order… . Perform a surprise evaluation. Offer incentives. …. flex time, longer lunches, time off, casual clothes days… can be used to get employees in line…. Separate problem employees. Follow through on your rules [I actually agree with that one], Motivate your employees…. [through] positive forms of manipulation…. Use these types of manipulations to manifest your control of employees at a workplace without playing mind games that will ultimately hinder their progress.”[1] Wow! Sign me up. I want to work there. Really?

You would think that by now, most of us would know better. Fortunately, most current management advice does make a lot more sense. A Harvard Business School article called, “Why Your Employees Are Losing Motivation,” says, “Most companies have it all wrong. They don’t have to motivate their employees. They have to stop de-motivating them.

The great majority of employees are quite enthusiastic when they start a new job. But in about 85 percent of companies, our research finds, employees’ morale sharply declines after their first six months—and continues to deteriorate for years afterward. That finding is based on surveys of about 1.2 million employees at 52 primarily Fortune 1000 companies from 2001 through 2004, conducted by Sirota Survey Intelligence (Purchase, New York).

The fault lies squarely at the feet of management—both the policies and procedures companies employ in managing their workforces and in the relationships that individual managers establish with their direct reports.”[2] Taking that idea to its logical conclusion, those companies would be better off with no management at all. At least, the employees’ motivation would not keep plummeting.

Like a lot of management principles, control is not necessarily a bad thing. W. Edwards Deming transformed the Japanese (ultimately, the entire world’s) manufacturing industry with statistical process control. In fact, his main message was for leaders to learn to control the process rather than their employees. But, a single person cannot control the entire process. She or he needs the help of all team members. And, ironically, the less you try to control your people, the more control you can have over the process. We hire competent, skilled people for a reason. Letting them do what they are hired to do is smart. Phil Harrison, CEO of the architecture firm Perkins+Will, talks about complex building projects. “While it is important for leaders to be directly involved, it is just as critical to give control to others and empower them to lead the charge. The leaders of organizations almost certainly will not be the most expert people to lead change initiatives on a daily basis. They must remain visibly involved, but they should not try to control the effort. In fact, leaders need to have a high degree of confidence in their organization’s ability to drive change. Letting go of control means being prepared to accept a relatively high degree of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (or VUCA, as they say in the U.S. military).

Big and difficult problems need comprehensive and diverse solutions, and these types of solutions are unlikely to originate from a single person or point of view. Complex solutions come out of complex networks or systems. Leaders need to realize that the richness of an organization’s collective brain trust will most likely come up with the best solutions to the immense challenges of sustainability, and they need to allow this system to do its work.”[3]

The leader’s job is to create a culture where people want to do what they were hired to do. Organizations are systems. They are complex. They are designed to perform complex tasks using complex processes. They are systems of relationships that need to be nurtured. Leadership training should teach participants to understand such systems. It should also teach the communication skills (listening, unambiguous feedback, and win/win conflict resolution) that will enable those leaders to build relationships and facilitate the control of the processes that will bring the system under control and produce a high quality product or service. Leadership training that emphasizes controlling employees will reduce the amount of control over the system’s crucial processes. Over-controlling team members is a formula for mediocrity.