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Tuesday, August 18, 2009

The Control Myth

Control is a very much misunderstood concept. The bottom line is this:
Self control is a good thing, an essential thing. Attempts to control others are doomed and will be harmful to all concerned.

This is difficult to write and it is difficult to publish in a public forum. I know it will be resisted and may stimulate reactions from others that will not be beneficial to me. I have made a conscious decision (self-control) and hereby renounce any expectation with respect to responses, reactions, and results.

I retain my hope that the statement may create thought processes that lead others to alter the ways in which they interract with their world.

The conscious reader may note that my statements regarding control are framed relative to people. Control of inanimate objects and such abstraction as process is not only good, it is mandatory. Please note, however, that control of (for example) a process is not the same as control of the people involved in it.

You may have heard of Total Quality Control (TQC) or Statistical Process Control (SPC) and the need to have and use controlled process in order to insure high quality production. A study of these methods has led me to a new understanding of control.

When we think of control we typically associate notions of power. I control something when I can make it bend to my will. A manager is said to control an organization or function. A driver may be fined for failure to have control over their vehicle. This is one of the reasons why TQC and SPC have such a diffcult time gaining traction in the business world in the U.S. (the environment with which I am most familiar). The control that is the core of Quality methods has nothing whatsoever to do with my or anyone else's will. If anything we need to look at it from the opposite direction.

A process is either functioning within understood parameters (in control) or it is not. If it is not, we say it is out of control. What we mean is that we have just discovered that we don't understand the parameters as well as we thought we did. Now we can assert our will to change the process so that the new (improved) understanding becomes part of it. It is potentially life changing to realize that the process is literally in control--that it, is has the control. The evidence is that it produces what it produces. If we desire to change what is produced, we must listen to the process, understand its needs, and give it what it needs.

To take a giant step that may require backfill later, if I have a need to control something, the variability or consistency of output for example, I must give up control to the process. If I have a need to control the people, I must give control to them as keepers of the process. They have a far better ear for what the process is asking for and can give it what it needs. When they can't give it what it needs, they will come to me and tell me what I must do.

To have control, I must give up control.

Life is a process.

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