Losing Control

By Pat Williams 

The term “control freak” is clearly not a compliment. A control freak is a person who has an excessive, obsessive, compulsive need to control people and situations.

It’s normal to want to be in control of our lives and careers. It’s unhealthy, however, to be so obsessed with control that we harm our relationships, make other people miserable and feel anxious and tense when we can’t control every aspect of a situation. We need to be able to tolerate uncertainty and even a degree of chaos in our life.

Did you ever have a control freak for a boss? Remember how he or she made you feel?

Controlling bosses delegate responsibility but no authority. They don’t trust you, and they won’t let you exercise any initiative or creativity. They’re always looking over your shoulder and driving you crazy with their obsessive behavior. They make you hate your job.

One reason that control freaks are so unbearable is that they are totally self-centered. Because they demand to be in control, they care only about their needs and wants. Your feelings are of no interest to them. Make a decision and they’ll reverse it—and probably humiliate you in front of your coworkers. Organizations headed by control freaks usually have high turnover and low morale.

Trying to coexist with a control freak is miserable enough. Being a control freak is even worse.
You may remember Judith Viorst as the author of the classic children’s book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. She has also written a book for adults who are control freaks or who have to live around control freaks. After the release of her book Imperfect Control: Our Lifelong Struggles with Power and Surrender, she told an interviewer that a lot of people have a controlling streak in them.

“But,” she added, “a full-fledged control freak is someone who can’t stop controlling, controls inappropriately and controls all the time. They’re really scared, and if they don’t control every piece of a situation the world will turn to dust, the project will fail, their life will be ruined. And some of them are very anxious about being controlled, so it’s a preemptive strike. If I don’t control you, you’ll control me.”

If you want to be cured of being a control freak, I have two words for you: professional sports. In the sports business, you soon discover that there are some factors you can control pretty well—and there are some factors you can’t control worth beans. If you can’t tell one from the other, you’ll end up going crazy.

In sports, you can control your roster of players, your coaching staff and the training and physical conditioning of your team. You can control the execution of your game plan. You can coach your players to control the ball and control the clock.

But you can’t control the surprises your opponent springs at you on the field or the court. You can’t control what the referees and umpires think they see. You can’t control serious injuries to key players. You can’t control the outrageous things the reporters write about you on the sports page. You can’t control the stuff the fans throw at you from the stands.

Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden had a lot to say about what you can control, what you can’t control and how to tell the difference. He once said, “Focus all your efforts on what is within your power to control. Physical conditioning is one of those things. How your mind functions is another.” He recalled that he learned this lesson from his father. “My dad used to say, ‘If you get caught up in things over which you have no control, it will adversely affect those things over which you have control.’ You have little control over what criticism or praise outsiders send your way. Take it all with a grain of salt.”

So when it comes to control, don’t freak! Control what you can, and let go of everything else.

The Random Factor
Dennis Green, former head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, once observed, “Football is a strange game. It’s played with a funny-shaped ball that bounces a lot of ways. As a head coach, you only work on the things you can control. You cannot control the bounce of the ball.” Longtime Rams linebacker Jim Collins agreed. “You can’t control the outcomes. Luck is and always will be a factor.”

Now, I don’t believe in “luck” in the sense of a capricious supernatural force that controls my destiny. But I do believe in the “random factor.” In life, there are always variables you can’t account for, factors you can’t control. You control what you can—but you have to let go of the random factors, the unexpected bounces that the ball of life sometimes takes.

Mickey Rivers was a major league baseball player in the 1970s and 1980s (he played with the Angels, Yankees and Rangers). Mickey was known for his speed and hitting—and for his quirky, but realistic, outlook on life. He once said, “There ain’t no sense worryin’ about things you got control over, ’cause if you got control over ’em, ain’t no sense in worrying. And there ain’t no sense worryin’ about things you got no control over, ’cause if you got no control over ’em, ain’t no sense worryin’.”

Most of what happens to us—perhaps as much as 90 percent—is beyond our control. I can control the car I’m driving, but if the driver of the car behind me is text-messaging instead of watching the road, there’s not a thing I can do to keep from being rear-ended. You may be diligent and hardworking in your job—but an industry-wide recession could cost you your job, and there’s not a thing you can do about it.

Our lives are affected by the weather, politics, the economy, crime, family members, friends, and all sorts of random factors. When things happen that we can’t control, we are forced to respond. Some people respond by ranting about the unfairness of life. Others respond by asking, “How can I turn this situation to my advantage? How can I learn a lesson from it? How can I redeem some benefit from it? At the very least, how can I find some detour around it so that I can keep moving toward my goals?”

Lou Holtz, the longtime head football coach at Notre Dame, is a big advocate of the Serenity Prayer, which was written in the 1930s by the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr:

God grant me the serenity to
accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the
things I can, and the wisdom
to know the difference.

“Like a lot of people,” says Holtz, “I’ve struggled with the things I cannot control. It was difficult to remain serene when the actions or inactions of others led to outcomes I thought were wrong. It’s natural to become frustrated when things affect you that are beyond your control. That’s why praying for serenity is so important in coaching.”

As Jesus said, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” (Matt. 6:27). If we can stay focused on controlling the things we can control while letting go of the things we can’t, then we will save ourselves a lot of time, worry and stomach lining.

The People Factor
In addition to the “random factor,” there is the “people factor.” People are just as uncontrollable as any blind force of nature. In fact, we’re actually better off if we don’t try to control other people. This is especially true in the business world.

You can never be successful in business by controlling the people who work with you or for you. Whether you are a boss, a mid-level manager or an employee, your goal should always be to empower, not control, the people around you. In The People Principle, Ron Willingham, speaker, author and founder of Integrity Systems, observes:

Empowering people means, in a sense, relinquishing control. And many managers equate having control with how valuable they are to their organizations.

This is bad thinking. Often, keeping control limits productivity. If you’re a person who micromanages, you’ll just naturally limit your productivity. There aren’t enough hours in the day for you to be involved in every decision your people have to make. . . .

Control is a paradoxical, illusional thing. Often when you think you have it, you don’t. Often when you think having it is important to keep your job, you lose your position by hanging on to it. Control may give people a sense of power, but the more they rely on it, the more their chances of losing power increase.

Success occurs when an enterprise grows beyond one person’s ability to assert control. When the founder can no longer control every aspect of the organization, it means that people are empowered to make decisions and initiate actions that can produce great rewards.

Joe Born is an entrepreneur and founder of Neuros Technology, a Chicago-based manufacturer of audio and video devices. “Broadly speaking,” he says, “entrepreneurs have to learn to give up control. It’s painful. It’s something I and every entrepreneur struggle with every day. I walk the halls of this company now, and there are meetings going on and I don’t even know what they’re about. It’s very uncomfortable, when I used to know everything.”

Herb Kelleher, cofounder and former CEO of Southwest Airlines, puts it more succinctly: “Never had control. Don’t want control.” John A. Byrne, senior writer at Business Week, agrees: “Companies that thrive will be led by people who understand that, in business as in nature, no one person can ever really be in control.”

What is true in the business world is true in other organizations, including churches. Rick Warren, founding pastor of Southern California’s Saddleback Church, said, “In any organization you have to decide whether you want growth or control. You cannot have both.”

Even if you wanted to be able to control people, it’s impossible. People are, by the very nature of human free will, uncontrollable. People will sometimes misunderstand you, misinterpret your actions, gossip about you, lie to you (or about you), criticize you, mistreat you or hate you—even when you’ve done nothing to deserve it. You can’t control them.

So what are you going to do? Are you going to marinate in anger and resentment over the people you can’t control, or are you going to let go of such people, focus on the things you can control and get on with your life? It’s totally up to you.

In his book Goals, self-help author Brian Tracy wrote, “Every time you criticize someone else, complain about something you don’t like, or condemn someone else for something that they have done or not done, you trigger feelings of negativity and anger within yourself. And you are the one who suffers. Your negativity doesn’t affect the other person at all. Being angry with someone is allowing him or her to control your emotions, and often the entire quality of your life, at long distance.”

It’s true. If you do not control your emotions, you allow other people to control you. Booker T. Washington, author of Up from Slavery, put it this way: “I will let no man control me by making me hate him.”

You can’t control other people—and you shouldn’t want to. It has been said that the only thing worse than a person you can’t control is a person you can. So let go of the need to control other people and their behavior. Accept the fact that others will sometimes disappoint you and even turn against you. Be tolerant and forgiving. Take it in stride. You can’t control what people do, but you can always control your attitude and your response.

Your Locus of Control
Psychologists tell us that people who feel that they are in control of their own lives tend to be happy, well-adjusted and successful. People who feel that their lives are controlled by outside forces see themselves as unhappy victims of fate. In psychology, this concept is known as “locus of control theory.” This principle divides people into two groups: internals (those who see their lives as being under their own control) and externals (those who see their lives as being controlled by other people and outside forces and events).

The word “locus” means place, center or focus. If you feel that the place of control in your life is centered within you, then you feel confident, empowered and ready to take on the world. If you feel that the locus of control over your life is outside of you, that it’s in the hands of other people or the hands of an uncaring fate, then you will feel powerless, fearful, resentful and depressed.

A student with a strong internal locus of control will say, when receiving a poor grade, “I earned this grade through my lack of effort.” A student with an external locus of control will say, “I got this grade because my teacher hates me.” If you have an external locus of control, you will fall into the habit of blaming other people for your problems while making excuses for yourself. You’ll feel bitter, helpless and frustrated—and you’ll see yourself as a failure in life. But if you have an internal locus of control, you’ll face life with a confident can-do attitude that will enable you to excel and succeed.

People with an external locus of control see themselves as victims. People with an internal locus of control see themselves as victorious. Where is your locus of control? Do you feel controlled by family members, past events, an unhappy childhood, a miserable job, financial pressure or some other external force? If so, you need to change the way you look at your life. You need to acknowledge the simple but life-transforming fact that you control you.

Obviously, there are forces in your life that are beyond your control. If an earthquake or hurricane knocks down your house, there’s not much you can do about that. But even when disaster strikes out of the blue, you can exercise internal control. You can choose your own attitude. You can choose how you will respond when things happen that you can’t control. As someone once said, “If you want to be successful, put your effort into controlling the sail, not the wind.”

This article is taken from The Pursuit by Pat Williams (Regal). To order his book click here!

From The Pursuit, © 2008 by by Pat Williams. Published by Regal Books, www.regalbooks.com. Used by permission. All rights reserved.