Control Freak

Having worked fairly low down the hierarchy in some places where there was almost an epidemic of consultants, I always believed that the managers that employed them were incompetent fools. After all, in those places, the consultants didn’t bring in any knowledge that didn’t exist within the company already. If only the managers asked the right people, whose expertise they were already paying for, then they wouldn’t need to spend exorbitant amounts on consultants. Pretty obvious, right?

Well no, that was a naive view. In fact those managers were by no means stupid. In fact this action was entirely rational given their controlling nature.

The real reason that senior managers use consultants, when they know perfectly well that there are others in the organisation who are quite capable, is so that they can maintain their empire.

The problem with getting someone else in the organisation involved is that they risk losing control, which is the last thing they want. So using cold logic they decide that rather than lose any control, they will pay someone external to do the work. This has some added advantages:

• In doing so they also increase the kudos of the project. If a manager calls in external reinforcements who are seen as experts in their field, it suggests that the task being undertaken is hugely important and far too difficult to be completed by the usual suspects.
• The manager can always get the consultants to present their findings in the way they want it presented. If someone internal was doing the work then they are less controllable, more likely to be independent and have their own views.
• The consultants are gone once the job is done. If someone wants to probe further into the consultants’ findings or take issue with the methodology then a clever manager will just delay the inquest until the consultants have left. But on the other hand, if the manager needs to distance themselves by ditching the consultants’ work then there is nobody around to be offended or defensive.

So, with all these built-in advantages you can see why the control freak manager, who puts empire protection at a premium, believes that consultants are really quite cheap.

jay Leadership

To some managers, knowledge is power and a lot of their power base is built by accumulating and hiding sources of information.

You can get hints of this all the time – you chat to someone and discover they were talking to this manager the other day and told them something important, but the manager never told you.  Or better still, just when you least expect it they produce some well hidden gem with a flourish as a winning play in an argument.

Needless to say I think secrecy like this is decisive and reduces trust.  I’m not sure some culprits realise just how much of a barrier this represents.  It certainly encourages those that fall foul of this to hide their knowledge as well, which can often be disastrous given just how hard it is for information to flow up.

My alternative approach starts from the principle that all managers have a duty to share their knowledge with their team.  Not just knowledge, but also the sources of the knowledge and even their analysis of it.  This has to be proactive as well, not just reactive.  They can’t just respond well when asked, they actually have to put some effort into identifying the knowledge to share and making it happen.

This can only lead to a stronger team, a more open team and a more trusting team.

jay Leadership

Everyone makes enemies unintentionally.  Someone says something you strongly disagree with, you respond a bit too quickly and before you know it things have gone pear-shaped.

What I find much harder to understand is why some people go out of their way to make enemies.  In particular control freak managers.  These are, after all, generally risk-averse and rational people so why should they do something that seems to only cause problems?

The people they make enemies of appear to be those that resist or defy them, or possibly even just disagree with them.  On the surface this looks like straightforward ego, which surprises me since surely they would have their ego under control.

But I’ve begun to realise that this may be an inescapable side effect of being a control freak.

For the rest of us, if we encounter someone who strongly disagrees then we try to find out what their position is.  We share our position and this starts the process of discussion, negotiation and dialogue.  Crucially the end result of this process is often a new position that both can accept – in essence a compromise.

However, to a control freak this is basically failure.  The whole point about being a control freak is that they have their position and that is that.  Negotiation and compromise are alien concepts.  If anything they are a sign of weakness.

So when presented with a person who refuses to bow to the control, no matter what techniques are used, then this elicits a response of “does not compute”.  This person is then quickly labelled as an enemy and the backup process of isolating and discrediting them begins.

But deliberately making enemies is a very risky strategy.  Career paths are completely unpredictable and someone you make an enemy of today is someone you may be beholden to tomorrow.

jay Leadership

It must be difficult for some managers.  They want to be seen as a great people leaders who help their staff grow and develop.  But at the same time they want to make sure that none of their staff ever look as good as them or even, heaven forbid, better than them.  Because if they did then that would be competition and as we all know, there can only be one boss.

This can prove a tricky balancing act.  What happens if, by some stroke of luck, the people management side actually works and a protege starts to grow and develop?  All of a sudden this has to be stopped.  But you can’t just say to someone “you are getting too good, please stop.” (or maybe you can?) so some other ways need to be tried.

Here are some common ways I’ve spotted:

1. Don’t give credit where credit is due.  Either steal it and take the applause yourself, or supress it and act as if it never happened.
2. Try to undermine the person’s confidence, perhaps by using a little white lie – “I’ve had some reports that you are showing off.”
3. Give them an impossible job to do, one that is bound to fail.  There is always the risk that they might pull it off so best to give them one that they don’t know is doomed.  You could even talk it up a bit so they are excited at the prospect.  Suckers.
4. Starve them of oxygen.  Don’t tell them the important facts they need to know and don’t pass on the things they think you are going to pass on.
5. Finally there are the real dirty tricks – reorganise them out, move them sideways, take away their team and so.

Of course these managers could always continue to encourage their protege and delegate more things to do, freeing up some of their time to do better things.  But for some people that’s just too much like good teamwork for comfort.

jay Leadership