Control Freak

There are some control freaks who don’t even bother apologising for being late, or for missing a meeting, or for any other situation where they’ve let others down. This isn’t too surprising given the ultimately narcissistic view that control freaks have where other people simply don’t matter.

What is surprising though is the effect this has on their reputation. In anyone else this would seem rude and would over time become recognised as an unforgiveable flaw in someone’s character. But in the weird topsy-turvy world of control freaks it actually strengthens their reputations in the minds of the sheep that they are trying to surround themselves with.

You hear the same excuse so often – “Well they must be doing something very important”. So the sheep not only forgive the rudeness but take it as a sign that someone is truly important. It seems they think that the only good reason someone would have for being rude is because they are doing something so important. That because the sheep couldn’t possibly admit the control freaks are doing it because they just don’t care about others, because if that were true then it would mean the sheep admitting that others see them as worthless, which cuts too deep to even acknowledge. So they would rather persist in the fantasy that others are only ever rude for the noblest of motives, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

To make it even worse, implicit in this excuse is a view that people who are polite and do apologise are obviously doing things that are less important because they can take the time to be human. Remarkable!

I’ve noted previously that control freaks manipulate their past unashamedly and this would seem like an opportunity to catch them out. After all there are bound to be some records or some people around from that time who can remember the truth and that can expose the lies. The foolish control freaks who think they are invincible make claims to university degrees they don’t have or other easily verifiable facts and so do get caught out, but this rarely works for clever control freaks because they rarely directly lie. Instead they manipulate others into rewriting history for them and so manipulate their past without culpability.

There is a glimmer of hope though as this rewritten history can be their achilles heel in a job interview which is their most vulnerable time, when they are voluntarily giving up a power base to try for a bigger one. But striking that achilles heel requires a degree of rigour and principle that very few have.

One reason this is not easy is because ruthless control freaks will have been trying to control the interview for some time and so will go into it have exerted influence over:

• Some of the expectations of the candidates. For example they may have spent some time spreading the meme that as the incumbent in the role was appointed as an outsider this has led to him missing the mark as a result.
• Some of the questions. For example they might have made exaggerated public defenses of the staff in that area, far beyond what is needed, and so can expect questions on how they think the staff are perceived and what support they will give them.
• Even some of the interviewers. Yes, a ruthless control freak will have been after this job for years, they may even have tried for it a couple of times before and failed and so spent some time cultivating those who might one day end up as interviewers.

And so they may have already prevented this weakness from being exploited by some high hurdles to cross. You can even the score a bit by ensuring that psychometric tests are carried out in advance, checking references thoroughly and the like, but you will still start at a disadvantage.

Let’s suppose for a moment though that you are an interviewer with the intellectual rigour and principles to weed out control freaks, after all if you don’t and they get through then they will weed you out pretty soon, then how can you go about it?

In interview, everyone likes to embellish their past a bit, or adapt it slightly to fit better with the role they are applying for, perhaps by emphasising some points and omitting others, but control freaks go so far beyond that. Not necessarily because they want to, but because they have to and this is how they can be caught out.

A control freak comes to interview with a huge multi-dimensional reputation, that’s what got them there after all, but to limit the damage they will emphasise the parts of it that are easiest to prove and de-emphasise the parts that are the most exaggerated. However, and this is the weakness, if someone asks them about one of those exaggerated parts of their history they are attempting to de-emphasise then they can’t easily say “oh no that’s far from the truth, actually my role was only …”, because they get into all sorts of pickles if they do. For a start they voluntarily deflated their reputation and no control freak ever wants to do that, but more importantly it starts the interviewers questioning the quality of the background evidence they have and makes them wonder if they should not check everything just in case.

So a control freak when presented with a question about an inflated aspect of their past will do one of two things, either warmly accept it and so reinforce the history, or deflect away to something else. Either way and you’ve got them. If they deflect they keep bringing them back. Control freaks absolutely hate this and it shows. They bridle, curl their lips, get pointed faces and so on – they simply cannot stand someone controlling them back to where they have tried to move away from. If you can expose this anger well enough, by gently but firmly bringing it back using a point of principle as your reason for doing do “it would be remiss of me not to demonstrate that we had carried out due diligence” then that alone can be enough to kill their chances.

This technique works in general for control freaks. If you can spot their deflection and bring it back on a point of principle then they will fight to the death. A clever one will invoke a claimed higher principle to move on, but if you stick your ground then your principle will win the day.

If they warmly accept their inflated history then you need to keep as accurate a record as possible and make sure that their acceptance is as explicit as possible. Ask if needed, when again you will see the physical discomfort because they hate having to lie outright but here is one instance where they simply have to do it. Again, if they try to avoid it then invoke principle to force the issue “Just to make sure that we have accurate records of our due diligence can you confirm …”.

Of course that’s not going to be enough to stop them at interview. This has to be done in the immediate aftermath of the interview where you have full license to check references and history in as detailed a manner as necessary. The control freak will try to control this process but they are an insider at this point and so don’t have enough information to do so. Even if it is not your job to check references you can still do so – after all your recommendation as an interviewer is at stake.

Once the control freak gets the job and is in position they will do everything possible to erase the history of the interview. They will ask for all the notes of interviewers to go to HR and then in a year or two ask for a ‘deletion of old records’ process to take place or they will claim these are personal information and can only be released with their agreement and so on. So the window for action is limited before the control freak takes total control.

This one took me years to figure because it is just so plain weird.

I used to regularly attend management meetings where we discussed benefits for employees and one member of the team has been persistently arguing in favour of increasing those benefits. Normally I would be very happy with this, after all the better the benefits the happier the people and the better they work. OK, we need to ensure we don’t overdo it so that people can’t leave if they want to, but that’s just a matter of assessing what the market does and not straying too far.

But whenever I heard this person talk in favour of increasing benefits, it always struck a sour note with me. A little voice would go off in the back of my head shouting “But you don’t like most of the people, in fact you seem to detest them, so why are you arguing for this?”.

For a long time I took a deeply suspicious view that this attitude was driven by self-interest. Maybe the benefits they supported were ones they wanted themselves. Or maybe they wanted it to be known that they supported these benefits and were trying to buy favour with the staff.

There are some managers who I’ve struggled to understand for so long because they have an internal separation I could never make myself. That separation is between employees and the individuals themselves. The love the employees but hate the individuals!

Control freaks manipulate their past like nobody else does – unashamedly. A good control freak doesn’t lie outright though, they just talk up their past a bit. In the usual subtle manner where they don’t quite say what it is that they did but make it sound very important. So if they were say a business debt collector in a previous role then they can make it sound like they were a corporate finance restructuring expert, without actually lying outright.

The trick with this is that the sycophants around them latch on to this and talk it up too in order to win favour. One time might be when a control freak is about to give a presentation and the sycophant introducing them will talk about their past in gushing terms, completely buying into every manipulation that the control freak has attempted, but instead of expressing this in the roundabout way the control freak did, the sycophant goes right for the very heart of it and makes all the untrue claims the control freak only hinted at. So they really do introduce them as having been a corporate finance restructuring expert in a previous role, along with all the other improbable roles that only someone two hundred years old could have had.

Now the control freak, when faced with this makes a very different choice from the rest of us. Anyone with any morality makes some attempt to correct the mistake, not matter how gently they might do so. Sometimes, to avoid embarrassing the host they might do it in the lightest possible way by downplaying the introduction rather than contradicting it, often only by turning away, or a slight shake of the head or other body language. Some general egotistical types will accept the mistake without comment and they should not be mistaken for control freaks who, as ultimate narcissists, have to go one step further and take the opportunity to lock in the mistake. They simply can’t resist because manipulation like this is the core of how they operate.

This locking-in is often subtle and non-verbal. When the mistake is made they do the opposite of someone with morals, they look at the sycophant and warmly accept the words or look up and smile. Never enough for someone to later raise as evidence of lying but enough for a watcher to subliminally believe that the history has been confirmed.

A mistake once made and confirmed takes on a life of its own. I’ve seen a control freak have their past talked up so much that even people who knew them back then end up recounting the inflated version as though it were the truth. That’s just how powerful mass hysteria can be.

There you are sitting in a meeting painting a verbal picture of how you want to solve a particular issue and then someone else pipes up with “I think we need to look at the bigger picture here” and starts talking about their solution. Obviously you’re irritated, because this is such a loaded way of interject. It’s basically saying:

• Your thinking is just too narrow and you’re not considering all the things that need to be considered.
• You don’t really understand what is important and what isn’t.

which in turn implies:

• You’re an outsider (or soon to become one) in relation to the centre of power.
• You’ve reached the limit of your abilities and won’t progress further.

The only problem is, that they might actually be right!

So your reaction to the interjection is crucial as you have to avoid any of the numerous traps that this simple phrase lays. The main problem you’ve got is that some in the room, possibly everyone, sees something of value in what has been said and wants to discuss it more. So if you’re not careful you can actually offend the sheep by your response.

• The first trap is to try to pull the conversation back to your solution because you think you’ve got a better understanding of the issues. All that does is reinforce the view that you’re not getting it, making this a beginner’s error.
• The second trap is to simply dismiss what the idiot says, because after all you know they’re an idiot. In that context, as well as offending the others who want to discuss it, it is likely that they will think your response is disrespectful. As everyone knows the higher someone rises the more subtle they become in their disrespect, so obvious disrespect just reinforces the view that you’re not going anywhere.
• The third trap is to argue against it, no matter how well considered and presented your argument is. This might seem surprising since you would expect a good argument to be listened to. Unfortunately, the initial interjection has already set the thought in the minds of the listeners that you have not thought of these things and so talking about them now has no credibility – after all, if you had known about these things then why had you not spoken of them earlier?

That’s why control freaks use the “bigger picture” technique so often – almost nobody they use it against knows how to avoid the traps and those few that do normally only have one tactic available to them – silence, which everyone else takes as agreement. Perfect.

Every now and then though someone does know how to avoid the traps and to counter the move and does it with such aplomb that they can only be admired.

The first thing you do is listen intently when the interjection is made and immediately forget whatever solution you were talking about earlier and concentrate on the new solution. They ask earnest questions, ostensibly to show that you are really understanding it and in your desire to understand you want to explore even wider into the picture, but with the underlying intent of exposing the limits of the interjector’s thinking. Once the interjector starts to falter then your found those limits and you’ve got their way back in. Just push the boundaries of exploration out even further, generally by asking a “would you agree …” type of question to reframe the conversation into an even bigger picture than the one newly introduced. If you can finish that conversation with your questions lingering then you’ve done it – your picture is even bigger than theirs.

Of course the other person could counter at this point and push the boundaries even more in another direction and so verbal fencing begins. Most control freaks aren’t that clever or can’t think that quick on their feet, so if they do fence they are either genuine or a very rare and dangerous beast. In that case, a draw would be the safest bet. After all, you don’t want to be the control freak here.

I love a good celebration, especially after a long project where everyone has worked hard together to deliver the result. Real achievement is always worth celebrating. Of course a celebration like this has some real benefits. It strengthens the team, it helps people learn from their successes and it provides a faster transition to the next project

The problem for a control freak is that they hate this kind of celebration because it recognises real achievement and so gives power, credibility and kudos to people other than them and we can’t have that.

The common mistake that junior control freaks make is to snub the celebration, spoil the party or even block it outright if that have that much control. All that does is breed resentment, which many control freaks are happy with but which ultimately gets in the way.

The more advanced control freak has a far cleverer technique that takes full advantage of the frailty of human perception. They celebrate the ordinary.

That’s right, they pick something that would never normally get more than a nod of approval and turn it into an event to celebrate, from the micro-celebration through to the full blown party. Someone wrote a letter today – woohoo! The first anniversary of rearranging the furniture – let’s send out the invites!

Fake celebration is such a good control technique because it works on so many levels. It fulfills our deep need to party without changing any power balances. It provides a historical record to show just what a good boss they’ve been. Most importantly it uses up the celebration quota and party budget that every organisation maintains, whether explicitly or not, so that there isn’t any quota left for celebrating real achievement.

A downside of being a control freak with a fully controlled and ultra-cautious approach to everything is that people regard them as incapable of innovation or insight. Of course this is completely true, so a control freak needs a special technique for reversing that perception – pointless predictions. This is another technique that relies on the frailty of human memories and the general mass hysteria that a control freak tries so hard to cultivate and exploit.

The control freak starts by identifying a whole set of recent happenings in reverent tones, raising them up from being mundane events. It is important that they don’t provide any comment or analysis on these events individually. They need to say they are significant but never to explain that significance, because if they did then someone might start to use their logical faculties instead of their sheep faculties and see through it, so they mustn’t be given any reason to switch them on.

Then the denouement is a prediction, clearly stated as that, which can be any one of the following:

• predicting the obvious
• predicting that has already happened
• predicting something that can never be tested

But that’s not enough, there are some critical success factors for the prediction:

• It has to be a bit obscure but not too obscure, enough to seem like they’ve done their homework but not enough for anyone to think they are an expert in the field in case they actually meet a real expert. After all a real expert will know how pointless the prediction is.
• It has to have an aura of importance after it. If you can imagine the control freak putting on a face and nodding their head in confirmation after they’ve made the prediction then they’ve set the tone just right.

So what kind of reaction can the control freak expect to this prediction? Well this is the really interesting bit.

1. some people, especially many of those who also want to be regarded as experts in this area, will actually add this prediction to their lexicon rather than challenge it. Feeding off the bullshit is so often easier than trying to avoid it. Yes people really are that weak.
2. others will simple not have a clue about it, won’t apply any rational consideration and will make their entire judgement based on how important they think it is (despite what else they might think they do). This puts them precisely where the control freak wants them.
3. a few will see the prediction for what it is but most of those will do nothing about it. Maybe they are cynical, or want to protect their positions or maybe they just don’t care.
4. which leaves only a very few that can both see through the misdirection and try to do something about it. Sad to say but almost all of those will do so incoherently or confusingly and be savaged by 1 and 2 above for it.
5. the very few that expose the lies accurately and succinctly will be ignored by everyone, including generally 4 because 4 are too busy with their own battles, and so denied the oxygen of publicity.

So, as you can see this is a complex technique to combat but it is possible if you have the nerve. Simply respond with another pointless prediction of your own but make it sound even more important and try not to laugh as you do it.

With misdirection and manipulation a control freak slowly builds their empire up bit by bit. Don’t ever be fooled into thinking that a control freak is not building an empire, they certainly are, it’s just a matter of you spotting what it is. Even if there is no apparent movement then that does not mean they have given up on it. It normally means that they are plotting quietly.

But there comes a time when an extra special push is needed to take total control. A push that overcomes resistance from the enemies that have undoubtedly built up over the years. The final move in the end game.

The first thing you need to do is to pick an enemy, with the following characteristics:

• a well defined minority community but one that is disorganised
• one that is already distrusted even if only very slightly, preferably because they are suspected of bad behaviour of one sort or another
• a community that does not have a good PR machine and is not represented by clear, articulate spokesmen
• a community that reacts badly to anything that is perceived as an attack, the more the better

Once they have been identified all you have to do is shout from the roof tops that the enemy is trying to take control (of the organisation, society, nation, whatever) and the majority have to step in to defend. That’s right, the most hypocritical action possible, accusing others of exactly what you are up to.

There is no need to argue with the enemy, no need to engage them, no need to even listen to what they say – just repeat the mantra that the enemy is storming the gates as loudly and as often as possible. In fact any form of engagement is generally counter-productive. If you act as though the attack is so important that you are abandoning normal social norms towards the enemy then it strengthens your case.

The original distrust in the chosen enemy is all that you need for people to believe you. It’s almost as though they don’t recognise they had that distrust in the first place – it was subliminal. So when they hear you accuse they enemy, something in their head goes “I always knew there was something wrong about them”. From that point on they are willing to believe the enemy is capable of the worst actions, driven by the basest emotions, without even a shred of evidence to support it, just innuendo after innuendo.

Then there is the rallying call to defend the gates. This triggers another astonishing reaction in people that leads them to put all rationality aside, shut down their scepticism and abandon their natural negotiating tendencies. In short it turns thinkers into warriors, almost like magic.

Some of the most conciliatory, conflict-averse, kind and discerning people can be fooled in this way by a combination of their own subconsonscious and some clever manipulation of their deep instincts. Anyone sitting on the fence, wavering at whether to jump, is going to see the passionate views of these remarkable converts, recognise just how out of character this is for them and take that as strong evidence that the attack must be real, assuming that they must have made the decision based on evidence not emotion.

The enemy cannot now do anything about it. Whatever they do will be seen as reinforcing the claims made about their motivation and intentions. If they deny it then of course they are even worse because they are concealing their motives. If they react angrily then they are clearly aggressive attackers on the warpath. So long as they don’t suddenly develop a good PR machine, they are basically screwed.

The longer it goes on the stronger the message gets and it needs to go on for some time for the message to get through to everyone. Where people fail with this technique is because they move too quickly and don’t let the sentiment whip up to fever pitch. But once the sentiment is there the coup de grace is delivered in the form of a simple promise to the majority “give me these powers and I will stop the enemy”. Provided that the message has had long enough time to foment, then the majority willingly grant these powers. They will fall over themselves to do it they are that concerned.

And that’s it – total control is now in place.

Now you might be saying to yourself – “hang on isn’t this the plot of a film?”. Well of course it is! This is that special technique that has been used throughout history by politicians, dictators, priests and CEOs. How else do you think they got that total control?

On a final note, if you are thinking to yourself that you know of at least one occasion where the enemy really were at the gates and you really did have to hand over power, then all can I say is – that’s just how good this technique is!

A few times now I’ve seen the same facial expression of physical discomfort for the same reason and while I doubt all control freaks share it, I bet they all have some physical tick that appears under the same circumstances.

The reason for the discomfort is when they realise they are not going to get the credit for something that someone has done within their perceived area of control. This might be someone who works for them, or a colleague who does something special in an area they also cover or maybe just an area where that they want to move into and seize from others. To be clear though it does not happen when the person who gets the credit is recognised, but only at that point that they realise it won’t be them. The recognition could come a long time later by which time they’ve normally composed themself and put on an appropriate face of support, though not so overdone as to suggest that this is something they could not have done easily.

The mentality of this is interesting because most people assume that credit always goes to the person who deserves it, but control freaks know the truth, which is that the credit is entirely free floating. If they know how then they can pick it up wherever they find it. They don’t even have to pretend that they did the work behind it, nor do they need to cut the real person behind the work from the picture.

All they do is consider the group they want to get the credit from and think what is the single most important point about this work as far as that group are concerned and make it seem that they were the first to spot that. Preferrably by repeating this point over and over. Now if you are the person who actually did the work then you are normally trapped by your own involvement at this point. You can’t focus on just one point because you know you work you did is this rich tapestry of benefits and you feel compelled to at least give a glimpse of this, if not to reveal it in all its glory. Unfortunately the single-mindedness of the control freak in just stressing the one point means that will be all that sticks in most peoples’ minds and they end up with the credit not you.

But if by chance or by design you do spot that one most important point and state that publicly in a way that can’t be hidden or forgotten (they will certainly try both tactics so be prepared) then that’s when you will see the physical discomfort on the face of the one who thinks they’ve missed out. And if they are only a control freak in training then they might make the error of picking a less important benefit and trying to make it sound like that is the most important one. But by then it’s generally too late.

After a while in a senior position, control freaks begin to deliberately adopt an aura around them that everything they do is really hard. This aura, as with many things control freaks do, is developed both by how they talk and their facial expressions.

On the facial side, they wear a pained expression at opportune moments to give the impression of a being in the midst of a serious battle. Never enough to suggest they are actually losing but always enough to suggest that loss is a real possibility and they are taking a genuine risk. The implication of this expression, and the impact they are aiming for, is that they are mightily brave and a hero for taking this on. The reaction they are after is one of awe at their bravery, sympathy for their struggle and rejoicing at their victory. In short, an epic.

After a while they get so used to adopting this expression that they do it even for mundane things like making the coffee. For special occasions they feign an affliction such as a bad leg and then show just how determined they are by pushing through.

It’s from this overuse of the hero expression that we get ridiculous reactions from underlings like congratulating the CF for climbing the stairs or thanking them profusely for doing something trivial that everyone manages to do ten times a day without comment, like making the coffee. That’s partly because they’ve conditioned people to think that everything they do is heroic and partly because people are so grateful they’ve taken the time off from being heroic to be generous and make the coffee. A win win situation really!

The first mistake you can make in this scenario is trying to understand just what it is that is so hard in what the CF is doing. There is simply no way they are going to tell you and you can majorly irritate them just by asking, especially if you miss the “keep out of my business” clues and keep up the questions.

The expected behaviour of sycophants in this scenario is to talk about the struggle but never the subject of the struggle. Worship the hero not the deed. Until it’s finished of course, which is when the deed is all that we talk about because that is now part of the mythology of the hero. And because when it’s finished, nobody can easily assess just how hard it was to do as the evidence is quickly lost, so it’s now safe to talk about.

The second mistake that you can make, and a serious one at that is offer to help with the task at hand. This implies firstly that you might understand what it is the CF is working on, which is obviously impossible, and secondly that you might actually be able to do it, which is frankly insulting. The only worse thing you could do is offer to help in front of others. That will earn you lifelong hostility.

Offering to help with something else is alway good at this time. The best way to do it is to offer to take on something trivial the CF has on their plate but make it sound like you will struggle to do it, adding to the ego boost.

And whatever you do, when you see the finished product don’t say out loud “Well what was so hard about that?”.