The Difference Between 'Controlling' and 'In Control'
First published on October 30, 2019
Here's a distinction one of my clients brought into our work a few months ago. The client said, 'I want to be in control, not controlling'. And there's a powerful difference, especially in a complex world.
In a simple or even complicated world, being controlling worked much better than in does today. (The difference between complicated and complex is worth considering. Complicated, according to the Cynefin model, is something that most people don't know how to do but it is possible to know: think getting a rocket to the moon. Complex, on the other hand, is impossible to know exactly how to do best: think raising a child.)
If you are only focused on something simple or complicated, then getting controlling sometimes works. If I'm controlling, then I'm making sure nothing goes wrong, I'm spreading my skill widely by making everyone do what I think best, I'm using my intelligence and wisdom to help others by guiding them incredibly closely. But it only works so far, and that's what anyone who has had a controlling line manager will have found out. There are times when it just runs into problems.
That's where being in control is different. When we are in control, we are ready to respond. We are influencing but not restricting. We have a plan, perhaps, but we aren't wedded to it: when our wisdom and skill tells us that a different way of operating might help, we are able to take that route instead of holding desperately (controllingly) onto the original set of steps we had in mind.
This even transfers onto our internal experience. Many of us have found the benefit of controlling our internal experience. We can choose what to do, what to think, we can take charge of our life with our mind. But that only takes us so far. It might allow us to create more in the outside world, but it also holds us back from unlocking the wisest, noblest higher parts of ourselves: those come from relaxing into being in control but not controlling of what goes on in our mind.
'How do I make myself less stressed?' is the question of a controlling mind. Being in control means you know that stress will appear sometimes, and you know how to let it pass.
When we are in control, we are sovereign of ourselves. We notice what happens and we respond nimbly. That's what my forthcoming book, The Power to Choose, is about: how do we allow ourselves to be as nimble, skilful and wise as possible in the face of the complex challenges of the world.
And those challenges, before we finish, are worth focusing on. We can't control the input of information that comes to us, in the end. We might be able to control the flow (don't look at your phone before 9am!) but most of us will still, over the course of our week, receive more input than anyone could have dreamed of twenty years ago. But, if we are in control we can respond to it in a more wise and skilful way.
We can't control the important people in our life: our partners, our children, our parents. But we can be in control of our responses to them, of how we are with them, so we are doing our best to make things better for them and not make things worse. We can be in control of responding as skilfully as we can to what they throw at us.
We can't control the political world, which seems to be dividing us more and more, but we can be in control of how we are in that maelstrom, as our friends speak about and share things we disagree with, as politicians take decisions which go against the very core of our being, as all of these things trigger existential and ancient fear in us.
At least, we can be more in control than we were yesterday. None of this is simple and none of it is easy. But it is a vital distinction in the world we live in.