control – From the desk of Adam Thomas

Think further

When we make decisions, hopefully, we aren’t just thinking about the very next step.

Unless it is simple (rare) our decisions affect many people after the initial reaction. There are second order effects, sometimes third or fourth.

Emotions, as good as they can be, often just consider the next step.

For example, when we are angry about something our business partner does, we may think, “I’ll get revenge.” This act doesn’t consider the relationship or the business. We are just satisfying our emotions (which is venting). We miss out on what happens “after next.”

One positive from acknowledging and settling our emotions is we get the chance to stop living in the moment and consider a few moves in advance.

Put people’s feet to the fire, but don’t hold them there

Control feels good.

The feeling you get when someone does a task exactly what you want them feels fantastic.

It comes with a serious trade-off.

Trying to run people’s lives is exhausting. It doesn’t scale. Most importantly, it caps their ceiling. You limit their potential.

The alternative is to challenge them. Put your person in a position to win, make a landing zone, and let them go.

Make no mistake; there is more risk involved. If you can’t write the map, you rely on them to give you a post-mortem. This ambiguity causes errors. When you combine mistakes with some ambiguity, it feels worse.

There is a major upside here.

In my experience, every time I controlled what they (person working for me) did, I’d get maybe, half of their potential.

When I compare that to when I challenged them, I got closer to 75% to 95%. Then, every once in a while, I’d see the person’s potential level up.

My reward for dealing with the ambiguity and giving them agency was someone who I could trust. For that trust, they would delight me.

Agency matters. Let them have it.