By Stephen D. Bruce, PHR
Editor, HR Daily Advisor
For all of us who pride ourselves on being in control of things at all times, Mother Nature recently served up a big reminder —in the form of Hurricane Irene—that we’re not said business and leadership blogger Dan Oswald in a recent edition of The Oswald Letter.
A lot of executives mistakenly believe they’re in control. They think they’ve climbed to the top of the ladder to be in charge. But really the best we can do as managers is, well, manage. All the planning and preparation in the world doesn’t allow you to control events, it only helps you influence or affect the outcome.
It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about your customers, employees, shareholders, or a hurricane, you can’t control what they do. Knowing the difference between controlling and managing can help you to focus on the things you can truly control.
A large part of our operations is based in Connecticut along the shore. As it became apparent Hurricane Irene was going to batter the East Coast, including where our office is, we began to make plans that would allow us to respond appropriately and keep the business running.
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We couldn’t control what the weather was going to do. We couldn’t prevent the hurricane from ravaging the coast. So we focused on what we could control, and that was our response to the hurricane. We made our contingency plans and attempted to consider all the potential interruptions to our business. Of course, there are always unexpected consequences with a natural disaster, but we did the best we could. And, should something like this occur again, we’ll be even better prepared having learned from this experience.
So now that you know you’re not in control, what do you do? Throw your hands up in the air and admit defeat? I mean, what’s the use of trying if you’re not in control? No, you focus on managing those things within your influence.
You can manage the people who work for you, but you can’t control them. Knowing the difference will make you a better manager. You can motivate your people. You can inspire them. You can teach them. And you can manage your team. But you can’t control them. People are human. They have minds of their own and will often act in unpredictable ways. You can manage what they do, but you can’t control them.
You can influence your customers’ perceptions of your company and even their purchases, but you can’t control them. Recognizing the difference will help you provide better products and services. Good marketing is about influencing customers’ buying patterns. It works to convince them that your product or service is superior in some way to the competition. But if you could control your customers’ decision-making, you’d have quite the monopoly.
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You communicate with shareholders to inform, but you can’t control whether they buy or sell your company’s stock. Each shareholder has his or her unique way of determining whether or not to hold your company’s stock. Many rely on someone else to make those decisions for them. You can extol the virtues of owning the stock and make promises of riches to come, but what each shareholder does with his or her shares is beyond your control.
Whether you’re religious or not, the Serenity Prayer by the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, which has been adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous and others, contains a great message for all of us:
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.
Spend some time today thinking about those things that are within your control and those that are not. Stop trying to change the things that are beyond your control. Commit to focusing on managing, and stop wasting time trying to control. Once you do, you’ll find you’re much more efficient and effective as a manager.
To be effective as a manager or leader, you need to focus on helping others be better. The only worthwhile effort relative to control is to control your own thoughts, emotions and behavior to achieve your desired goals.