A Letter from chris suarez
THE TRUTH ABOUT DOGECOIN
We all know that person that needs to control everything. They control all the team decisions made at work. They control what restaurant the group eats at for lunch. They control the radio station playing in the car. They control what Netflix movie the family watches at night.
We affectionately call them a “control freak”. And as we read that description and think of that person, perhaps we find ourselves staring squarely in the mirror.
By definition, there is a pernicious nature to the word “control.” It denotes the desire for “the power to influence or direct people's behavior or the course of events.” Put differently, we look to direct another human in order to influence or drive a result that we personally want. It borders on manipulation.
It’s probably a little too deep for an uneducated blog post like this one, but that is when the phrase or title control freak really shows up. Used perhaps too loosely, this term takes it to another level. I didn’t realize it was a medical term or title. It refers to a person with a disorder “characterized by undermining other people...by way of controlling behavior...to dictate a social situation.” That escalated quickly, didn’t it?
Doctors have now found that true control freaks are often perfectionists that are defending themselves against their own inner vulnerabilities based on the belief that when they are not in control they risk reverting back to some childhood angst. Powerful to think of where this behavior might come from, and even still where it could lead us to.
This week I was introduced to a study that made me ask some questions around what causes that need or desire for control. It caused me to look at certain actions or responses I find myself repeating. Years ago in a controlled experiment, behavioral psychologists found that employees that had an authoritarian boss or manager actually went home and parented in the same way. If they went to work and were micromanaged, then they came home and micromanaged their children and behaved like an authoritarian with their children. Was it just a matter of mirror and matching? Adopting a learned behavior? In fact, no. Researchers found that because the individual lacked any control of self at work, they attempted to control anything they could at home. Ultimately how we are treated at work affects how we raise our children.
When we are in situations where we have a sense of lost control, we will look for other situations where we can compensate, or make up for, that lack of control.
Keep in mind this can work both ways. Perhaps we feel we have lost all control at home - whether that be in our relationship, with our kids, amongst close family members, even with our pets. So when there is nothing, or relatively little, that we have control over at home, we may find ourselves heading into work each morning, committed to controlling everything possible to gain back that balance and “even” the scorecard.
The danger, other than the obvious? When we choose control we dismiss collaboration, diminish others’ value, and discourage feedback. In business, this often leads to a lack of growth, a decrease in ideation, a decline in productivity, and a loss of talent.
Enter our current situation. There is so little that we do have control over right now. Because of this, we may find ourselves becoming even subconsciously more controlling over the few things that we convince ourselves that we do have control over. This could be our opinions, our behaviors, or even our children. In our effort to make our world feel slightly more predictable and less uncertain, we lose our adaptability, our creativity, and even our patience.
Some of the world’s most iconic companies have been built by control freaks with obsessive personalities. Steve Jobs was a perfectionist who wanted to control every aspect of every product that Apple ever produced. Elon Musk is not far off on the control scale, with being part of every decision across every business vertical within his empire. From the outside, this seems to lead to success. When he can’t control the production schedules of the latest Model S, he decides to control the price of his latest crypto infatuation through tweets and Saturday Night Live appearances. (By the way, thank you Elon for the meteoric rise of Dogecoin.) But kidding aside the surge of meme-inspired, socially driven, “GameStop-type” stock fluctuation is evidence of the drive towards controlling what previously seemed uncontrollable.
The power behind starting each morning with a rhythm that you control is more beneficial than just increasing your productivity. Getting on the bike or starting that run at the same time every morning puts you in control. Reading those few pages each morning puts you in control. Taking even fifteen minutes to collect your thoughts and meditate puts you in control. Blending that same smoothie or brewing that same cup of coffee puts you in control. Kissing each family member before walking out the door puts you in control.
Take control of the first couple hours, first sixty minutes, even the first few activities of each day. Everyone around you, including yourself, will thank you as the day unfolds.
