Concept
If you owned the company, if your name was over the door, how much control would you want? (Yeah, yeah, yeah, what about this and that? On average, how much control would you want?) Write that number down, a number between 0 and 100 percent.
Your answer:
I have asked this question of people all over the world. The answers range from 5 to 110 percent. Many people choose 51 percent. I haven’t kept a distribution, and you can imagine that the answers were, I would guess, roughly normally distributed. Every time I do this, I am amazed at the variety.
If you choose a number like 5 to 20 percent, you might ask yourself, “How would I know what our sales were? How would I know how many employees we have? How would I be able to control costs? What would keep us from going bankrupt?”
If you chose a high number like 90 to 100 percent, you might ask yourself, “What would this do to creativity? What would this do to innovation? What would this do to speed of decision making?” I had one woman once say 110 percent. Really? “Yes,” she said. “If it’s my name on the door, I want to know what my employees are doing on Thursday nights and on the weekends. I don’t want them doing anything that would embarrass me.” Wow.
Consider the premise “The more control you have, the less innovation you will get.” Control implies compliance and conformity. As long as you have a winning formula and things don’t change, perhaps you can survive. When things in the world around you begin to change, however, your organization comes in danger. Who will notice the changing signals? Who will respond? How will people overcome their habits? Are you willing to bet your future on your insight alone?
The mechanisms of control are many. They include hiring processes, work design, organizational design, accounting (control) systems, budget controls, authority levels, reporting structures, and much more.
Example
In the early 90s, the Chicago Park District was paying bills alphabetically out of a shoe box.1 They also didn’t know how many employees they had. This would be an example of 10 percent or so control.
Fascism would be an example of very high levels of control. Some religions, the military, monasteries, abbeys, and prisons would be examples of very high levels of control. They control your sleep, your daily schedule, your dress, your diet, your activity, and attempt to control even what you think and believe.
Diagram
Challenge
1. Estimate the level of control exhibited in your own organization.
2. What changes do you think need to occur for your organization to succeed?
1 See “Chicago Park District (A),” UVA-OB-618, Darden Business Publishing by James Clawson.