Reflections, 1st class--Control and Influence

Tonight we talked briefly about being a consultant and Dr. Carter referred to a statement that Peter Block penned in his Flawless Consulting text the described consultants as those who have to cause change to happen without direct control over the implementation. Later in our discussion, we discussed the art of consultation involving many things, one of them being the ability to influence others in the absence of control.

Control. Several years ago many of us in the adult learning program heard Peter Block speak at a SHRM conference. One of the things I will never forget, or at least one of the things I have created a memory about, is, to paraphrase, a notion that controlling others at work is quite illusionary.

Over the years I have thought about the idea of control particularly controlling others at work. In my mind, control and influence aren't all that different, although one has a connotation of malevolence and the other of benevolence. So as consultants, we need to be more benevolent and I am sure we'll learn how we craft the illusion of influence through trusting relationships, etc. But control and influence, while we judge them differently, are both manifestations of power--power that we may have over others ONLY because they give it to us or allow us to take it. The power to have control or influence over others exists within the other, not within ourselves, and it is through a set of conditions that others, with varying degrees of awareness, allow us power over them. I recall several years ago that I was promoted to a position in which I inherited staff, most of whom were not happy that I was now their boss. They thought I was a nincompoop, to put it mildly. One woman in particular had, I would say, a very strong sense of self and I did not fit into her world view of someone who should be her supervisor. In fact, she was sure she should have been promoted over me. I was aware of the struggle between us for influence and control and not once did she ever give me an ounce of it. Not once did she ever embrace me as her leader. Not once was I able to either control or influence her at work in any significant way. She ultimately left her position and then the organization and I am sure to this day she thinks I am a nincompoop. In her resistance, she taught me a great deal about control and influence and I will carry these lessons with me, be it as a consultant (who must be influential) or as a boss (who has a greater degree of, at least in this illusion, of control).