How to Work With Difficult People — The Controllers
By: Tutti Taygerly
Tags: Startup, Leadership, Design, UX, Life

Photo by pixpoetry on Unsplash

One of my strongest self-sabotaging behaviors is my need to control other people and the plan of what we’re doing together. It’s led me to be described as a difficult person. In the parlance of Shirzad Chamine’s Positive Intelligence framework, my saboteur is the Controller. The Positive Intelligence website describes the Controller as having an:

Anxiety-based need to take charge and control situations and people’s actions to one’s own will. High anxiety and impatience when that is not possible.

The Controller is the dark side of some of my strengths. I am decisive, driven, able to challenge myself & others to do the right thing, and action-oriented towards an outcome.

If you have Controllers who are difficult people in your life, or if you are one yourself, I’ve found three focus areas to be helpful. Each area discusses the strengths around being a decisive person while providing suggestions for how to deal with a difficult Controller in your life.

1. The Paradox of Product Design

There’s a symbiotic relationship between controllers and creation. As a designer, you are making a product where you need to envision all the details of how a person could use the product. You create the use cases, the flows, the interactions, and screens. When you’re designing for complex ecosystems, you think of best cases, edge cases, and worst case scenarios where there are bad actors in the system. You are the architect of this perfectly controlled system. Yet inevitably, there comes the moment where your product is first exposed to the people who use it. This may be in early user research, beta testing, or during the MVP release. When that happens, no matter how carefully controlled the system, you are always humbled and learn how people interpret your carefully controlled system in different unexpected ways. It’s no longer under your control and takes on a life of its own.

While the designer had to be the controller to architect this system and create a carefully constructed plan, she also has to hold a light attachment to the product experience so that she stays open and flexible to the inevitable and unexpected changes that will come.

For controllers like me, try to embrace this paradox. Do your best work with the goals, plans, and use cases. Celebrate your strengths of moving to action towards a product launch or goal. And at the same time, remind yourself to lightly hold your attachment to the goal. You also care about relationships, the team, feedback from users, and you have a strength of being able to see the possibilities arising from new and unexpected changes.

For people dealing with difficult controllers, acknowledge the controller’s strength, that there was value in the details of defining the goal. And there’s also the opportunity to re-visit it now things have changed with new inputs and new data. Holding both together, while paradoxical, can also be true.

2. Leadership: Take Charge vs Delegate

Controllers are often leaders of teams and companies. I coach many executives and they are where they are due to their strengths of confidence, decisiveness, challenge, and the ability to both see possibilities and actively move towards a goal.

Controllers naturally gravitate towards taking charge. Their need to control situations and people’s actions can have them take charge of everything—the entire forest and every single one of those individual trees. One implicit delegation style is to bark out orders and have the person follow the precise directions. I used to manage like that. I refer to it as the “command and control” style of management. As a creative director for a world-class design firm telling all the top brands what the future of their digital products should be, I had to “command and control” the vision, the story, and each precise narrative of the design. Short-term, this strategy often works. You reach the immediate goals, you hit the milestones, and make the client happy. But at what cost?

The first cost is your time and anxiety. When you are the controller and you do every single thing yourself, no one else is going to step up. Why bother, when the controller will simply re-do the work you’ve done. As a controller, you feel resentment that no one else is pulling their weight, and also some anxiety that you have to be the person who knows all the answers all the time. Bearing this burden can also take an unbelievable amount of time. There’s a correlation between controllers and workaholism. If this executive example doesn’t resonate, consider the example of a new mom. She takes charge at home—she knows the single right way how to swaddle the baby, change the diaper, pick the right clothes, breastfeed or bottle-feed, and nothing that dad or the other mom tries to do is ever right. Yup, I’ve been that controller too.

The second cost is long-term relationships. If you’re the all-business puppetmaster, barking orders and making sure that the goals are met, then you aren’t taking the necessary time to nurture and build your team’s diversity of opinion. You don’t know what each of their strengths and quirks are. You don’t know if they could have done one of those tasks way better than the way you told them to do it. You had fierce control and could make sure everything is perfect for the short-term, but that’s not sustainable for long-term relationships. You didn’t make time to hear everyone’s opinions and leave space open for debate. You didn’t take the time to understand each team member’s depth of knowledge and unique perspective that could bring a fresh look to the goal. You didn’t let each team member try things in his or her own way, and perhaps fail and learn to improve, or perhaps wonderfully succeed and bring that team member incredible pride in their progress.

For controllers like me, think about what you are gaining in the short-term and what the long-term cost is. Consider the personal cost of time and anxiety. Consider the cost of relationships.

For people dealing with difficult controllers, emphasize that you can help save time or anxiety by helping to bear some of the load. Have a clear conversation about the desired outcome and impact of the task, and not the exact details of how each step of the task should be done. Try to build a personal relationship with the controller by listening to what really matters for them.

A word on sexism

I’ve been female in corporate America and technology for 20+ years. Many of my clients are female. I’ve experienced and seen many instances of deliberate sexism and more examples of unconscious bias. We societally believe that strong, powerful women (controllers) are less likeable because we associate assertiveness and decisiveness with men and warmth and caring with women. I’m definitely oversimplifying the issue and you can read more about women’s unseen barriers, gender bias, and unconscious bias in many sources. Yet I want to acknowledge that this real, many of us encounter it, and it’s an additional burden for women who are controllers.

3. Range of Connection Styles

The decisive, get-things-done nature of controllers can mean that they prefer to connect with people in competition or challenge. In a conversation, controllers enjoy playing the role of devil’s advocate, often without letting the group know that that’s what they’re doing. Controllers will be direct and straightforward. Their connection style towards others is how they prefer to connect. Which only works out well for a group of controllers.

This connection style has a huge impact on other types of people. My partner is more of an intuitive person who feels his way through decisions and is highly in touch with his emotions. My connection style comes across as overly analytical, critical, and angry. It makes him feel scrutinized and shut-down. In a business setting, Controllers will be surrounded by people with all types of connection styles and in order to reach the business goals, will need to adapt and vary for a range of connection styles. The controller’s confidence and directness can sow doubt in others and destroy any confidence in their own opinion.

For an inclusive environment where everyone’s opinion is heard and valued, relationships should aim for interdependence. I provide this, and you provide that. Together, this diversity of opinion leads to a better long term outcome.

For controllers like me, adapt your connection style for the context of the conversation that you’re having. Especially in a 1–1 meeting but useful for all meetings, take the additional time to connect with the other person over something non-work related that you’re genuinely curious about. Recognize that your style may shut down other people and explicitly make space for dissenting or diverse opinions. If you are playing devil’s advocate, acknowledge that it’s the role you’re temporarily playing, as a way to assess risk to the project. Focus on the long-term relationship and the connection with people, in addition to the content of the meeting.

For people dealing with difficult controllers, try to focus on the content of their message and not the controversial or antagonistic delivery style. Listen for where you can find the 10% truth within what the controller is saying and build upon that kernel of truth. Explicitly ask the controller if they believe the position they’re stating, or if they’re doing a risk assessment or playing the role of devil’s advocate.

Bottom-Line

We all have controllers in life, whether it’s us or people around us. There are strengths to being decisive and action-oriented as well as areas of difficulty for others. Consider the paradox of product design, take charge leadership, and the range of connection styles you should attention to.

This is a continuation of the Difficult People series. For more, check out: