Often, the reactive perspective on control is engaged by those who have been marginalized in a society or in a group. At the individual level, the marginalized person is likely to wait for cues from the person with whom they are meeting. They are more likely to make the adjustment to the other person’s culture and mode of operating rather than the other way around. The marginalized person often comes from a strong tradition of being asked (or forced) to remain quiet and inactive while the decision regarding leadership is being decided. As a woman, minority, young person, or person with disabilities, the assumption is often made that they are automatically ineligible for a position of leadership—and they are not expected to be very influential. While their opinion might be tolerated (“All of us are interested in what you have to say… “), they often are hesitant to speak up. They assume that their opinion and advice will never be taken seriously or that their perspective will be placed in a box filled with stereotypes (“that is the way those people tend to think”).
Case Studies of Control: As we did in the case of the need for inclusion, I wish to illustrate the dynamics of proactive and reactive control by offering a couple of brief case studies from my own work as a consultant. I first convey what happens when there is a predominance of reactive control—which is commonly found in intentional communities (communes). In many cases, these highly visionary and seemingly collaborative communities are struggling with issues about control, authority and leadership. While members of communes often desperately want to be living in a world of openness and trust, they often can’t get past the issue of control (an important point that I will turn to later). The group is often dysfunctional when most members of a group don’t want there to be any control (laissez-faire) or look passively for other people to take control. Furthermore, this type of group is also quite vulnerable to being taken over by a highly charismatic leader. This is a persuasive person who offers not only absolute control but also a false paradise of absolute openness (requiring only a comparable absolute allegiance to them as leader).
I turn on the other hand, to an organizational consultation I completed with leaders of a major church in North America. This is a church that has a strong commitment to biblical values and aspirations. The leaders of this church were becoming increasingly concerned with the hierarchical nature of their church. They noted that the early Christian church (as described in the New Testament) was not hierarchical (perhaps an example of what today we would call a “self-organizing system”). Why not restructure their church so that it is less reliant on traditional modes of authority and control? They became architects who purposefully looked at existing models of nonhierarchical organizations (including the self-management systems being deployed in manufacturing firms such as Volvo). They didn’t mind that these were “secular” institutions—they could still provide guidance.
Unlike those living in the Utopian communes with which I consulted, these church leaders were not running away from control. Rather, they were discovering ways in which to best allocate and manage control in their organization (church). They were trying (with considerable success) to create a “lukewarm” Goldilocks organizational structure that had integrity. These church leaders held the advantage of already establishing an I/Thou foundation of Trust. They connected with one another and collaboratively built trust because they shared a commitment to a higher good and higher (spiritual) source of guidance. It is with a strong foundation of Trust that we can best address the issue of Control. At the same time, when we have successfully addressed this issue then we have further enhanced Trust. The Cycle of Trust that I mentioned in a previous essay in this series (Bergquist, 2024) seems to be potentially available in the world of Will Schutz’s need for Control.
The Need for Openness
Openness concerns a willingness (even eagerness) to express and share thoughts and feelings with someone with whom we are relating, as well as other members of a group or organization. There is also an openness to innovative ideas, perspectives and practices. This is an often-overlooked dimension of Schutz’s opened. Perhaps it is overlooked because it represents an often-elusive connection between relationship-based (interpersonal) openness and task-based openness to new ideas. This connection should not be overlooked—for the union of relationship-based and task-based openness is critical to the building of productive collaboration between two people and among members of a group or organization (Hershey and Blanchard, 1977; Gratton and Erickson, 2007).
The most challenging form of openness has to do with the genuine welcoming of people into a relationship or into our group and organization who are different in some important way from ourselves. It is in this openness to differences that we find the building of genuine community in our mid-21st Century life of global diversity. It is also in this welcoming that we find a powerful blending of concerns about inclusion with concerns about openness. Those who embrace this dimension of diversity wish to see beyond the current state. They look upward and outward in order to become inspired. They look upward so that they can better see their shared destination. They help other members of the group become inspired by the vision of a greater good—for their relationship, their team, their organization and ultimately their society.
Key Openness Questions and Concerns: The need for interpersonal openness comes to the fore when we are about to act. We must figure out how we are going to conduct ourselves—especially when we are relating to someone quite different from ourselves or working with members of the group/team who might differ in important ways from us and from one another.
Here are the concerns about openness:
(1) In what ways and at what times are we going to explore the fundamental way in which we are operating, and how do we go about changing our operations if they are not supporting safety and the honoring of diversity? To do this, we must speak candidly with the other person in our relationship. Trust must have been established with this other person—though as I have already noted, there can be a Cycle of Trust (openness begets trust which begets more openness which begets further Trust and so forth). Similarly, the group or organization must determine the extent to which members of this group or organization are willing to talk about what is really happening, and if the group or organization as a whole can trust what members of the group or organization are saying about the operations of the group or organization.
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