Control

There’s something seductive about concentrating control. It just seems so much more efficient than the alternative. Once you narrow control in a single locus, you can make quick, coherent decisions and take decisive action. There’s none of the rancor and instability that comes from dissent and disagreement. It’s clean, and tidy, and it just seems to work.

Until it doesn’t.

Gaining people’s willing cooperation and engagement is really hard. It takes a ton of communication and planning. It sucks up time, takes you down rabbit holes, and mires you in debate and conflict. It feels messy, and chaotic, and inefficient--because it is. It’s also completely necessary.

Centralized control creates the illusion of stability because there’s no visible dissent, but it’s precarious because there’s no base of support. It’s like a giant pyramid with all its weight balanced on a single point. Sooner or later, the wind will blow, or the earth will tremble, and the whole thing will topple under its own weight.

When you do the work to distribute control more widely, you gain true stability. The weight of your organization’s purpose and performance won’t rest on the narrow balancing point of an executive team or CEO--it will be carried by the many people who are committed to that purpose and who feel accountable to that performance. 

It’s no accident that some organizations are more resilient than others in the face of disruption and change. They’ve done the work to build the pyramid from the bottom up.