The Four Ways We Control Instead of Influence
I recently observed a meeting where a team member raised a complex issue. Another leader immediately jumped in to address it. Within seconds, the rest of the room went completely silent.
I had the distinct sense that the rest of the team didn’t go quiet because they lacked ideas, but because of the approach the responding leader took. Without realizing it, this leader had deployed a communication style guaranteed to shut down collaboration.
The approach was characterized by the “Four Ds”:
- Declarative: Relying entirely on absolute facts, firm opinions, and rigid ideas.
- Dense: Overloading the room with details and unfiltered information.
- Durative: Continuing to speak for a long time without pausing for input.
- Definitive: Speaking in a way that sounded final, conclusive, and complete.
These Four Ds have the immediate effect of controlling the direction of the interaction.
When a leader communicates this way, the people in the room generally react in one of two ways: They either feel agitated because they perceive the narrative is being controlled, or they feel relieved from responsibility because they perceive the issue is being handled for them.
Regardless of whether the reaction is agitation or relief, the negative consequences to the team dynamic are the same:
- People disengage. They don’t think their contributions matter, so they pull back.
- People withhold. They become guarded and stop offering diverse, useful perspectives.
- People resent. Because they don’t like feeling pushed toward a conclusion by someone else’s words, they become frustrated with the leader or with themselves for lacking agency.
- People resist. Because they didn’t contribute, they don’t feel the ideas are theirs, and therefore they don’t own the conclusions.
Many leaders make a lot of short-term progress by controlling people and conversations, but the long-term cost is high: damaged relationships, isolation, unnecessary stress, missed ideas, and, potentially, better solutions.
If you want to improve your relationships, strengthen collaboration, and reduce your own burden, you have to adopt a new mantra: Train yourself to restrain yourself before you explain yourself.
Great leaders influence rather than control. Here is how you put that restraint into practice:
- Check your evaluations. The quickest path to the Four Ds is being too decisive too quickly. Problem-solving is a key leadership skill, but when you evaluate whether something is right or wrong too early in the process, it narrows the aperture of ideas. Stay open-minded and curious for as long as possible.
- Swap solutions for questions. Sometimes you just need to fix a problem immediately. Often, though, others are processing at different rates. They may need to talk it out to feel heard. Restrain yourself by asking, “Why is that important to you?” or “How do you think we can make this work?”
- Qualify your opinions. You develop opinions based on your own filter and experiences. Others have different filters. Qualify your statements by saying, “My experience tells me this, though I’m open to other perspectives…” or “Here’s one take. What’s yours?”
- Tighten your explanations. Make it a dialogue, not a download. Communicate one layer of your explanation at a time. Keep each layer brief, easy to digest, and open to feedback.
Let’s not be the person in the meeting who frustrates and shuts people down. Instead of controlling the room, let’s connect and influence.
What meetings or relationships are you controlling right now?
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