An understanding of human behavior is key to creating value and negotiations for entrepreneurs. This helps us to know ourselves and to shape the terms of interaction to each party's benefit. Control is the least common denominator at the center of every endeavor we face. One topic debated by the likes of policy makers and guidance counselors is to what if any extent our environment has the power to shape our behavior. This article is not about personal responsibility persay. Understanding behavior is not so much about the consequence and responsibility as reflected in our own values: it is about asking why something happens?
People are generally believed to lack self-control when their behavior is inconsistent with that of what most people might do in a given situation. We often think of this in terms of the boundaries set by authorities and social convention. However, there is ample evidence to support the notion that people are limited by their control. Even our willpower is strongly related to the control we have or do not have in any given circumstance, but to determine how a person loses control we must first understand the nature of control. What is control and how does one implement control in life? This begs the question: is control even possible minus some sort of preparation?
We lose control anytime we venture beyond our competency. Most often the consequences of doing so are minimal and other people generally might be tolerant of such behavior recognizing our best intentions. This happens to all of us much more than we might care to admit. To a great extent it is by this very important process of trial and error that we continually learn. Control is impossible minus some form of either preparation or iteration. The second time the hand nears the flame it retracts but not the first time. Our curiosity trumps residual survival instinct remaining from our distant past of hunting and gathering, facing predators and constant thoughts of survival.
You can probably think of many examples of times when you clearly lost control in your own life. This is from mine:
One chilly November morning, nineteen years young, running late for an especially early appointment. I had woke at my usual hour, but upon leaving the house realized that the car was covered with a foot of snow. Ten minutes later driving on a highway crossing the river flats I hit an ugly patch of black ice on a bridge. Completely unprepared for what ensued (as habit would dictate) need to reduce speed, press down on the brakes. It became immediately clear that something was amiss, my attempt at controlling the vehicle misguided because the rear end of the car suddenly shifted from its intended linear course as if they were competing for the lead with the front wheels to fifteen degrees, then thirty and finally three hundred and sixty degrees, making in all three rotations before finally coming to crushing sudden halt under the broken axle and front wheel of an oncoming pickup truck.
It is apparent that I had no capability in and of myself at that point in time to predetermine what actions to take to keep that car on its proper trajectory. The best I could do is say "I should have known", but clearly I hadn't. When the environment changed (the traction under my wheels) my actions were the best I knew at the time corresponding to the sudden change. My response to the change in my environment was completely dependent on the resources and apparent options available in that moment. Isn't this true for everyone?
Also it was clear that no amount of willpower on my part would have been sufficient to change the outcome: a near death experience and two destroyed automobiles. One cannot will for what one does not know. Having survived I discovered something else that seemed important. With the correct input I can now apply discipline in similar situations i.e., refrain from pressing the brakes when navigating icy roadways. With a just a bit of knowledge I now know to reduce my speed when traveling over a bridge because ice forms there before it does on roadways with ground beneath it. I had obviously missed that science lesson.
Hence, it is a logical deduction from this experience that real control in any given situation has less to do with the reality of the circumstances as those who are in the know might perceive correctly and more to do with my own perception of the transpiration. Although I wasn’t ticketed for the accident I still believe that I was responsible for it happening. I did the best I could with what I knew, and it wasn’t good enough.
You might be wondering how this relates to business. Here is the lesson. No matter how much we might wish to shape a thing into existence, the reality is to actually do it requires that we have sufficient knowledge and resources to make that claim stick. To reach Break Even Point in an investment, there must be value captured (input) equal to the capital output.
So vital in business and in life is a bone deep understanding that we all act to control our own worldviews. This also helps us to understand and appreciate the needs of those around us. And in doing so, we reap the results of either our being sufficiently prepared or else woefully deficient in relation to our endeavors. If I could have but one of these two virtues, willpower or discipline, I choose the latter. The former clearly has more limitations.
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