New View of Control

If you are a teacher in a classroom, or an administrator of a school or school system, or a parent with kids --are you tired of controlling others? Frustrated by others trying to control you?

Here are some thoughts about the problem with controlling others, and the promise of self-control or what those of us who teach other Perceptual Control Theory call "self-evaluation". By the end of this short article a new view of control may be revealed.

Most of us, if pressed, will acknowledge that we want to control others or, perhaps, a slightly better sounding admission is that we want others to do things a certain way. But, at the same time, if we are honest, we will admit that we can't control others and even have a difficult time controlling ourselves. So why do we persist in this fruitless effort to control others? Perhaps it is because we have been brought up to believe that the system of reward and punishment is the only way to deal with others especially those over whom we have some position of authority. So if we fail to control others using this "tried but tired" approach called stimulus-response psychology (SRP), we usually respond by upping the ante with an ever increasing bar of intensity. The problem with such a "stimulus-response" view of control is that it destroys relationships. We treat others like objects, and we demean ourselves by attempting to make others do something they don't want to do. Study after study has shown that it is the relationship that is critical to effective change. Let's take a closer look at the idea of relationship. In fact, let's focus on our relationship to ourselves--what's going on inside us.

If we stop to think about it, we know that being in self-control helps us to live happy and productive lives. When others try to control us there's nothing stopping us from ignoring them. Yet few of us have developed the habit of pausing to think before we act, i.e. we react like a response to a stimulus. What if there was a way to change and we could be more satisfied, consistent with our successes and less frustrated when others tried to control us. We would learn a new view of control, a different understanding of behavior, and how all living systems function. Perceptual Control Theory (PCT) is a simple theory with many applications. Instead of thinking about oneself and others as static objects to be manipulated or 'controlled', there's a tested theory of science that describes people as living systems - i.e. people behave or constantly interacting with an ever-changing environment, i.e. controlling. PCT says living systems control; we control our perceptions. We control our environment, or anything external to us, by how we perceive ourselves in relationship to others and the environment. What we control are our perceptions, not behaviors.

In the 21st century we are beginning to understand control as an internal process. To change means to understand ourselves and others as living systems with internal locus of control, as psychologists and other scientists explain behavior. We teach PCT to help others understand behavior is the control of perception. Thus, with PCT we learn to better self-regulate our own living system, and ourselves in relation to other living systems and the environment. We call this self-evaluation, i.e. learning to look inside to compare what we want (our reference perceptions) with how we are perceiving what we get (our input perceptions). Learning PCT means better understanding ourselves by looking inside to self-evaluate, not attempt to making others do what you want. In short, we learn how to "ask, don't tell".