The remote controls of me as TV

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Published in the series on Leadership Chronicles (Article # 22)

Imagine what may happen to a TV if it has a thousand remote controls all controlling it! I have been one such TV. Are you that TV?

To find the answer, answer this simple question. Can you think of a person who can cause your mind to go peaceless when you are even thinking about him / her? If yes, you should realize that you have made that person a holder of your remote control. This remote control has all the buttons to control your functional being.

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Absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is ok if our leaders forget that – they usually enjoy that power over us. But it is unacceptable if this is not realized by the person who is being controlled. We are all controlled to some level – some more than other. In your history books, you may have had references to the speech by a narcissist that made the followers go on a destruction spree. We think that it was the behavior of the past, but most of us are not less vulnerable to such followership. If you can’t relate to it, keep on reading – because in just about a minute, you will realize that you are no different.

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For those who are obsessed with showing performance at work – I want you to recollect a time when you sent an email to your assessor of that performance, and you started worrying as to how s/he would respond. I guess that about 95% of us would be able to relate to that occurring to themselves or to their colleagues. This is just a sign that you had put your remote control in the hands of the person. That person had become so powerful during that time that s/he could make you happy, sad, sorrowed, shocked, disturbed, frustrated, or (at least) overwhelmed by their approval or otherwise. The power to affect you was enjoyed by that person over your mind and emotions. During that time, you are vulnerable. You would judge yourself, pick fights, give treats, feel happy etc. depending upon what button the other person presses.

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Now if it happens once or twice a year and with one or two people, it is natural. If it happens for a short period of time, you are a better human than most of us. But whoever it happens for, and the length of time define the power and number of remote controls that you have voluntarily distributed to random people. I am saying “random” because this happening in us for those whom we love is a blessing. Here, the word “random” is justified because it is intended to mean anyone whom you are not in love with.

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Now, it is time for me to narrate some reflections – sometimes back, I felt that my experiences during work hours were mostly overwhelmed. I used to have a lot of feelings during the work hours, and it appeared a routine. These feelings included fear, jealousy, hatred, frustration, and envying mostly. And, over time, these feelings started controlling me. Most of all, these feelings were destroying my productivity. I could have become a much better person if I had not had my emotions controlling me during work hours.

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For example, a person whom I hated would distract me from the purpose whenever we would interact. During that meeting, my arguments were marred by hatred, my decisions tainted by my personal feelings, and my mind processing capability reduced by my emotional waves. The last point is the “so what” of it all, and the worst outcome in terms of what we can do during our life.

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It all appeared natural and happened so many times during a day. Back then, it appeared a normal Tuesday. Here I am not talking about an internally generated thinking environment – such as the feeling of empathy that guides our overall aptitude towards people. I am talking about the affects an individual carried on my ability to think straight. This could happen whenever in physical proximity to that person, but it started increasing to affect my thoughts. Over time, I realized that there are too many occasions when I let my mind slip.

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For instance, imagine a time when you prepare for the presentation and have done an excellent job in your mirror practicing sessions. But as soon as you see the audience from a stage, your mind gets blocked – very common, isn’t it? They have a term for it too as “stage freight” because it is so common. At that time, your feeling of being judged shades your mind. People generally fail in presentation because they are overwhelmed and not because they did not know the subject matter. How often, do you recall the answers to the questions we were asked and stumped with during presentation. These answers automatically come after the presentation – once the mind is free from emotion.

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These behaviors are so common, and I realized that I could become a more effective leader if I was able to do only one thing: continuously keep my mind at peace. However, I have realized that it is a very challenging thing to do unless you take the remote controls out of the hands of the people around you. Such product recall is a heavy task especially when we have given so many ourselves. Each day, I used to take back one, but I gave another to a new person. It was just an unending game, but these are reducing. It is a long path, and I hope to reduce the number each day. ?

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I have devised a simple test: who is the person in whose presence my mind is not functioning at best. And I try to create a red alarm signal (like in an airplane) that would start blinking as soon as my mind loses altitude. But sometimes, the loss of altitude is so sudden and turbulent that we cannot notice it. I call such relationships the toxic ones. They are toxic because these will destroy your personality. Allama Iqbal may have used this reference in his famous poetry about “parwaz main Kotahi” and “Shaheen”. It took me 22 years to understand what he may have meant and how pertinent it was to our daily professional choices.

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Again, I am not talking about personal relationships here.

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In summary, I would urge all of us to find those who control our torture buttons and torture us. In their presence, our minds don’t work, our logics fail, the negative emotions get in command, and we succumb to giving power over our future to them. Take the remote controls from them, burn those.

At the end, what is true freedom if we can’t live without being controlled through a wireless remote in the hands of so many at work. ??