Taking Control, Part One

Like money or nuclear power, control can be used for good or evil. You can use it to harm, suppress or destroy lives. Or you can use it to help people, increase your income and improve the world around you.

Negative, destructive control gives control a bad name. Yet positive, constructive control is essential to successful living. No control over your job, family or life leads to failure.

When you are not in control of your sphere of operation, you feel stress, fear and frustration.

When you are in control, you make progress, enjoy your work and achieve success.

Taking better control of yourself, your time, your career, your staff, equipment, files, computers, marriage, family, house and so on is much easier when you understand and apply these five facts about control.

1. Control is the biggest difference between success and failure.

2. Control consists of three parts: Start, Change and Stop.

3. Your control problems are based on your weaknesses with starting or changing or stopping.

4. If you try to control people or things outside your sphere of operation, you fail.

5. To succeed, you must let others control you.

In this first of five articles, we cover the first fact.

All quotes by L. Ron Hubbard in these five articles are from The Problems of Work. You can buy this book at www.tipsforsuccess.org/problems-of-work.htm or at www.bridgepub.com.


1. Control Is the Difference Between Success and Failure

"What is control?

"Whether one handles a machine of the size of a car or as small as a typewriter or even an accounting pen, one is faced with the problems of control. An object is of no use to anyone if it cannot be controlled. Just as a dancer must be able to control his body, so must a worker in an office or a factory be able to control his body, the machines of his work and, to some degree, the environment around him.

"The primary difference between 'the worker' in an office or a factory and an executive is that the executive controls minds, bodies and the placement of communications, raw materials and products, the worker controls, in the main, his immediate tools." -- L. Ron Hubbard

Consider two different restaurant owners.

Steve owns an Italian restaurant and Kate owns a French restaurant. Steve loves to chat with customers while Kate loves to improve her operations.

Steve hires an accountant to handle his bookkeeping while Kate stays late to figure out how to do her own books. Steve hires an attorney to write the employee policies and keep him out of legal trouble. Kate goes to a labor law seminar, writes her own employee policies and has a lawyer check it over.

Steve believes his personality will keep people coming back while Kate decides good food and well-trained servers will keep people coming back.

Steve has no idea how to cook, clean the kitchen or balance the books. He can only hire experienced people to do these jobs. He must bend over backwards to keep them on the job, despite their bad attitudes.

Kate and her cooks invent their own recipes and keep them in a book. Kate establishes checklists for the staff for setting up tables, cleaning and so on. She also enjoys training inexperienced cooks, servers and other staff.

Who is in better control? Who is making a better profit? If Steve's top people quit working for him, what will happen to his restaurant? If Kate's top people quit, what will happen to her restaurant?

As another example, two medical transcribers, Jill and Sue, are hired by a large hospital on the same day. They are expected to type medical reports explaining the patients' treatment so the hospital can collect its fee from insurance companies.

Jill decides to be a robot and simply type whatever is in front of her. One day, her computer goes down. She calls the technician and paints her fingernails until the computer is fixed. She has no idea what she is typing as she cannot understand the medical terms. She decides to just pretend it is a foreign language. She types every word placed in front of her without using the computer shortcuts. She produces 20 reports per day.

Sue wants more control of her position. As well as typing the reports, she learns about the computer. She reads the help screens to learn shortcuts in the program. She learns to copy and paste large sections of text and other time-saving actions. She produces 30 reports per day.

When the computer goes down, Sue carefully watches the technician and asks questions so she knows what to do next time.

Sue finds a medical dictionary in the storage room and starts to look up the terms in her reports. She buys lunch for a nurse so she can ask about medical procedures. She even listens to tapes about insurance code rules.

Who is in better control of her job? Of her career?

One day, Jill types a report about a one-year-old receiving treatment for Alzheimer's disease. She types it exactly and sends it to the insurance company. That same day, Sue is typing a report for a eighty-year-old man's immunization shot for chicken pox. She knows this is a mistake and sends it back to the nurse. The nurse realizes the patient names were switched.

Another day, Jill's computer goes down. She learns the computer technician is unavailable and asks to go home. Sue overhears the request and offers to fix the computer, which she does.

Who is the more valuable employee? Who should get the next promotion? If business slows down, who will keep her job?

Certain symptoms show how well you control your job.
 

On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being in full control, how do you rate your control of your job?

Recommendations

1. Make a list of all your duties.

2. Rate your control of each on a scale of 1 to 10.

3. Work out a plan to take a little more control of your weakest duties.
 

Provided by TipsForSuccess.org as a public service to introduce you to the technology of L. Ron Hubbard.

Copyright © 2004 TipsForSuccess.org. All rights reserved. Grateful acknowledgment is made to L. Ron Hubbard Library for permission to reproduce selections from the copyrighted works of L. Ron Hubbard. Programmed in the United States.

For books by L. Ron Hubbard, additional articles or information about TipsForSuccess.org, click here.

To contact us, click here.

TipsForSuccess.org · 615 South Highway 49, Box #119 · Jackson · CA · 95642

<  Back

TIPS FOR SUCCESS:  A Powerful Study Technique.  A Powerful Success Technique.  Are You A Professional?  Are You Introverted?  Avoidance VS Confronting.  Being Too Serious Can Drive You Crazy.  Benefits Of Being Unreasonable.  Best Revenge.  Courage.  Distractions.  Do Fears Block Your Success?  Do People Trust You?  Everyone Is Important.  Exchange.  Fish Story.  Five Tips For Handling Children.  Flowing Power.  Getting Organized.  Gift Giving.  Goal Setting.  Goals and Happiness.  Greater Service = Greater Pay.  Hard Work.  Honest Way To Get Rich.  How Do People Treat You?  How To Be A Great Person.  How To Boost Your Personal Power.  How To Boost Your Popularity.  How To Break A Bad Habit.  How To Build A Cash Reserve.  How To Generate Power.  How To Get Along With Your Spouse.  How To Get Anything You Want.  How To Handle Difficult People.  How To Improve Your Standard Of Living.  How To Kill The Green Eyed Monster.  How To Make A Fresh Start.  How To Make Great Decisions.  How To Make Yourself Happier.  How To Reduce Anxiety.  How To Set Great Goals.  How To Solve Money Problems.   How To Spend Money To Make Money.  How To Predict Your Future. How To Use Statistics To Boost Your Income.   How You Control Your Financial Success.  How You Ruin Your Productivity.  Indecision And Inaction.  Investment That Never Crashes.  Jealousy.  Moving Past Grief.  Need For Speed.  No Excuses Living.  Operating With The Truth.  Orderly Progress.  Past, Present or Future.  Personal Glory Is A Lousy Goal.  Power Of Passion.  Power Of Purpose.  Road To Success Is In The Fast Lane.  Secret Of Efficiency.  Secret To A Great Marriage.  Taking Control (Part 1).  Taking Control (Part 2).  Taking Control (Part 3).  Taking Control (Part 4).  Taking Control (Part 5).  The Want Factor.  To Win The Game Of Life, Lighten Up!  Two Elements Of Success.  Two Requirements Of Success. The Secret Of Acknowledgements.  Two Rules That Make You Happy.  War.  What Should You Be?  What To Do When You Feel Outraged.  When In Doubt, Communicate.  Who Is Your Best Friend.  Whole World Stinks.  Working Hard For Fun And Profits.  You Get What You Reward. Your Biggest Source Of Trouble (Part 1).  Your Biggest Source Of Trouble (Part 2).  Your Biggest Source Of Trouble (Part 3).  Your Biggest Source Of Trouble (Part 4).  Your Most Valuable Asset.  Your Personal Image.  Your Potential.  Your Powerful Imagination.  Your Sources Of Success.   

CRANBERRIES:  Home  Cranberry Health.  Cranberry Recipes.  Cranberry Links.  Cranberries For Kids.  Photo Tour: How Cranberries Are Grown.  Cranpup Video: Aqua Launch.  Cranpup Video: Chase The Ball.  Cranpup Video: Cranball.

OTHER:  Internet Tools.  Research Tools.  Tools For Life.  The Truth About Psychiatry.