The bottom left area of the diagram describes a person (or a situation) who has little control and little perspective. In its most negative expression, it characterizes a Victim — someone who is helpless, at the mercy of outside forces. If you are in that quadrant, you are effectively in a storm — somewhere between a mild squall and a major hurricane — operating in a crisis mode. In a self-management context, this means that you are simply dealing with only the latest and loudest. You are likely doing “emergency scanning” of voice mails and e-mails, letting the not-yet-critical stuff mount up in heaps, dealing exclusively with the tasks you have to do in the moment. Of course, the bigger the pile of unprocessed stuff, the more difficult it will be to navigate clearly and efficiently through it, and the more likely something will turn into a crisis from neglect. You’re not able to hold the world back long enough to do the catching up that would be required to keep the next crisis from happening.
In this quadrant you’re just trying to keep the ship afloat. Directions and goals won’t mean much until you can ensure you’re not sinking to the bottom. It will likely feel difficult to make any progress because you can never seem to get enough breathing room to plan, organize, and elevate your focus.
When something happens that heightens the seriousness of this situation in an obvious and dramatic way, it can create enormous stress, if not downright panic. When in the course of preparing a nice dinner for friends you burn the sauce, notice you forgot a key ingredient, can’t find the special pan, cut your finger, and suddenly realize your guests are going to show up before you have time to shower, you suddenly feel like a victim of circumstances. If you start a new job and unexpectedly discover that your predecessor screwed up many key projects and processes which you’re now going to have to fix, throwing in the towel might seem like a preferable option.
In its milder and perhaps more insidious form, and when experienced over an extended period of time, this diminished sense of control and perspective can give rise to a kind of numbness, out of sheer emotional self-protection. Most people I have encountered in the professional world have been in some version of this reactive state so consistently, and for so many years, that they’re not even aware they’re in it. Only when some relief begins to appear do they begin to realize how much pressure they have been under. It is much like gravity, in that you hardly have any idea how much weight it places on the body until it is absent.
On the Positive Side
Being out of control and out of focus is not inherently a bad thing. In fact, we all very likely find ourselves being in this quadrant many times a day in the natural course of getting things done. Much of our life and work is actually involved with responding to situations that have been put in motion, by ourselves and by others. We naturally play a defensive game when we chase a “stretch” goal, navigate a major change, or respond to a simple but productive interaction. Of course bigger objectives and risky moves into new and uncomfortable areas are even more likely to lead to a certain amount of running like crazy to play catch-up.
Entrepreneurs in the early stages of a new venture, which typically includes equal amounts of surprising successes and daunting setbacks, often would give anything for some consistent sense of control and perspective. They’ve jumped on a wild horse and are just trying to hold on for dear life. Even a single conversation with a key person over lunch can generate unexpected opportunities or issues that now must be dealt with, totally destroying the best-laid plans for the afternoon.
No matter how much your life and work are up to par, you will have to face at least momentary “leaks” in systems that will have to be reengineered to allow you to return to an even keel. And the more energetic and creative your endeavors are, the more likely that a larger portion of your time and energies will be invested in doing catch-up.
Much of the energy in propelling a rocket is spent in course correction — it is, in a way, always veering out of control and off target. It achieves its goal precisely because it has a responsive feedback mechanism that prevents it from wavering too far off its designated path.
Also, we may be in one quadrant about some issue and in a totally different one for others. As I write this, my e-mail is quite under control, but I am feeling somewhat disquieted by a very interesting opportunity and project that presented itself in a meeting this morning with a major corporate client. I’m not entirely sure yet what this proposal might mean to us, how to best take advantage of it, and how it fits within the larger scope of significant projects we already have in the works. So my momentary workaday in-basket is on positive cruise control, but I am definitely leaning toward feeling out of control with respect to the murky perspective on the horizon.
Whether I face this challenge as a Victim or Responder will depend on whether I’m actively engaged in getting myself back to my zone, having integrated the new input and recalibrated my psyche accordingly.
Adapted from “Making It All Work” by David Allen, by arrangement with Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
