The Power of Control

Ryan and Sarah have heaps of control in their working lives, and this is what makes the Red Fire lifestyle so appealing. The appeal of control, however, is not limited to farmers. Decades of scientific research have identified this trait as one of the most important you can pursue in the quest for a happier, more successful, and more meaningful life. Dan Pink’s 2009 bestselling book Drive, for example, reviews the dizzying array of different ways that control has been found to improve people’s lives.¹ As Pink summarizes the literature, more control leads to better grades, better sports performance, better productivity, and more happiness.

In one such study, mentioned in Pink’s book, researchers at Cornell followed over three hundred small businesses, half of which focused on giving control to their employees and half of which did not. The control-centric businesses grew at four times the rate of their counterparts. In another study, which I found during my own research, giving autonomy to middle school teachers in a struggling school district not only increased the rate at which the teachers were promoted, but also, to the surprise of the researchers, reversed the downward performance trend of their students.²

If you want to observe the power of control up close in the workplace, look toward companies embracing a radical new philosophy called Results-Only Work Environment (or, ROWE, for short). In a ROWE company, all that matters is your results. When you show up to work and when you leave, when you take vacations, and how often you check e-mail are all irrelevant. They leave it to the employee to figure out whatever works best for getting the important things done. “No results, no job: It’s that simple,” as ROWE supporters like to say.

If you read the business case for ROWE, available online, you find example after example of employees liberated by control.³ At Best Buy’s corporate headquarters, for example, the teams that implemented ROWE saw the rate at which people left plummet by up to 90 percent. “I love the ROWE environment…. It makes me feel like I’m in control of my destiny,” said one Best Buy employee.

At the Gap’s headquarters, employees in a ROWE pilot study found their happiness and performance improved. “I’ve never seen my employees happier,” said one manager. At a non-profit organization in Redlands, California—the first non-profit to embrace ROWE—80 percent of the employees reported feeling more engaged while over 90 percent thought it made their life better: which is about as close to universal agreement as is possible in a work setting. And these are just a few examples among many.

The more time you spend reading the research literature, the more it becomes clear: Giving people more control over what they do and how they do it increases their happiness, engagement, and sense of fulfillment. It’s no wonder, then, that when you flip through your mental Rolodex of dream jobs, control is often at the core of their appeal. Throughout Rule #3, for example, you’ll meet people in a variety of different fields who wielded control to create a working life they love. Among them is a freelance computer programmer who skips work to enjoy sunny days, a medical resident who took a two-year leave from his elite residency program to start a company, and a famous entrepreneur who gave away his millions and sold his possessions to embrace an unencumbered, globe-trotting existence. These examples all have great lives, and as you’ll learn, they all used control to create them.

To summarize, if your goal is to love what you do, your first step is to acquire career capital. Your next step is to invest this capital in the traits that define great work. Control is one of the most important targets you can choose for this investment. Acquiring control, however, can be complicated. This is why I’ve dedicated the remainder of Rule #3 to this goal. In the chapters ahead, you’ll follow me on my quest to find out more about this fickle trait.