Kishor Sridhar: How to react to control freaks

Now they will dance to my tune! With a few psychological tricks, we can positively influence our environment - without putting pressure on others. Influencing colleagues, customers, and superiors without them noticing - sounds useful, but also manipulative. Coach Kishor Sridhar reveals the psychological tricks that supposedly help you achieve your goals faster in your daily work life and navigate out of tricky situations. "In this book, the focus is on influencing your fellow human beings." It sounds promising how Kishor Sridhar begins his guide "Everything Listens to My Command. Asserting Yourself in 50 Concrete Everyday Situations" (Redline Verlag). In it, the coach and management consultant presents the 50 most common situations from professional and everyday life and explains how to get others to act in your own interest and according to your own ideas. Sridhar applies methods and insights from behavioral psychology. Here are some tips from the book: How to Take Control Freakery Away from Your Boss Some supervisors annoy us with their controlling behavior. "In fact, the extent of control says much more about the insecurity of the one controlling than about the abilities of the one being controlled. Sovereign, self-assured leaders have structured their department and built up such good employees that they don't need to control constantly," Sridhar knows. Nevertheless, most bosses can't resist: The supervisor needs to feel like they have everything under control - the illusion of being in control of everything. A possible solution: With simple steps, you can gain more freedom for yourself while still letting your boss feel the illusion of control. In this case, the coach uses the so-called Hero Method as a "panacea": "Casually mention how much you appreciate that your boss gives his employees the necessary space and is not a control fanatic. Praise him for his foresight and modern leadership style." It can't hurt, even if the Hero Method is not as effective in this case as it is in others. "Because the need for control is a very strong motive." Alternative: If you throw a few crumbs to your boss to play with, you will have peace. However, you must throw things that he enjoys playing with! Example 1: Your boss likes to tell anecdotes about his past successes. So ask him for a specific example from the past. He enjoys being able to tell a story and forgets to control your actual work, but feels like he has contributed. Example 2: Your boss is proud of her good math skills. Show her a statistic you have created and ask for her opinion. How Your Boss Won't Hold Mistakes Against You When faced with a mistake, there are essentially two situations. Either your boss has come across something and addresses it directly with you. Or you take the initiative and point out a shortcoming yourself. Important: One should not downplay a mishap, but rather turn a seeming catastrophe into a tangible and thus solvable problem. A possible solution: "If he calls you out in front of the whole team, you need to turn the conversation into a one-on-one situation because only then can he back down without losing face, and if he is angry, you need to defuse that anger," recommends the coach. To transition a public reprimand into a one-on-one situation, a simple sentence is often enough:

• "You are probably right about that. However, I would like to discuss this with you personally afterwards, so that it doesn't happen again."

This sentence combines three methodical tricks. You temporarily agree with the boss. You take his concern seriously, which is why you want to discuss it personally, and ultimately, you give him a benefit for the one-on-one conversation, namely to prevent it from happening again. More power phrases to defuse your angry boss:

• "I completely understand how angry you are, but could you please speak a bit slower so I can take notes and avoid making the mistake again?"
• "I'm really sorry that you are so angry. Could you please speak a bit slower though? I can't keep up that quickly."

If you want to turn a critical conversation in your favor, it's best to clearly show that you can address the causes of the oversight, thus having control over the situation. "So, don't just name the causes, but also the ways in which you will ensure that the problem doesn't reoccur," advises Sridhar. By taking notes during the conversation with the boss, you signal that you take the matter seriously and think about it. It is also best to mention specific measures after a week on how to prevent the error from happening again.