"Control Illusionists" Make Innovation Dissapear

Reading up on this subject reminded me of another topic that I've been discussing lately:

Real Control (healthy variance reduction) versus the "Illusion of Control" (something quite different)...

Throughout my academic, entrepreneurial and professional career I've watched (and learned from) people who were masters of organizing and unifying a view of a million inputs and moving parts, enabling a more holistic outlook and decision making capability.

I've also watched some folks stare unproductively at self-created dashboards, lean too heavily on pre-fab decision-making frameworks and effectively divert themselves away from the tasks of a) understanding and b) actually solving critical problems. Instead, folks like these basically sell themselves and their bosses on an illusion of control, urging attention toward a neat set of reports that elude to selected management strengths/competencies and away from problems that may very well be out of control.

In a nutshell, the Control Illusionists I've met are great at creating a temporary calm and perhaps some job stability. They're also really, really bad at managing innovation. They certainly don't represent the kind of "magic" that you want to bring to your organization.