"The Control Loop"

In the last email, I described a quiet bargain:

“Just give us a stable roadmap, don’t change your mind, and we’ll build it.”

On the surface, it sounds like a path to focus and flow.
But underneath, it becomes a trap, one that invites control in all the wrong places.

That trap doesn’t just affect the team. It reshapes how the whole organisation behaves.

When developers ask for certainty, leaders often respond the only way they know how:

They tighten the plan.

Timelines firm up. Metrics get sharper. Delivery becomes a spreadsheet.
The organisation doubles down on clarity, even if that clarity is an illusion.

This isn’t a manager problem. It’s a human one.

We all do it. When we feel uncomfortable in the fog, we reach for control.

But here’s the trap, and I’ve seen it play out again and again:

  1. The team asks for a stable plan.
  2. Management provides one, deadlines, scope, commitments.
  3. Change happens anyway.
  4. Trust erodes.
  5. Managers impose more structure.
  6. Teams retreat further.

It’s a loop.

A control loop, where every attempt to restore certainty only increases the discomfort that caused the need for certainty in the first place.

In a complex environment, control doesn’t resolve uncertainty. It displaces it.

  • Plans look solid, but they crumble under change.
  • Estimates feel scientific, but they mask all the things we haven’t discovered yet.
  • Status reports tell a neat story, but nobody believes it.

And worst of all?
The more energy we spend pretending we know, the less we spend learning what’s really going on.

What breaks the loop?

It’s difficult, but one thing’s for sure: it’s not a better plan.

What breaks it is someone, often a leader, resisting the urge to rescue, and leaving room for long, awkward silences as people struggle to gain shared understanding. It’s saying:

“Things will change.”
“But we’ll figure it out together.”

It sounds weak. But it’s not.

It’s an act of quiet leadership, the kind that doesn’t override uncertainty, but walks with it long enough for something real to emerge.

Until next time,
Dermot
​The Messy Middle

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