Circle of Influence: from Challenges to Changes

The Circle of Influence is a widely known visualization and prioritization method. You might know it e.g. from the popular book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey or if you're into Stoicism.

In this brief piece, I introduce you to how I use it for individual work as well as for work with groups or people (or even teams).

What are the Circles of Influence?

Very briefly you discriminate between:

Circle of Control: "Things" you can control i.e. that you can influence all on your own be that individually or as a team.
Circle of Influence: "Things" you can influence i.e. things that you contribute to but that you cannot steer entirely on your own. Also things that are in the complex domain (compared to simple or complicated) usually fit more into that circle.
Circle of Concern: "Things" that is of concern but that (almost) cannot be influenced.

In my experience things in the Circle of Concern appear way less concerning if you intentionally place a them in this circle i.e. if you are aware and accept that you neither can control nor influence this.

That way you can save a lot of energy which can then be put into things that you actually can change or onfluence. If there is still energy left (e.g. time/money/mental capacity), you can then invest in making the concerning "thing" smaller or shaping it differently so that you can have at least an influence on it.

What I often notice - no matter if people use the Circles alone or together with other people - is that a metaphorically stormy, cloudy, dark environment clears up over time and light moments appear. I tried to visualize this in the two slides below with photos of my beloved Lake Constance.

That also means that usually the Circle of Influence and the Circle of Control grow (a bit) while the Circle of Concern stays (nearly) the same. In other words, people experience more self-agency and start addressing the challenges that deserve their energy.

Write down all the challenges

Write all the stuff down that's bothering you. One "thing" gets one sticky note. No worries about the wording. Problem speak is explicitely allowed here.

Then try to place all the challenges in the three circles. There is no right or wrong place. There are only "good enough" places.

Good enough means:

if you work alone: it makes sense to you
if you work together: you agree that everyone can currently live with the placement of the post-its (knowingly the places can and might change in the near future)

Try to find possible changes (you want to see instead of the challenges)

The idea here is to find a solution-oriented reframing for that challenging "thing" you wrote down on a sticky note.

Prioritize the challenges that are either in the control or in the influence circle (as they are the most likely ones to be addressed first).

Replace each challenge with the possible change(s)

Here the place in the circles usually stays the same but it may also change (especially if you work together with multiple people on that).

Where to focus on first?

My advice always is: start with what you deem in your Circle of Control as there usually is the biggest lever.

Also a combination of one from the Control-Circle and one from the Influence-Circle might be a good idea as the things in the Circle of Influence usually take a bit longer to get solved and take effect.

Thanks for reading! 😊

I'm Cosima.
I work with teams and organizations who want to achieve more together,
and I coach human beings who want clarity, lightness and power in their (business) life.

Get in touch & work with me!

cosima AT respectAndAdapt.rocks or book a free discovery call

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