Circle of Influence & Control

The ‘Circle of Influence and Control’ has been around since the 1980’s and you may well have come across it before. I wanted to write this article about it because I have used it many times in my career to help employees, managers and HR teams. The principles are very simple but when you explain them to someone for the first time I have seen some light bulb moments, and when you remind people who have seen it before it helps them get back on track.

For those of you that haven’t seen the model before, what is the ‘Circle of Influence and Control’?

Steven Covey wrote about this model in 1989 in his book ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ (which I absolutely love!)

There are 3 circles.

The Circle of Control

The Circle of Influence

The Circle of Concern

When can you use this model?

This model helps people reduce their levels of worry. People tend to focus on EVERYTHING they have going on in their life or in their mind. The reality is, when you break it down into things you can directly control the list of things to worry about gets significantly smaller. You can help them focus their energy on things that are worthwhile, i.e. things they can actually do something about.

Working in HR I have found people coming to me to say they are feeling under pressure and they are struggling to cope. When people reach this state it can very often be close to crisis point and we need to help them protect their mental health. So the next time someone has this conversation with you, ask them if they have heard of this model.

Get them to do a brain dump and list everything that is worrying them or is on their mind. I’ve no doubt this will be quite a sizeable list when they really stop and think about it. The next steps is to then try to categorise them and put them into each circle.

What do the circles mean?

Circle of Control - The Circle of Control should capture all the things that someone has direct control over. These are the aspects of life that they can directly influence and take action on. Examples of items within your circle of control include your attitudes, behaviours, choices, responses to situations, and the effort you put into your work or personal relationships. Covey emphasises that focusing on your circle of control allows you to be proactive and take responsibility for your own actions.

There are definitely things in your life that you can control and should spend more of your time thinking about those things, such as whether you eat unhealthy food, your work performance and how tidy your house is.

Circle of Influence - There are some things on the list that might be items you can have some influence over, but really they are sat firmly in someone' else’s circle of control. For example you may be worrying about whether you’ll get a promotion and payrise. You can work hard to demonstrate that you are ready for the promotion, but ultimately the decision isn’t yours'. If you’re worried about the cost of things like food etc, you can have some influence on how much you spend by choosing which supermarket to go to, but you can’t impact the price that the supermarkets set.

Circle of Concern - There will definitely be things on someone’s mind that are of concern to them, but unfortunately there is very little that the individual can do about them. Things like the weather, pandemics, the economy and the price of petrol.

This activity can be done on a 1:1 basis if you think someone will benefit from sitting and doing this with you or I’ve even used in team sessions. Ask people to write things that are worrying them on a post it note. They can use as many as they need to. Then everyone will stick them all up on the wall. Next you talk through the circles and what they mean then together as a group you begin to decide which circle each post it note should sit in. You may find there is some debate because we all have different lives and the ability to influence different things but on the whole you should be able to get agreement.

Writing things down can be a really effective way to reduce stress and overwhelming thoughts or emotions. It can help people gain clarity, organise their thoughts and create some distance between the negative feeling in their head. It almost reduces the intensity of the worry.

By capturing and organising thoughts on paper, you free up mental space and alleviate stress as you don’t have to try and retain the information.

So next time someone comes to you and says they’re feeling overwhelmed or under pressure why not consider this activity.