Influence - Pick your battles
An interesting question for professionals is: when does it make sense to influence your client or superior, and when are you fighting a losing battle? As the English say: pick your battles.
A model to gain better insight into your possibilities and limitations in managing bosses, customers, colleagues, etc. can be found in the well-known book by Stephen Covey The seven habits of highly effective peopleCovey distinguishes between things you're involved in and things you can influence. If you're involved in something but have no control over it (for example, rainy weather), you can certainly complain, but that probably won't help much. Things you can influence are things like putting up an umbrella or turning on the windshield wipers.
- Everyone is involved in many things in life. This can be visualized as a circle of involvement.
- Everyone has influence on many things in life. This can be visualized as a circle of influence.
- Often the circle of concern is larger than the circle of influence.
In the area outside your control but within your control, you often feel less comfortable or even frustrated. You want to change something, but it doesn't work. Some people can lose a lot of energy in this "frustration donut," the yellow area in the image. This is understandable, because you want to change something, but for reasons that are often illogical or unjust, it doesn't work. The world, unfortunately, is different than it should be.
What rarely helps is dwelling on this for too long and telling yourself and others that things should be different. Covey suggests you have two better options: either do something about it, or accept it.
Example: A client or your manager expects a project to be completed within two months, and you have a gut feeling that's not going to happen. Upon closer inspection, you realize this is because you really want it (involvement) but you don't have enough people with the right expertise (influence). The two options you currently have are explained below.
The first option is to expand your circle of influence. This requires some creativity, courage, and perseverance. There are often many ways to increase your influence:
- You can ask for more people to help you.
- You can discuss a later delivery date.
- You can reduce the scope of the project
- You can ensure that the people who are there with the right expertise free up all their time for you by arranging for a higher priority for your project.
In our training and team coaching sessions, we're presented with all sorts of cases that can seriously frustrate a professional's working life. For example, dealing with a particular person within the client organization who simply can't or won't understand. In some cases, the professional looks at us expectantly after explaining the rather hopeless situation with a look of: "Good luck with it, friends, I'm really curious how you know-it-alls can solve this." After trainers or colleagues offer well-intentioned advice two or three times, it turns out our professional has already tried those solutions, and nothing works. And you sense in your gut that all the solutions you propose afterward won't work, for very good reasons. It becomes rather frustrating for everyone involved.
A good question at that point is: does it have a chance?
Is there a realistic way to get things moving again? Or is it simply not possible anymore? It often helps to take a moment to really let the question sink in. Do you still believe in it? Or do you feel deep down that it's not going to work and are you fighting on like Don Quixote?
If it has no chance, if you cannot change it, then the great art is to accept that the world is just a little bit different than it should be.
It's evening, and Sam is tossing and turning in his bed. "What's the matter with you?" his wife, Saar, asks. Sam says, "I can't sleep. I have to repay Moos a thousand euros tomorrow, but I don't have it." "Aha," says his wife; she gets up, opens the window, and shouts across the street: "Hey Moos!" A little while later, Moos answers from a house across the street, and Saar calls back: "Hey Moos, that thousand euros Sam was supposed to give you tomorrow, he doesn't have it!" Then she closes the window again and says to her husband: "Well, now he's awake, and you can get a good night's sleep."
But what if you can't expand your circle of influence? Or what if you don't feel like investing so much energy into something? What if you determine that something is unsolvable? Or in other words: what if you determine that something doesn't fit within your circle of influence? Then the answer is: stop getting involved. So, accept that this isn't going to work.
Of course, you can literally stop being involved altogether by giving back the assignment. Not fun, but better than flogging a dead horse.
If the topic isn't a show-stopper for your assignment, you can, of course, stay. However, you'll be left with something unpleasant beyond your control. In that case, you won't literally stop working on your assignment, but you will figuratively stop being involved in this unpleasant part; accept that it's just the way it is.
Accepting what you can't change is an art. Byron Katie calls it loving what is. In her book, she offers concrete tools for finding peace within yourself when a situation isn't what you'd like, both within and outside of work.
And of course, the next step is to make it clear to those involved that you're not going to succeed and to move it outside your circle of concern. And preferably as quickly as possible. Section 2.7, "Naming What Is," explains how to do this.
- It's often difficult to determine for yourself whether or not you have influence over something, especially when you're emotionally involved. At such times, it can be very helpful to seek coaching from a colleague, for example, or to participate in an intervision session with peers.
Rudy Oude Vrielink taught us how to add your circle of responsibility to the model. If your circle of influence is smaller than your circle of responsibility, it's time to consult with your manager. They can often help you increase your influence (or decrease your responsibility). Or your manager can exert their own influence and get things done anyway.
If your circle of responsibility is much smaller than your circle of influence, people often feel their jobs aren't challenging enough. Then it's time to have a conversation about it.
This article was written by Jan Willem van den Brink and Maarten van Os from DreamfactoryIt's based on a chapter from our book Client Satisfied – From content expert to advisory partner.
If you wish to use it, we would greatly appreciate attribution.
Want to know more about this topic or how we can help your organization? Email or call us at 0348-741670.