Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern

The same complaint is on the agenda for the third week running. Another department is slow, or head office has changed a policy, or a customer keeps moving the date. Everyone in the room agrees it's a problem and the meeting runs over. Nobody leaves with anything to do, so the complaint comes back the following week.

Figure 1. Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern

What it is

Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern come from Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, where they sit under Habit 1, Be Proactive. The model draws two circles, one inside the other. The outer circle of concern holds everything you care or worry about. The smaller circle of influence inside it holds the things you can actually affect through your own actions and choices.

The model's claim is that where you put your attention decides which circle grows. When you spend your energy on what you can influence, your influence widens over time. When you spend it worrying about what you can't change, the model says your influence shrinks.

How it works

Circle of Concern

What is on my mind that I can't control?

Write down everything about the situation that is bothering you, including the parts that belong to someone else. Other people's choices, decisions already made above you, the economy and last quarter's results all go here. Naming them helps, because a concern nobody has written down tends to keep pulling the conversation back to it. Being right about a concern doesn't move it into your circle of influence. You can be correct that another team is letting customers down and still be unable to change how that team works.

Circle of Influence

What part of this can I actually affect?

For each concern, look for the part that is yours. That might be a decision you can make yourself, a proposal you can take to the person who decides, or the way your own team handles its side of the work. A concern that sits mostly outside your control often has a small part that sits inside it. If you can't find one, decide whether to keep an eye on the concern or to let it go.

Proactive or Reactive Focus

Where has my energy actually gone this week?

The model says the circle you feed is the one that grows. Proactive focus means spending your time on the things you can act on, and the model says your influence widens as you do. Reactive focus means going over the same concern again and again, in meetings, in the hallway and in your own head. Covey's point is that too much worry diminishes your circle of influence. Your team notices which circle you spend your time in, so check your own habit before you ask them to change theirs.

When to reach for it

The same complaint about another department or a decision from above comes up at every team meeting
You've spent more time this week describing a problem than working on any part of it
Someone on your team comes to you frustrated about something neither of you controls

“People watch what leaders do much more closely than they listen to what leaders say.”

A worked example

Riverbend Print is a fictional commercial printer. Its largest customer moved all purchasing into a new approval system, and print jobs began sitting for days waiting for sign off. The production team spent two weekly meetings complaining about the customer's system while rush jobs piled up at the end of the month.

At the third meeting the production manager drew two circles on the whiteboard. The customer's system, its approval times and the customer's staffing went in the circle of concern, because Riverbend had no say over any of them. The team then looked for the parts they could affect. Several of the delayed jobs had been sent back because the quote was missing a cost code the new system required. Riverbend also controlled how it scheduled its presses, and it could ask the customer's buyer for help.

The account manager added the cost code to the quote template that week and asked the buyer whether repeat jobs could receive a standing approval. The production manager kept press time open in the last week of each month. The customer's system stayed on the list as something to review in a month. The team chose these actions because each one was within its own control and could shorten the delays straight away, while complaining about the customer's system had changed nothing in two weeks.

Try it this week

Pick one concern that has come up more than once in the last few weeks. By the end you'll have one action inside your circle of influence with an owner and a date, and a decision about what to do with the rest.

Write the concern at the top of a page and draw two circles beneath it, one inside the other.
In the outer circle, list every part of the concern that is bothering you, including the parts that belong to other people.
For each item, ask what part of it you can decide, propose or change in your own work, and write that part in the inner circle.
Choose the item in the inner circle most likely to improve the situation, and give it an owner and a date.
For each item left in the outer circle, decide whether to watch it, take it to the person who can decide, or let it go.
At the end of the week, check whether you spent more of your time on the inner circle or the outer one.

Try it with AI

Copy this prompt into ChatGPT, Claude or any AI assistant and fill in the part in square brackets. It will walk you through the model one step at a time, using your own situation.

Prompt

I keep coming back to this situation: [describe the situation, what is bothering you and who else is involved].

If you can open links, read https://www.colincox.com/library/circle-of-influence first. It explains Stephen Covey's Circle of Concern, which holds everything I care or worry about, and the smaller Circle of Influence inside it, which holds the things I can actually affect through my own actions and choices.

Take one circle at a time. Start with my circle of concern, ask me one or two questions, and wait for my answers before you move on. Then do the same for my circle of influence. Push back if I put something in my circle of influence that really depends on someone else, or if I say I can't do anything about a concern before I've looked for the part I can affect. If I spend most of my answers blaming another person or team, point that out.

Finish by asking me to choose one action inside my circle of influence, who will own it and by what date, and what I'll do with the concerns I can't influence.

Leave out names and anything confidential before you paste in your situation.

From Colin's work

I was leading a frontline team at a large, publicly traded company. Our customers loved us, but they told me, "Colin, your team is fantastic, but when your team hands us off to that back-end team, your service falls off a cliff."

I did not focus on what I could influence. I went into an absolute victim mindset and focused on blame. I pointed the finger at the other department and its leader, and I waved data in their faces, saying, "Look at the service level agreements you're violating." I was right on the facts, but we didn't fix our problem.

What actually happened was that my team started to do what I did. They started pointing fingers and blaming that other department. I also lost leadership credibility with my boss and my peers, because they saw me ducking responsibility and blaming someone else, even though I was justified. They told me, "You can't lead like that, Colin."

It was a big lesson for me. People watch what leaders do much more closely than they listen to what leaders say.

Go deeper

Read the longer article on Circle of Influence and Circle of Concern

Related tools

Source: Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, 1989

Want help putting this to work with your team? Book a free thirty minutes with Colin.