Written by Eloise Barbier

CIA: The power of focusing on what you can control in a situation

14th October, 2024   •   4 mins

We cannot [always] choose our external circumstances, but we can choose
how to respond to them – Victor Frankl

Do you ever find yourself spending a lot of time thinking about…
A pitch that did not go the way you wanted it to
A deadline that has been sprung on you last minute
How you need more hours in a day
Your team member is going through a hard time due to personal circumstances
You have organised a barbecue over the weekend and are worried it might rain

What all of these examples have in common is that what we are worrying about is ultimately out of our control – either because of the nature of the worry (e.g the weather), or because it has already happened (e.g the pitch that hasn’t gone the way we wanted it to).

We can spend a lot of time and mental energy worrying about these kinds of situations, which can lead to overwhelm, impact our resilience and lead us to not being productive in our approach.

To help challenge this, we can reframe our thinking and focus on the controllables in a situation. Research shows that employees who focused on what they can control in their work had higher levels of job satisfaction, organisational commitment, and job performance.

We can use the CIA model as a tool to help us do this.

The main idea behind this model is to break down the situation into what we can control, influence and what we have to accept.

Generally speaking, we can control our mindset and our actions. We can influence other people (our team, our clients, their decision-making etc). What we need to accept are the things that currently sit outside of our control – this category may evolve over time, for example something that is currently out of our control may move into something we can influence over time.

Once we have broken the situation down into these three categories, we want to focus our attention on what we can control and influence. This will put our brain into problem solving mode and help us productively think about solutions, rather than letting our negativity bias go rampant and overfocusing on the problem.

How does this work in practice?

Let’s take an example to bring this to life.

A client calls you and moves forward a deadline, and you feel like you have too little time to get everything done.

What do I have to accept? The deadline has been moved (let’s say for the purpose of this example that you cannot re-negotiate that deadline). You also need to accept the more limited time frame that you have, and the fact that you have a limited number of hours in a day.

So what we want to do is shift our focus to what we can control and influence within this situation. This will prevent us from going into a panic and start working on anything vaguely relevant with no plan, which isn’t an effective use of time.

Instead we ask ourselves –

What can I control? We can control what we prioritise within the limited time that we have. What are our top priorities? How can we most effectively organise our time? If unsure, we could make a list of low, medium and high priorities and get feedback from our manager/team member

What can I influence? We can influence other people. Can we get someone to help us? Can we think about how to divide the work to get it done with others in the team? Can we contact our client to send through relevant documents that will help us get the work done faster?

From this, we can make an action plan and work around the revised deadline.

This example shows the power of reframing a situation. Rather than focusing on the negative (the pressure from the moved deadline), we shift our focus to the opportunity – what can we do within this context?

How can we use the CIA model?

• As an individual: this is a great tool to use in the moment when you are overwhelmed, or catch yourself going in circles around a situation.Since “CIA” is quite a memorable term, you can use it as a shorthand to catch yourself when going down a spiral.For example, let’s say your train gets cancelled on your way to work and you are going to be late for an important meeting. What can happen in this situation is that we go into panic mode. Instead, pause and tell yourself “CIA”: what can you control? Influence? What do you have to accept?This helps put your brain into problem-solving mode. Maybe you can get in touch with a colleague to start the meeting without you. Or can you find another way to get to the office? From there, you can approach the situation in a much more productive way than just going into panic mode.

• As a coaching tool in a one to one context: for example, you are in conversation with your direct report and notice they are worrying a lot about something out of their control, as in the examples shared above – use the CIA tool to coach them through and break the situation down into the three different circles.
• With the wider team as a way to discuss blockers and collaboratively find solutions: this could be integrated as part of your project management process, and used in project kick offs and retrospectives.You can draw 3 circles on a board/online ideation platform and get the team brainstorming what goes into each circle. From then, you can make an action plan and determine next steps.

CIA is also brilliant to use when managing through change. It helps reduce overwhelm by getting you/your team focusing on the controllables within the change journey.

In summary

1. We can spend a lot of time and mental energy focusing on things that we can’t control, which has a significant impact on our mindset and resilience

2. The CIA tool helps you to break a situation down:
What can you control in this situation?
What can you influence?
What do you need to accept?

3. By defining what we can control and influence within a situation, we can be more proactive and resilient in how we approach a challenge, and help others do the same