{"id":866,"date":"2016-08-11T00:01:16","date_gmt":"2016-08-11T04:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/facilitativeleadership.wordpress.com\/?p=866"},"modified":"2026-04-21T13:32:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T17:32:37","slug":"concern-influence-and-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mgrush.com\/blog\/concern-influence-and-control\/","title":{"rendered":"Scope Creep Kills: Facilitate Concern, Influence, and Control"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scope creep kills projects. It also kills meetings.<\/h2>\n

The consensual sphere of Concern, Influence, and Control helps a group become mindful of aspects that could alter the group’s attitudes, beliefs, and decisions<\/a>. The consensual sphere of Concern, Influence, and Control helps a group to focus, on one issue at a time, or one aspect at a time.<\/span><\/p>\n

The single most important responsibility of a facilitator is to protect the people or meeting participants. The next most challenging responsibility however is to make it easy for a group to focus<\/a> on one issue at a time.<\/span><\/p>\n

The consensual sphere of Concern, Influence, and Control helps separate a discussion into aspects the group controls, aspects they influence, and aspects about which they have no control or significant influence. Since groups seldom perform effectively using a linear approach, consider using a \u201cBookend<\/a>\u201d approach for analyzing the sphere of Concern, Influence, and Control. Following are the steps required that can be used to analyze most lists, including prioritizing a list of criteria.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

APPLYING THE BOOKEND METHOD TO CONCERN, INFLUENCE, AND CONTROL<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\"Scope

Concern, Influence, and Control<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

Purpose<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Effective facilitators shy away from working lists in a linear fashion. The purpose of using a bookend approach is to develop a natural habit of squeezing the grey matter<\/a> towards the middle, rather than wasting too much time on it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rationale<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Groups tend to argue about the grey matter that frequently does not affect the decision anyway. For instance, with PowerBalls<\/em><\/a>, you can envision participants arguing whether something is more important than moderate yet less important than high. We know from experience that the most important criteria drive most decisions, so bookends help us identify the critical stuff quickly.<\/span><\/p>\n

Method<\/strong><\/h3>\n

After you have compiled a list of criteria or aspects, compare and contrast them\u00a0with the simple process explained below:<\/span><\/p>\n