How to direct your efforts towards the actions that will pay off
“I’m really worried about my competition for this interview”
I’d been working with Gina for a couple of months, helping her to improve her executive presence, when she was put forward for an interview for a promotion she really wanted.
Naturally, her focus shifted towards doing some interview prep.
As often happens when I’m helping someone prepare for a big interview, the idea of ‘the competition’ entered the room.
For Gina, despite her hard work on developing her executive presence and now putting some of that into practice for her interview, the fear of the competitors started to get in the way. She knew two of them and they worried her.
Focussing on those things we can’t control in any given situation gives fear a rent-free space in your head. It takes you from feeling empowered to feeling helpless and can quickly scupper the hard work of preparation, if you don’t nip it in the bud pronto.
A simple and extremely effective tool to overcome the fear of the uncontrollable is the CIA model.
CIA stands for Control, Influence, Accept and is accredited to by HR specialist Neil Thompson and social-work lecturer Sue Thompson in their 2008 book, “The Critically Reflective Practitioner.”
You can use this in any situation, where you’re feeling under pressure or stressed out to ensure that your precious time, effort and energy is put to best use.
The questions to ask yourself are:
1 What can I control? These are the black and whites - you either do them or you don’t.
When facing a big interview, you can usually control:
Your preparation and practice
Working out your career narrative
Working out what questions might come up
Revising any technical points that might be questioned
Understanding your strengths well enough to articulate them fluently
Understanding as much as possible about the role and how it fits into the organisation
Having conversations outside of the interview room to get as much information as possible
Understanding what the challenges of the role are an thinking ahead about how you’d address them
Your on the day contingency plan in case something goes awry
What you wear
Your background set up (if it’s over Zoom)
What else?
2 What can you influence?
This is what you can contribute to controlling but ultimately, some outside force might be involved, which you have no control over. For the interview example, you might consider:
If it’s on Zoom, whether or not your tech works on the day (by double checking all is well, making sure you lay claim to the best wifi spot in the house etc.).
Your ability to do your absolute best (see preparation)
Getting there on time (if it’s in person)
What else?
3 What must you accept?
These are the things that you cannot control or influence, no matter what you do.
That there is competition and that they might be good
That technical glitches/train delays etc can happen on the day
That no matter how hard you try, the panel may not give you the role
Sometimes though, the things we have to accept are those things that take up too much headspace, when we could be using that headspace to focus only on the things we can control or influence.
It’s worth asking yourself to work out what you can practically do about anything you’re worried about and it’ll soon bring focus back to where it matters.
I asked Gina:
The competitors you mention - is there some way you can sabotage them?
Of course not! That would be at best unethical and at worst illegal but the question serves to pull the brain back to where it needs to be.
If you can’t do anything about any of your worries in a given situation, write it down, take it out of your head and relegate it to the Accept list.
Everything else can go on either the Control or Influence list and becomes your To-Do list.
This way you spend your precious time, effort and energy in the only way that will make a difference.