Interest-Influence Grid

This is a useful map to help understand the need for communication and potential resistance to change. 'Interest' indicates their likely concern about change, whilst 'Influence' indicates their ability resist and hence stimulates your concern.

A way of using the grid is to put people's names on post-it notes and stick them on a wall-chart of the grid.

Interest-Influence Grid

Interest
Low	High

Influence	High
	Low

Keep
Satisfied

Actively
Engage

Occasionally
Contact

Keep
Informed

High interest, low influence

These people can be difficult in that it is easy to ignore them as they apparently cannot derail the change, although if sufficiently upset they may gain influence by low-level blocking and other techniques of resistance to change.

Do remember that minorities can be very powerful, particularly if they band together or if they get powerful allies.

Low interest, high influence

People with a low interest in the change will not be particularly worried about what you are doing, so are are not too much of a problem in the actual change. A problem can appear when they are persuaded to act for those who oppose the change. It is thus important to keep them onside, for example with regular meetings that explain the truth of what is happening.

High interest, high influence

These people are both significantly affected by the change and most able to do something about it, either supporting or opposing changes. It is particularly important to engage these people in the change, ensuring both that they understand what is going on and also creating buy-in as they feel a sense of ownership of what is being done.

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Interest-Influence Grid

Low interest, low influence

High interest, low influence

Low interest, high influence

High interest, high influence

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Quick links

Disciplines

Techniques

Principles

Explanations

Theories

And