Interpersonal Influence Card Sort: A Reflective Workplace Influence Tool for Professionals

A reflective card sort for exploring how influence actually works in the workplace. Designed for professionals navigating power, ethics, and complex stakeholder dynamics.

Interpersonal Influence Card Sort

A reflective card sort for making sense of influence in the workplace - especially when influencing others feels automatic, uncomfortable, or ethically complex.

This resource is designed for moments when influence matters, but the usual tactics feel constrained, risky, or misaligned with personal values.

Overview

The Interpersonal Influence Card Sort is a reflective, sense-making tool that helps professionals understand how they actually try to influence others at work - not how they should.

Most people rely on a small, habitual set of influence tactics. Under pressure, these patterns become more automatic, not more deliberate. This card sort slows the process just enough to make influence visible, discussable, and open to choice.

Rather than teaching persuasion techniques or evaluating effectiveness, the cards support awareness of:

• Influence patterns
• Trade-offs and constraints
• Power and positional risk
• Ethical tension and personal boundaries

All within real organisational contexts.

Influence Tactics Made Visible

The deck contains 36 influence tactic cards, each describing a recognisable way people attempt to influence others at work.

A tactic is not a personality trait or leadership style.

It is a behavioural move - something a person does (consciously or not) in a particular context.

The cards span a wide range of influence approaches, including:

• Direct and indirect tactics
• Front-stage and back-stage influence
• Tactics grounded in authority, relationships, expertise, timing, or framing

Some tactics feel familiar and safe. Others feel risky, uncomfortable, or unavailable depending on role, hierarchy, culture, or values. The value of the deck lies in the range it makes visible, not in any single tactic.

How This Card Sort Is Used

The cards are designed to be used reflectively and dialogically, supporting sense-making rather than instruction or evaluation.

Practitioners use this card sort:

• When influence feels frustrating, effortful, or stuck
• Before high-stakes or uncomfortable conversations
• When working across power differences or complex stakeholder relationships
• To surface habitual influence patterns operating below awareness
• To explore risk, ethics, and personal boundaries in influence

Discomfort, hesitation, or avoidance are treated as information, not problems to fix.

Often, awareness itself is the intervention.

Included Exercises (Digital Guidebook)

The digital guidebook includes structured, stand-alone reflective exercises. Each exercise typically takes 10–15 minutes and can be used independently.

Exercises include:

• Influence Repertoire Snapshot: surfacing habitual influence patterns
• Stakeholder Fit Sort: exploring power, relationship, and context
• Power & Risk Awareness Sort: noticing personal, relational, or ethical costs
• Overuse / Underuse Sort: identifying habitual vs intentional influence
• Ethical Tension Sort: exploring alignment with personal values
• Influence Experiment Design: designing small, low-risk experiments

These exercises are reflective rather than prescriptive. They are not designed to create “better” influence, only more conscious and intentional influence.

What’s Included

Individual Kit – €35

• 36 professionally designed influence tactic cards
• Printed in the EU on 350 gsm silk card stock
• Card size: 74 × 105 mm (A7)
• Undyed twill cotton drawstring bag

Guidance Materials

• Printed A5 booklet (posted with the cards)
• Digital guidebook (PDF) with theory, exercises, and practitioner guidance

What This Card Sort Is - and Is Not

This card sort is:

• Reflective and sense-making oriented
• Grounded in real workplace dynamics
• Focused on awareness, choice, and ethical use of influence
• Designed to work with power, not deny it

This card sort is not:

• A checklist of best practices
• A measure of influence skill or effectiveness
• A guide to persuasion or manipulation
• A leadership style or personality model

Influence is not about having more tactics.

It is about understanding which ones you are already using - and why.

Intended Audience

This resource is designed for:

• Project managers
• Procurement professionals
• Programme and portfolio managers
• Team leaders and functional managers
• Coaches, educators, and facilitators working with influence and stakeholder dynamics

Delivery

• Physical cards and printed booklet are shipped internationally
• Digital guidebook (PDF) is delivered immediately via Payhip

Orders are shipped via standard post. Delivery times vary by region. Tracking may be provided for selected orders.