The most pleasant pairing on the team, and the slowest to decide anything.
An Influence and Steadiness pairing is warm, generous and reliably indecisive. Both prioritise the relationship, both are reluctant to be the one who forces a conclusion, and both will keep a conversation open rather than close it in a way that leaves someone unhappy.
- Influence × Steadiness
- Both sides get moves
- Measured, not concatenated
The result is a pair that enjoys working together enormously and produces decisions later than either of them would alone.
Where it works, where it slips.
Where it works
Excellent at the human parts. This pair notices when someone is struggling, brings quieter colleagues in, and holds a team together through a difficult period better than any other combination.
Where it slips
Nobody closes. Influence keeps opening new directions, Steadiness keeps accommodating them, and a decision that needed making on Tuesday is still being explored on Friday.
The tell
Long, enjoyable conversations that end with "let us pick this up next week."
What each one concludes about the other.
Influence reads Steadiness as
quietly on board — because Steadiness is agreeable and does not object, which Influence takes as enthusiasm rather than accommodation.
Steadiness reads Influence as
committed to whichever idea they most recently sounded excited about, and then finds the direction has moved again.
Four moves, not four adjectives.
Both sides get something to do. Guidance that only asks one person to change is a verdict rather than advice.
- 01Appoint a decider before the meeting starts, not during it. Neither of you will volunteer, and that is fine — just name one in advance.
- 02Put a time on the exploration. "Twenty minutes of options, then we choose" works because it gives both of you permission to close.
- 03Influence: check whether Steadiness actually agrees or is being kind. Ask in writing if that is easier for them.
- 04Steadiness: it is safe to say "I think we need to decide." Influence will be relieved rather than offended.
Which of us is going to be the one who closes this?.
This is the general case. Your two colleagues aren't.
Throughline measures the pair rather than concatenating two type descriptions — so the guidance names the specific people, and changes when you change the names.
All ten pairingsTell us what you’re working on.