Podcast 085: High on agency?
Serenity in map form, a magic question, and tools to create more agency
Hey hey hey!
A quick podcast update while we work on the next part in my Vision Chasm series.
The Vision Chasm series has recently been featured in The Agilist, alongside folks like (wow!) Roger Martin, Jeff Gothelf and Karl Scotland. The Agilist is a cool project: curated articles that only available to subscribers in print. The idea is to encourage offline reading and contemplation. A respite from doom scrolling.
We’ve been a bit quiet over the past month because I’ve been busy recording, editing and publishing my new course, Master Multiverse Mapping. If you’re sick of misalignment, wasted effort and strategy fails, then this is for you. I’m disgustingly proud of this and can’t wait to share more with you soon.
OK let’s get into it: podcast summary, listening links and transcript
We start this week’s podcast talking about a quote you probably know …
“grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
– the Serenity Prayer
The concept of “high agency” burst into the online leadership conversation in recent years. And it sounds good, doesn’t it? Who wouldn’t want to be high agency? Who wouldn’t want to have high agency employees?
As with many such “obviously good” concepts, turns out it’s not that simple.
In this episode, Corissa and Tom also look at the other side of hopes for high agency.
We talk about how some leaders might wish for high agency employees, but would balk at what an extremely high agency employee would do in reality.
“imagine that I could sell you a magic pill and you could give it to two of your employees and overnight they would suddenly become high agency. What would be the first thing you’d notice was different when you went into work the next day?”
And we talk about what you need to know if you’re an employee being asked to demonstrate more agency.
Of course, we also signpost a whole load of lovely rabbit holes to go explore.
Linky Goodness
Mushfiqa Monica Jalamuddin - the Estuarine coach you’re looking for
Multiverse Mapping (free course)
Venkatesh Rao’s Gervais Principle
Jeffrey Pfeffer’s Leadership BS
Brendan Reid’s Stealing the Corner Office
Luca Dellanna’s 100 Truths You Will Learn Too Late
How to listen:
Or search for Trigger Strategy Podcast in your pod-player of choice
Timecodes to help you navigate
00:00 Introduction
00:28 What is High Agency?
01:10 The Serenity Prayer
02:00 Estuarine Mapping is the Serenity Prayer in map form
03:45 High agency as a positive trait … & its permeation into leadership mythology
04:06 “Sound like a challenger, but be an obedient drone”
06:20 Perhaps it’s about not waiting for permission, while also not doing silly things
08:09 Tools to create higher agency if you want that – including Multiverse Mapping
13:01 What if the traits we want in leaders are not the traits that get you promoted?
17:31 A magic question for you to use
18:34 What would have to be true for that stupid thing to make a lot of sense?
19:42 “You can choose the game you play, but not its rules”
Transcript
Tom: [00:00:00] Hello, hello, this is Tom and Corissa on Trigger Strategy Podcast. We are digging into strategy and sense making while wandering around lovely Bournemouth.
Corissa: We are stomping through puddles and mud and, um, mouldering leaves and it's delightful! I bloody love autumn. Autumn is the best. It's my favourite time of year.
Tom: Yeah, it is. Summer's just too hot.
Corissa: Too nice. Winter's just too grey.
Tom: Yeah.
Corissa: And spring's just too damn happy.
Tom: Ugh, horrible. Winter goes on too long, I think, that's the problem with winter. But, uh, today [00:00:30] we are going to talk a little bit about the concept of having high agency. Is this something you've come across in the, in the work
Corissa: world?
Corissa: So, I'm guessing you, you're going to go on to talk about sort of negative connotations around that. I think, well, generally high agency sounds like a good thing. Yeah. High agency sounds, I mean, it sounds great. I'll have some of that, please. Um, I think I have probably haven't come across the twist on it that you want to talk about [00:01:00] today.
Corissa: Probably not. I'm coming into this as a sort of blank slate. So I'm interested to know what beef you have with it.
Tom: I mean, it's hard because it is. It is good. Having high agency can be seen as a good thing and for individual humans I think the psychology literature suggests if you feel you have agency, you're generally going to be happier
Corissa: It reminds me of one of the best pieces of life advice that I think I've ever heard and maybe you know where it comes From that.
Corissa: Oh, is it like some prayer of grace? The serenity prayer. The serenity [00:01:30] prayer. Give me the, I can't even remember it now You can though, because you have a weird memory. The
Tom: courage to change what I can change. The grace to accept what I cannot change and the wisdom to know the
Corissa: difference. I'm gonna try and repeat that.
Corissa: Give me the I don't
Tom: think that's accurate, but Oh,
Corissa: okay. Okay, well you get the, get the gist. Know the difference between what you can and can't control, um, and take action on the things that you have some control over and stop trying to change the things that you
Tom: can't. Exactly. As an [00:02:00] aside, if you would like the Serenity Prayer in map form, Estuarine mapping is exactly what it is, and I noted that when I was doing the, the coaching, I wasn't coaching, I was being coached using Estuarine mapping, and that's the feedback I gave to Mushfiqa, who was running it, I just suddenly said, it's like the serenity prayer, but made on a map.
Tom: And you sort of start to see what can you actually change and what can't you change and that helped me to let go of some stuff. Right,
Corissa: and I guess the encouraging thing is there [00:02:30] is always something that you can change, most likely something to do with yourself directly. And not so much about people, you know, a few degrees down the line.
Corissa: In fact, definitely not that. Um, but yeah, so that's, I guess that's something that came to mind when you talk about high agency.
Tom: Yeah, and that links it back to estuarine mapping as well, I think, in that it's also a map, if you make a map with a group, what you're putting onto the map is the stuff that is manageable, that could theoretically be changed within their [00:03:00] environment, and then they draw these boundaries on of stuff that is counterfactual, stuff that can't change, it's like the law of gravity, nobody can change it.
Tom: They draw stuff that's changing so quickly that it's sort of, it's actually volatile, it's risky because it's so low energy and time to change. Then they also draw the liminal zone, which is the most interesting one I think, which is what somebody could change but not us. And so, what you end up with is this, this band of stuff that we can [00:03:30] manage, stuff that we personally can change.
Tom: And depending on how big that band is and how much is in it, that's a measure of how much agency that group of people perceive them to have, themselves to have. Okay. Yeah. So far so good. So far so good. And it makes sense that you want to have high agency if you want to get things done because the, if you have absolutely zero agency you don't think you're able to do anything, right?
Tom: That's, and that's a bad place to be. You are then a slave to the whims of the [00:04:00] universe. Right,
Corissa: a powerless drone.
Tom: Exactly. Not a good place to be. Not a good place to be. So high agency then is something that was recognised I think as being, oh yeah that's a, that's a positive trait, that's a good thing isn't it, and surely everyone would want to have high agency.
Tom: And then this is permeated, and this is where the beef begins, this is permeated I think into some of the, the tech management culture which is very infused with great man theory type [00:04:30] stuff, and quite libertarian and atomistic ideas which are a little bit, you know, Uh, maybe not great. Uh, and it ascribes agency to a person as if it's a characteristic of that person.
Tom: And says, uh, I've certainly worked in situations where top leaders have been frustrated and they're wishing that their, their employees would have higher agency. Would get things done rather than sitting there and complaining.
Corissa: Right, yeah, so stop saying no and just get on [00:05:00] with what I tell you to do.
Corissa: Exactly. Stop
Tom: saying, oh, there's this problem here. We can't do that because. No, just move heaven and earth to make it happen. And, I think, I understand, I think, where those leaders types are coming from. That they would not, they would like people who would just make things happen for them. And they've labeled that as high agency.
Tom: But, I think they're, they're wishing for something that they can't have. Because a truly high agency individual will go, uh, will color outside [00:05:30] the lines. They're gonna break stuff that you'd rather they hadn't broken.
Corissa: Mmmmm. Okay, interesting.
Tom: They're gonna say, well I see that, but it's silly, so I'm gonna go and make this thing happen and it's not the thing you asked me for, it's something that's more important because I'm High Agency and I know what's best. And then the leaders are gonna be pissed off about that.
Corissa: So, yeah, mmmmm. So when people say High Agency, they literally just mean obedient and persistent and, you know, will, will kind of, yeah, like you say, will move heaven and earth [00:06:00] to get something done. Yeah. Button. Better be the way I want it done.
Tom: Yeah, exactly. I think that is often the case, and I might be wrong, there might be leaders out there who genuinely want someone who's gonna come and break the rules and make a mess, because that's actually more valuable. But even people I've worked with who've said they wanted that, didn't want that.
Corissa: I wonder, I'm sort of remembering a past chapter in my career more than ten years ago, when I was sort of early career, not very confident and I was always kind of [00:06:30] looking for permission to do things, right?
Corissa: And I can absolutely see how that would lead to people looking for, um, yeah, looking for, I guess, the opposite of that, which would be high agency, uh, in a sense. So, like, someone who's not constantly looking for someone to check over the work and tell them that it's okay. Is this okay? Is that okay? You can publish this, that's fine.
Corissa: Yeah. Like that, I can see how that would be really irritating and not productive and not constructive for a team or [00:07:00] an organization.
Tom: Yeah.
Corissa: I think it's also understandable that there are reasons why people lack confidence. Again, many different topics there. Oh,
Tom: absolutely. And when you're brand new at a company, you, you've got a bit of leeway cause you're new.
Tom: You can make mistakes and it's okay. But also sometimes
Corissa: you can't, and that again feeds into this lack of confidence. needing approval and lack of quote unquote agency.
Tom: Yeah and you don't know when you first join what are the unspoken rules around here therefore it's probably safest to [00:07:30] check isn't it?
Corissa: Yes and eventually if you're lucky you will sort of learn, learn what the rules are and you sort of move past that difficult, difficult phase of life. Um, but yeah so I, I guess, I guess I'm saying I can understand Where a lot of these people are coming from. Yeah. Just wanting people who are more confident and why can't they just be more confident and just do things without needing me all the time.
Tom: Well, exactly that, isn't it? I definitely, I was, uh, this was all triggered when I go [00:08:00] back in time. Uh, I emailed something out to some people I know, which was about the offer that we have for, we can come in and train your team. We can help your team with tools and some ways of thinking that we've discovered That actually do create higher agency, I think, and do create the ability to go and probe and figure stuff out and take small, meaningful actions.
Corissa: Right, such as, uh, such as Estuarine mapping.
Tom: Estuarine mapping is one, for the sort of leadership level, or multiverse mapping and pivot triggers and [00:08:30] probes and all that sort of stuff for teams. Yes, we have a
Corissa: new course coming out. We do. Uh. By the time you hear this, it should actually be out. How very exciting.
Corissa: Um, do you wanna I'll put it in the show notes. Put it in the show notes. All right. Mini one sentence pitch for multiverse mapping. One sentence
Tom: pitch is, there is such a, uh, a disabundance. What's that? A
Corissa: paucity. I'm striking that out of the elevator pitch. Awful. There's
Tom: loads of people who are frustrated because they don't feel like they've got [00:09:00] strategic alignment.
Tom: And they don't feel like they've got clarity. And teams are just like, what is it? What's it gonna be? What is the thing we're doing? And how can we all align better? And how can we prioritize? We're struggling to prioritize between all this different stuff. And I've found that multiverse mapping is a very, very fast way to collectively as a team figure that stuff out.
Tom: Within an hour you get clarity, you get alignment, and you get prioritization.
Corissa: I just remembered you actually have a really good [00:09:30] updated PS, which is much shorter than what you just said. Oh good. From your email. So I'm going to read this out. Frustrated by a lack of strategic alignment? Get my free taster course for a visual method that can get you aligned and prioritised in an hour.
Corissa: Sign up at multiversemapping. com
Tom: Boom! That is better. What was I on when I wrote that?
Corissa: Well, I have, I've, I've, I've, I've edited verbally for a missing word. Oh good, okay. So you were clearly running on GMs at that point. Um, uh, I don't think the website's live yet, but it will be by the time we publish this.
Tom: It [00:10:00] will. Yeah, yeah, that's one of my next jobs. But no, I'm really excited about it because The, the first version of it was set your first pivot trigger and that was just a long video of me rambling while making a multiverse map and setting pivot triggers. And a bunch of people bought it. Yeah, I was going to say,
Corissa: don't be too down on yourself babes.
Corissa: Oh
Tom: no, I'm delighted. It was a small bet that paid off.
Corissa: Yeah, lots of people bought it, found it really useful. But this is the next iteration which hopefully makes it more accessible to more people. Yep. Going to cost more, much better [00:10:30] results, etc.
Tom: Yeah, yeah, much more structured. Good. I've actually invested in making the slides look good and telling better stories and all this sort of stuff.
Tom: Yeah, and
Corissa: it's several shorter videos rather than one mammoth monstrosity.
Tom: Yes, and I fill in the gaps, connecting it to the benefits that you're going to get.
Corissa: Uh, yeah, cool. Anyway, I wasn't planning to go into that, but I think it was good to mention it. So
Tom: I offered a, I wrote an email, this was 18 months ago or so, where I was offering kind of an early version [00:11:00] of that.
Tom: to people that I knew from my network and saying, Hey, look, could you give me feedback on this offer? Basically, I'm trying to figure out, can we sell this into companies? Cause I think it's really valuable. I've done it for a couple of companies and I've run it at some workshops, uh, sort of at a conference and it went down really, really well.
Tom: And people were delighted with it. So great. Happy so far. The feedback that I got from one person was, Eh, this feels like you're trying to sell me something that I don't want. What if [00:11:30] what I really need is just a couple more leaders who can have high agency? If I'm going to sort of summarize what they said.
Tom: Basically, they're frustrated because they've got a lot of people who are quite expensive who will just wait to be told what to do. And what they want is a couple of people who'll step up and lead the rabble and challenge and make things happen.
Corissa: But not challenge too much, in fact, not really challenge at all.
Corissa: No, no, just make things happen. Sound like a challenger, but actually just be an [00:12:00] obedient drone. Sorry, I'm massively overstating it there. No,
Tom: I don't think you are actually. Reading between the lines of what this person said, and I know them from working with them in the past. They are lovely, but yeah, that's kind of what they wanted, I
Corissa: think.
Corissa: Yes, and I've definitely worked in companies before, like of a certain size and above, where there is just a level of middle management, where that is the dream. Right. That's for the executives at the very top. That's the dream. Sort of obedient leaders who get stuff done and are good at managing the troops.
Tom: [00:12:30] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then you get all the tropes about, I suppose, the shit umbrella, the shit funnel, all those sorts of things, different flavors of manager.
Corissa: Yeah. And that's not to be too down on, on, on like that sort of manager. You know, I think often they are really, really good people managers and they look after their teams and help them grow and, you know, learn new skills and stuff.
Corissa: All of that's amazing, but it's definitely not the kind of high agency, um, as people often describe it, is it?
Tom: Indeed, no. No. I think, [00:13:00] actually, that connects up with something. There's the old Venkatesh Rao piece, uh, the Gervais Principle, which sometimes we come back to, or I often think of. I won't go through the whole details of it, but I think maybe what you're looking for is High agency individuals who get lucky, who do something maverick and it pays off, Ah, yes.
Tom: They get groomed to be new executives. Whereas the high agency in air [00:13:30] quotes, the people who are just good at kind of getting stuff done and following orders and keeping the mess away from the senior leadership, they end up in middle management.
Corissa: Yeah, because they're too effective at it, right? Like, you can't progress beyond that point if you're so good at kind of keeping the shit contained.
Corissa: Yeah. Yeah,
Tom: that's it. Yeah, I think that is very much the Gervais principle, because you don't understand the game that's being played at the executive level.
Corissa: We will link the Gervais principle article in the show notes. [00:14:00] It's a long read, but if you are, if this has sort of tickled your fancy, it's very much worth the long read.
Tom: I would say so, yes. This thinking, I think I've also been influenced a lot by the work of Geoffrey Pfeffer, which is interesting to read, although slightly depressing. Um, so he has written a book called Leadership BS, which is about how we've had this modern leadership industry for 40 years now. And it's always been promoting the same ideas of, well, your, your [00:14:30] leadership should be humble and empathetic and have high emotional intelligence and support others and be like servant leadership and all that sort of stuff.
Tom: And when you look at reality, you realize no, none of that's happening. And actually, if you're like that. You won't get promoted, you won't get a C suite job.
Corissa: Right, you might get promoted up to a point, but there will be a ceiling that
Tom: traps you. Absolute. A hard ceiling.
Corissa: And if you want to go beyond that, you just kind of have to become more of a dickhead, basically.
Corissa: Well,
Tom: yeah, you probably have to start off being quite narcissistic.
Corissa: [00:15:00] Yeah, be willing to throw other people under the bus, be willing to pursue your own aims above all others. Yeah, just be quite
Tom: certain of yourself, even when you're wrong.
Corissa: Which, I mean, many of us could do with being slightly more like that.
Tom: Absolutely. You don't take
Corissa: it too far, of course. But yeah, it's very, very interesting to kind of look at, actually, how do things get done in an organisation who actually gets promoted. Yeah. It's a really interesting exercise just to look at your own organisation and see if you can figure out, like, that sort of stuff.
Tom: Yeah, yeah. And gaslighting [00:15:30] is a bit of a A tropey thing at the moment, isn't it? Everyone throwing around gaslighting. Narcissist
Corissa: gaslighting. Big buzzwords. Blah
Tom: blah blah blah. But actually, I remember a book, another book that was really eye opening for me, was Stealing the Corner Office, which is very well worth the read as well.
Tom: And what you start to realise when you read these things, and you're like hang on a minute, and you look at it, you go what they say I should be doing in order to get performance, good performance reviews, is that And the people who get performance reviews that are really good and get [00:16:00] promoted, they're completely
Corissa: different.
Corissa: It doesn't add up. It doesn't add
Tom: up. And I'm really smart and I'm doing a brilliant job and actually delivering the results at a very high standard. And yet I'm not getting promoted. And that person over there who's not doing that, who's not as good as me, they're getting all the promotions. What's going on?
Tom: Yeah,
Corissa: what is going on? Indeed. And like, I think that the mistake that a lot of people make is thinking, Oh well, you know, the bosses at the top, they're idiots, they're promoting people who don't deserve it, and you know, their uppance will come, right, and they will see the error [00:16:30] of their ways, and yet, if you think about it, they never see the error of their ways.
Corissa: No, and
Tom: their uppance never comes.
Corissa: Right, so who's the idiot here? Maybe, maybe it's you!
Tom: Yes, which is, I think Slash
Corissa: me, I mean I've been the idiot. Oh I've been that
Tom: idiot. Oh, totally been that idiot. Why are you all doing this, you fools? And then, yeah, you, you start to realise it's not the game that you think you're playing and you're being incredibly naive.
Tom: Ah, so yeah, that's a fun note to end on.
Corissa: I can't even remember what the topic was. The topic
Tom: was about high agency. [00:17:00] High
Corissa: agency, yes. And I think
Tom: the advice then is to, whenever you're told that something is important, is to turn it around a bit, look at it from different angles and think, well what does this mean?
Tom: What does this mean to me? What does this mean in the popular consciousness? And what does this mean to you who's asking me to be this? Uh, and often when you've got a really, uh, ambiguous term like that, it's helpful to ask the question. And this is what I asked to that person who gave me the feedback by email all that time ago.[00:17:30]
Tom: I said, well, let's imagine that I could sell you a magic pill and you could give it to two of your employees and overnight they would suddenly become high agency. What would be the first thing you'd notice was different when you went into work the next day?
Corissa: Wow, I love the question. What did they say? I can't remember.
Corissa: Are
Tom: you joking? No, but I do vaguely remember that it's what informed me to say what they wanted was they would just be bulldozing roadblocks, getting the stuff done that needed to get [00:18:00] done. Without breaking anything. They would intuit what needed to be done. Exactly, without breaking any rules, without causing any problems, they would just intuit what was most important and they'd just get it done.
Tom: Exactly. Without having to come back and and ask what's the high priority now and why would the strategy keep changing and all those sorts of questions
Corissa: Yes, and so that was it Yeah, I
Tom: think that's a it's a good question for all those sorts of things The other version of it is when we have quality [00:18:30] X then what happens?
Corissa: When we have X then what happens?
Tom: Yeah.
Corissa: And I guess kind of tangential to all of this is something that I find useful. I think I got it from you or maybe I got it from someone else, who knows? But um, if you have a reaction to something that you see someone doing or hear about where you think, oh my god, that's so stupid.
Corissa: Yep. Um, or, or indeed on the flip side, that's so great. Then to, to like ask yourself, what would have to be true for it to be the opposite of what I think?
Tom: Yeah.
Corissa: Like what would have to be true [00:19:00] for that stupid thing to actually make a lot of sense. Yep. And then you might find that actually there are plenty of plausible things that might mean that it's not so stupid after all.
Tom: Exactly. And you start opening the door to, oh maybe I was wrong. And it's not fun, is it?
Corissa: Finding
Tom: that out.
Corissa: It becomes fun. But it's freeing. I will say, I didn't find it fun to begin with, but now it almost becomes a game that you play with yourself that has just wonderful benefits as part of it. Yeah. That sometimes you realise something that [00:19:30] you really needed to realise.
Tom: Yeah, I like that. Yeah. And I'd say, I think one, one thing that I personally found difficult through that journey is realizing, ah, the C suite job is a hundred percent politics and zero percent technical skills. And actually, hang on a minute. I don't like that. I don't want to have that job. And that was depressing at first because I thought that's probably where I wanted to go.
Tom: And so I was like, well, what do we do? Where do we go? And, but [00:20:00] I think now we've. It enabled us to take another person's perspective. Luca Dellanna has a lovely point in his 50 Things You Will Learn Too Late, or something like that, which is, you don't get to choose the rules of the game, but you do get to choose which game you play.
Tom: Mm, yes. And so, we have chosen to play a game that is not becoming C suite, but is fitting better with our natural propensities.
Corissa: Mm, yeah, I guess kind of working. working with what you've got and, um, [00:20:30] trying to make, make the most of it.
Tom: It's a recipe for a much happier life than trying to be something you hate
Corissa: being.
Corissa: There we go. Oh, I end on a positive note.
Tom: Lovely. So, yeah, hopefully there's some good stuff to take away there. Yeah. Hopefully we've
Corissa: left you feeling more high agency than you felt before ,
Tom: or, or maybe the opposite, but yeah, lots and lots of threads to follow, which is always a, somebody gave us a nice comment, actually, didn't they?
Tom: Just to wrap up, they said. There's like a curse of knowledge that we bring and loads and loads of threads to [00:21:00] then go down lots of different rabbit holes from every episode.
Corissa: So yeah, you're welcome everybody.