I love this my only add is mostly a warning to women. DO NOT USE THIS AGENCY FOR TASKS THAT REQUIRE DOMESTIC LABOR AT WORK. Do not sign up to take agency on getting people to sign Tom's birthday card or cleaning up the station at the kitchen counter have been delivered. I've seen so many high agency women reduced to fancy maids and secretaries. Solve for the business drivers first.
Thanks Angus! It's kind of weird; on the one hand, the internet is full of posts about agency, on the other hand it feels like a topic that's still massively underexplored. I guess both can be true.
Great (and detailed) post. I love your story at the start about Hannah and the other guy. It’s spot on.
As a leader I do want a good ROI on my time. But as I’ve gotten older realise the Lances of the world probably have some other skills to bring out with a bit more coaching. (most of the time :)
Oh for sure, being low-agency doesn't mean you don't have valuable skills. But if most people, or everyone, on your team is low-agency, you quickly become the bottleneck as the manager. You at least need some high-agency folks who can just go and run with topics so you have some free bandwidth to coach and support others.
The most satisfying scenario is where somebody starts low-agency and then develops into a high-agency person over time. I had a few folks on my teams that, in the beginning, needed almost daily check-ins to get stuff done, and in the end just owned entire topics autonomously and kept me in the loop with brief updates (and maybe an occasional problem-solving jam session).
Great article (not finished yet). My doubt is how to prevent from your boss or anybody else to take advantage from being high agency? I mean, someone can give you extra job that is not yours so you might work extra without proper recognition or compensation
Thanks for sharing Torsten! I’m now transitioning to a new for me role and this article is as relevant as it can be. Even more so, it made the think about my prior projects and, as hard as it is to admit, the blocker was actually me - not the other team members. 😱
i really love your articles and i am a data analyst myself.
1 article i would love to learn from you is how do i push stakeholders' works especially if i think it's not worth the ROI.
context is we are working on a lean team and i would love to learn from your view how do i push other stakeholders when i do not want to prioritize their works since it's not big ROI.
Well written!! As someone earlier in their career, I often find I have the will to do this but will only execute if I don't think the action is at risk of undercutting or "stepping too far" into the scope of another workflow - do you have any gut checks for when being high agency is in the service of your team vs when you're just stepping on another individuals/teams' toes?
I normally solve for this by saying “I hope I’m not stepping on your toes” but I created two mockups as a starting point. However you’re the expert so which way should we proceed. Being the person who offers up the ugly first draft drastically speeds up a project
Helpful article. I’ve heard the process you described called “consent based governance“ which is in opposition to “consensus based” decision-making, which is usually costly in terms of time
I love this my only add is mostly a warning to women. DO NOT USE THIS AGENCY FOR TASKS THAT REQUIRE DOMESTIC LABOR AT WORK. Do not sign up to take agency on getting people to sign Tom's birthday card or cleaning up the station at the kitchen counter have been delivered. I've seen so many high agency women reduced to fancy maids and secretaries. Solve for the business drivers first.
Absolutely love this. Great newsletter today.
Thanks Angus! It's kind of weird; on the one hand, the internet is full of posts about agency, on the other hand it feels like a topic that's still massively underexplored. I guess both can be true.
As a manager who frequently gets passed the monkey I’m sorely tempted to share this with a few people…
Please do 😄
Great (and detailed) post. I love your story at the start about Hannah and the other guy. It’s spot on.
As a leader I do want a good ROI on my time. But as I’ve gotten older realise the Lances of the world probably have some other skills to bring out with a bit more coaching. (most of the time :)
Oh for sure, being low-agency doesn't mean you don't have valuable skills. But if most people, or everyone, on your team is low-agency, you quickly become the bottleneck as the manager. You at least need some high-agency folks who can just go and run with topics so you have some free bandwidth to coach and support others.
The most satisfying scenario is where somebody starts low-agency and then develops into a high-agency person over time. I had a few folks on my teams that, in the beginning, needed almost daily check-ins to get stuff done, and in the end just owned entire topics autonomously and kept me in the loop with brief updates (and maybe an occasional problem-solving jam session).
Great article, thank you for sharing! You've got an extra subscriber :)
Loved this! Thank you for stating it so clearly with the solutions.
Great article (not finished yet). My doubt is how to prevent from your boss or anybody else to take advantage from being high agency? I mean, someone can give you extra job that is not yours so you might work extra without proper recognition or compensation
Thanks for sharing Torsten! I’m now transitioning to a new for me role and this article is as relevant as it can be. Even more so, it made the think about my prior projects and, as hard as it is to admit, the blocker was actually me - not the other team members. 😱
hi torsten, great article as always.
i really love your articles and i am a data analyst myself.
1 article i would love to learn from you is how do i push stakeholders' works especially if i think it's not worth the ROI.
context is we are working on a lean team and i would love to learn from your view how do i push other stakeholders when i do not want to prioritize their works since it's not big ROI.
It literally opened my eyes to many problems in organizing and running projects. Thanks for this post!
Well written!! As someone earlier in their career, I often find I have the will to do this but will only execute if I don't think the action is at risk of undercutting or "stepping too far" into the scope of another workflow - do you have any gut checks for when being high agency is in the service of your team vs when you're just stepping on another individuals/teams' toes?
I normally solve for this by saying “I hope I’m not stepping on your toes” but I created two mockups as a starting point. However you’re the expert so which way should we proceed. Being the person who offers up the ugly first draft drastically speeds up a project
Great write!
I break down agency development as follows:
1. Know where you want to go, and how you measure progress.
2. Assume everything is learnable. Know you can become better, that you can change things.
3. Have an operating system. I chose cybernetics for its iterative approach: How you sense, decide, and adjust.
4.Energy & resource management: ensures that you can act on your vision without burning out.
100%
Love this! Thanks for this one!
This is an incredible guide! Love all the practical tips and AI samples on improving self-agency, one of the best leading indicators of success.
Helpful article. I’ve heard the process you described called “consent based governance“ which is in opposition to “consensus based” decision-making, which is usually costly in terms of time