I thoroughly enjoyed your article on High Agency and found it incredibly insightful. With your permission, I would like to translate it into Korean to share its valuable lessons with a broader audience. Thank you for considering my request.
Love the article. Just like you, even very young, I always thought that I could do anything given enough time and the will to do it. But I also quickly discover something else: what I can do, or even what I can imagine to do by myself was nothing compare to what we can do together, or even more, what we can dream together. And that subject became my passion and directed me to become the engineer and developer I am today.
I always have the feeling that high-agency was inadequate to describe this porential. I'm not sure there's a word for it. The closest I found was Carse's Infinite Games, that Sinek also discussed in its own book. Do you feel the same? Do you think that high-agency is just the beginning, the first overture to quit our little raft and our desert island to join a bigger world? To have our first contact with the world that surround us?
You raised a deep question, and I don't think I have the answer. My take is we need both finite (wins that give you that boost) and infinite games (the pursuit of purpose). We're social by default and we need each other to live and evolve. While agency seems more on the individual, collective agency is what it's a truly game changer.
Perhaps that agency, whether individual or collective, is driven by a deeper purpose, a vision, a meaning. I'll investigate more about this topic. Thanks for sharing!
The Finite definition from Cards is basically competitive zero-sum games, with fixed known rules. Finite games can be part of infinite games, but infinite games cannot be part of finite games.
As for collective agency (I like the term, can I adopt it?), I have the same kind of questions:
- collective agency required us to restrict our individual agency, but too much restrictions on the individual agencies bring down the collective agency of the group. What's the optimal, or better, sustainable, set of restrictions?
- Which other factors reduce our collective agencies and is there better way to handle them?
- Could optimal collective agency is compatible with optimal happiness from the group of individuals? If not, what is the compromise?
I loved your post Rafa! You are so right about the risks… I think I experienced all while having high agency and growing.
How do you recommend to overcome them? I think it is taking care of ourselves, social awareness of other roles and organization goals, building trust with the team, delegate and collaborate a lot, over communicating to provide context and stay aligned. Anything I missed? All of those is what I write about in my newsletter because I think: High Agency + EQ + IQ is the recipe to Thrive.
Great post Rafa. I've been hearing this term more and more as well. How is it different from autonomy? Also, what are the risks of being a High Agency person?
I love the concept of high agency! Thank you for the introduction.
Dear Rafa,
I thoroughly enjoyed your article on High Agency and found it incredibly insightful. With your permission, I would like to translate it into Korean to share its valuable lessons with a broader audience. Thank you for considering my request.
Best regards
Hi Yuno. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Sure, you're free to translate it as long as you link to it. :) Thank you!
Love the article. Just like you, even very young, I always thought that I could do anything given enough time and the will to do it. But I also quickly discover something else: what I can do, or even what I can imagine to do by myself was nothing compare to what we can do together, or even more, what we can dream together. And that subject became my passion and directed me to become the engineer and developer I am today.
I always have the feeling that high-agency was inadequate to describe this porential. I'm not sure there's a word for it. The closest I found was Carse's Infinite Games, that Sinek also discussed in its own book. Do you feel the same? Do you think that high-agency is just the beginning, the first overture to quit our little raft and our desert island to join a bigger world? To have our first contact with the world that surround us?
Thank you Fabien.
You raised a deep question, and I don't think I have the answer. My take is we need both finite (wins that give you that boost) and infinite games (the pursuit of purpose). We're social by default and we need each other to live and evolve. While agency seems more on the individual, collective agency is what it's a truly game changer.
Perhaps that agency, whether individual or collective, is driven by a deeper purpose, a vision, a meaning. I'll investigate more about this topic. Thanks for sharing!
The Finite definition from Cards is basically competitive zero-sum games, with fixed known rules. Finite games can be part of infinite games, but infinite games cannot be part of finite games.
As for collective agency (I like the term, can I adopt it?), I have the same kind of questions:
- collective agency required us to restrict our individual agency, but too much restrictions on the individual agencies bring down the collective agency of the group. What's the optimal, or better, sustainable, set of restrictions?
- Which other factors reduce our collective agencies and is there better way to handle them?
- Could optimal collective agency is compatible with optimal happiness from the group of individuals? If not, what is the compromise?
I loved your post Rafa! You are so right about the risks… I think I experienced all while having high agency and growing.
How do you recommend to overcome them? I think it is taking care of ourselves, social awareness of other roles and organization goals, building trust with the team, delegate and collaborate a lot, over communicating to provide context and stay aligned. Anything I missed? All of those is what I write about in my newsletter because I think: High Agency + EQ + IQ is the recipe to Thrive.
I believe you mentioned all of them, Patricia! Yes, great formula to thrive 💪
Glad you liked it. Thank you so much, Patricia. 😊
I first encountered the notion of „high agency“ while listening to an interview about how OpenAI does hiring.
It changed the way I looked at team dynamics and how I approach hiring.
In the past, I built a dev team that was amazing, but I always felt something was missing.
Now, looking back, the problem was that we were too fond of talking and not enough into action and driving topics.
Ever since, not showing agency is a red flag for me.
Displaying high agency is a crucial aspect of an individual that makes teams stronger.
Great post Rafa. I've been hearing this term more and more as well. How is it different from autonomy? Also, what are the risks of being a High Agency person?
Thank you, Suresh! This is a brilliant question. In short:
- Autonomy = external freedom to act, usually based on trust.
- High-agency = internal drive to act, regardless of the external environment.
Potential risks are: burnout, overstepping boundaries, resistance from others, misalignment with some company cultures, etc.
Thank you so much for clarifying it for me!