Agency. Is Your Work Setting You up for Self-Fulfillment or Self-Destruction?

When we start a job, one of the first things we figure out is who we can be honest with and who we can ask questions to. Ideally, the answer is Everyone, but that is not the reality of most workplaces–at least those with more than two people! This Cornerstone of Belonging reflects the degree to which a workplace has an environment where employees can express their thoughts, including differing opinions, regardless of their identity or positionality within the organization. Agency includes an employee’s “voice” and is also an indicator of a person’s comfort and confidence in their assigned role. Without agency, decisions will tend toward mediocrity, as they will reflect the best thinking of only a few people instead of the combined skills and experience of the collective team.

Consider this situation: in a one-on-one meeting, your manager or supervisor asks how things are going on a project. 

• To what degree can you be honest? Or direct? Or candid?
• To what degree can you express concerns or problems without it being seen as weakness or failure? 
• To what degree can you say anything other than “fine”? 
• Do you have a sense that what you do matters? If you didn’t do what you do, how long would it take for someone to notice?

If you are a manager or supervisor in that same situation, 

• What specifically are you doing to encourage honest answers?
• Are you modeling a culture of talking about challenges and getting support pro-actively? 
• Have you modeled that it’s ok to ask questions, to ask for support, to indicate when you don’t understand something?
• Are you always the expert in the room? (If yes, is this perception shared by people that report to you? How do you know?)

Agency Changes In Different Contexts

Notice when you are comfortable expressing your thoughts and feelings in the workplace. Is it ok to speak up in any situation? Or is it only ok when you are in an environment with co-workers you know well, or with colleagues you have managerial or supervisory authority over? Do you feel comfortable expressing yourself when your managers, supervisors or company heads are listening? Is there a subtle or overt pressure to agree with others? 

Being aware of when you are comfortable and uncomfortable expressing your opinion will illuminate how the agency score plays out in your workplace. It is likely that there are some situations where you do not feel able to speak your mind or where you spend time determining the best strategy of how to word something or how to approach someone. 

Notice how this changes as you consider your office hierarchy. For instance, you might be uncomfortable speaking with your superiors but comfortable within the team you manage–but that comfort might not be a good thing! Without outside input, you have no way of knowing if your comfort within your team is because of authenticity and safety or if it’s reinforcing an office culture where the person with power in the room can say what they want but others can’t. Agency gets complicated in a hurry and questioning your own assumptions is the key to understanding how to improve and deepen the sense of agency within the workplace. 

Small Moments Set The Stage

Even the smallest interactions make a difference within an office environment. Agency shows up in casual conversation or in the opening question of a meeting such as liking or not liking a movie, or being a cat or a dog person. Although these topics seem trivial, the response to them can be telling. When co-workers are judgemental or even teasing in a joking way about small matters, (i.e. “Cat person? I don’t trust cat people!”), it sets the stage for people being unable to express themselves on more important matters. Watch for things like office nicknames or office stories–do these reflect community and collaboration or are they a “just kidding” way to show judgment or evoke shame? When there’s shame in the air, it may be time for co-workers to intervene and shut down these “joking” conversations.

This small change leads to greater agency in more difficult matters. In order to make the best decisions about a company’s vision, direction or strategy, employees at all levels need to be able to contribute their thoughts. When it comes to decisions within your team or within your company, when do you join the conversation–from the start, after the decision is mostly made, or not at all? Inviting people not typically involved in a decision can increase agency and allow for better collaboration and higher quality decisions.

Criticism Vs. Lifting People Up:

Look at how criticism or feedback functions within your organization. If criticism feels like an attack or something that might get written up and put in your file, then the environment lacks agency. On the other side of the spectrum, constant feedback is another method of reducing agency. While on the surface, the feedback might be ok, the frequency of it creates negative impact. Yet, within the norms of how people communicate in the office, there must be room for conversation and feedback without it veering into micromanagement or attacks. 

In a company with a high agency score, colleagues lift each other up, sharing resources, ideas and credit because they have dismantled a scarcity mentality that says that someone else’s success comes at their expense. In addition, a variety of employees have this outlook–it’s not the same few people who appreciate and support others. There are both formal and informal mechanisms to appreciate co-workers. In a thriving office culture this attitude will come organically and be a regular part of work life, not reserved for special occasions. Agency must be built over time and used in all interactions on a regular basis, from casual conversations to strategy sessions.

Inclusive Leaders, Read On

If you are in a leadership or managerial position, you might already have more agency to make changes which will lead to greater agency for all.

• Notice how small social situations are handled (especially the “just joking” situations). Work to change any joking culture from one that jokes about errors to one that celebrates success and collaboration.
• Notice your own patterns. Are there certain types of employees who you listen to more such as those who work closely with you already, those who have been there a certain amount of time, those who have similar identities to you? What will you do to break that pattern? You might want to start by openly acknowledging it within your team (“I notice I have a pattern of X that I’d like to break. These are my thoughts on what I can do. What are your suggestions for me?”)
• Be rigorous in encouraging feedback from everyone (in one-on-one meetings, team meetings, organization meetings). If you do not have a regular practice of asking for feedback from team members, implement one. For instance, at some organizations, the last five minutes of every meeting, no matter the size, is targeted for feedback and self-reflection.
• Look at how competition is used in your organization. Pitting employees or teams against each other in the name of productivity might lead to a lack of agency. 
• Ask other managers and supervisors what they are doing to promote agency. Determine the best practices and build those into a system of how things are done moving forward.
• Explore your performance review process. Is goal setting only an annual activity? How can you incorporate more frequent feedback that ties daily operations to annual goals? 

Check out our other articles in the Belonging series: