The guy refusing to do the Nazi salute in this photo may be August Landmesser who was imprisoned by the Nazis for dating a Jewish woman.
George Mack introduced me to August and has been talking a fair bit about High-Agency people lately, and for good reason. High agency people are the kind of people you want on your team.
My friend Josh Penrod uses a different term for these kinds of people. He calls them Optimistic Problem Solvers; a term which I’ve used liberally since he introduced the concept to me. But the basic concept is the same.
High-Agency individuals have an extremely internalized Locus of Control. They believe events in their life are primarily a result of their own actions. They don’t believe they are controlled by outside forces. When someone says something can’t be done, this triggers an internal pushback mechanism that makes them want to make the thing possible.
High Agency people ask for forgiveness, not for permission. They are constantly looking for problems to solve and then solving them, without mercy. But here’s the kicker… The best High-Agency people don’t do this for personal glory. They do it because it’s fun.
So how does a hiring manager go about finding and hiring a High-Agency person? To be totally honest, I don’t know the answer to this. At least not definitively. But I have some ideas and tips that may help get you closer in your hiring process. Here are some of them:
- Deeper Conversations Matter - In my experience, hiring managers are often looking for the perfect hiring process; a machine where you put a candidate into one side and they get sorted automatically on the other. My experience has been that simply making the time to talk to the candidate in depth about their life and their career does a better job of sussing out where a person’s locus of control lies.
- Side Gigs and Weird Projects - When you’re talking with a candidate, be sure to ask them what kinds of things they do on the side. Look for projects and hobbies that few other people are doing. Also be on the lookout for hobbies that are not easy to acquire or that seem scary for most people (like rebuilding an engine).
- Look for the Bookish - Ask what books/articles they are reading or have read recently and ask them to talk about what they learned. In my experience, High-Agency people are auto-didactic and read a lot. They are also often excited to share ideas that come from their reading.
- Double-Check the “Royal We” - Candidates (including High-Agency people) will often talk about projects and their contributions using the Royal We. This is often due to someone not wanting to sound egotistical about their contribution to a project. But as a hiring manager, it’s important to dig into this and really understand what their actual contribution was on a project. The Royal We can also hide an under-performer.
- Beware of Sociopaths - I haven’t yet experienced the delight of hiring a sociopath, thank goodness. But my buddy Josh has. Last time we talked about this subject, he related the havoc that was unleashed when he hired someone with an extremely internal locus of control who also happened to be a sociopath. And here’s the trick with this… You may not be able to tell in an interview process. So his advice is: Be quick to fire someone who is toxic.
- Hire People Smarter/Better Than You - As a hiring manager, if you turn away people who you fear because of their smarts or experience, you’re missing out. If you worry that a candidate could do your job, that’s precisely why you should hire them. High-Agency people are also highly-skilled. So punt your ego and find the best.
- Look for Low-Agency as Well - High-Agency people are not the only ones worth hiring, obviously. In fact, High-Agency people often raise the bar for those around them. People with a high external locus of control can create problems because they see themselves as victims in their lives. This can have its own set of challenges.
So how about you? Do you have ideas on how to find High-Agency people? If so, I’d love to learn from you. Please post in the comments any ideas you have.
Just saw this photo in the movie Origin.
Co-Founder @ WarrantyHive
1 年I love optimistic problem solvers! I've worked with hundreds of people in my career. There is strength in dissension and playing a devil's advocate is important to uncover things that being overly optimistic overlooks. However I like to think of it as optimistic dissension with the goal to move forward, not backward. Don't tell me we can't do it — tell me what's hard and let's work out of it together. The tone of your voice is important. Thanks for sharing Rob!