Agency - A Concept

In a recent Seth Godin post, he said this about the concept of agency: Philosphers and lawyers talk about agency. Responsibility comes with the capacity to act in the world. If you can decide, if you can act, you have agency. Why then, do organizations and individuals struggle so intently to avoid the responsibility that comes with agency? "It's not my job, my boss won't let me, we're prohibited, it's our supplier, that's our policy..."

I dealt with a Japanese advertising agency recently in which all of the above excuses were true - "It's not my job, my boss won't let me, we're prohibited, that's our policy, etc". And I dealt with a man who was arguably the #2 in command, but he couldn't make a $2000 decision. He couldn't sign a contract.

With my small company in Korea I had only three employees, and all of them had agency to an assigned degree. They had the ability to act and to spend money in their appropriate assignments. After two years of running our company, I felt the need for a long vacation. We had won the big account, were financially on good footing and I felt I had earned the holiday. In making plans for the trip, I told my #2 in command that there were only three reasons to call me while I was away, "Death, famine, nuclear warfare" - somewhat in jest, but basically true to make the point, "Don't call me".

I went to my lakehouse in Michigan, listened to the ducks, read and just enjoyed the hell out of myself. I was in the middle of a divorce and knew that I might never enjoy that house again.

Upon my return to Korea I was informed that a 'client emergency' had cropped up and my staff had taken appropriate steps to make the client happy and solve the problem - and they had committed $5000 to various suppliers to get the work done. This was not the thing to do without a signed agreement from the client. But my staff had acted in good faith, and to serve client needs - a good thing. I suddenly realized that the number $5000 should have come directly after 'nuclear warfare' in my instructions of when to call me. But the failure, if any, was mine for not explaining fully and maybe giving a little too much agency to my #2 in the situation.

So I quickly set about to repair the damage - calling suppliers, cancelling jobs, stopping printing presses. The client in this case, a marketing assistant, had no authority to have been ordering the work. But my staff didn't know that. In the end, it cost us $2500 but I was very careful to not put the blame on my staff and let everyone know that I stood behind the person who made the decision to do the work. Over time that stood as a pillar of our company's trust in our employees and let them know that we would stand behind them when they made decisions, even some wrong ones, for the greater good.

The poor Japanese man I met with last week. No power to make decisions. No power to even sign for work he was ordering. No agency at all - and he worked for an agency. Go figure.

D a v i d E v e r i t t - C a r l s o n

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Find me on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Read my previous blog: The Wild Wild East Dailies.

'Motivated Reasoning': The Opposite of A Suspension of Disbeliefs

Illus: Jonathon Rosen

In a recent post exploring Nicholas Humphrey's new book, 'Soul Dust: The Magic of Consciousness' I argued that the thesis here with 'A Suspension of Disbeliefs', that we all create realities that are essentially states of suspended disbelief by our choices of religion, political persuasion, career, country, love, belief or not in the magic bullet theory, or choice of architecture' was paralleled by Humphrey in 'Soul Dust:. Combining theories in neuroscience and evolutionary psychology, he states, "Consciousness, is nothing less than a magical-mystery show that we stage for ourselves inside our own heads - this self-made show lights up the world for us, making us feel special and transcendent. But reader, John Rachel, disagreed. He commented:

"You seem to be blurring an important distinction, meaning your equating suspension of disbelief, which effectively is an intentional but sub-textual firewalling or deactivating a critical faculty, with what Humphrey describes as an active and creative filtering, ordering and reconstruction of incoming data and internally generated interpretations, formulations, judgments, etc. The former is kind of like turning off a switch and the latter is engaging all of the machinery whose switches have been left on."

Now I know what theoretical psychologists sit around and argue about over beers. So I was left to consider and reinterpret what I believe the core concept of 'A Suspension of Disbeliefs' to be in relation to how we live our lives. Essentially, I consider it a positive faculty - to suspend ones disbelief that they can be a great writer, or a rock star or a president. Maybe you don't believe you can be an NBA draft pick, because the odds are so horribly against you, but suspend that disbelief and you release energies that say "I can", not because it's mathematically possible, but simply because you have removed your greatest obstacle - your own disbelief. Removing other's disbelief is more difficult and many times, impossible. I fell on an article in Mother Jones magazine that illuminated to me what the opposite of a suspension of disbelief might be.

The theory of  'motivated reasoning'. This is held by people who do not want to believe something. They strongly want to disbelieve it. Even though it may be true and even offer good things, they choose to hold on to their old beliefs because those beliefs are so deeply ingrained. "The earth is flat". These are people who refuse to suspend disbelief because that would be too challenging, too uncomfortable.    

"Consider a person who has heard about a scientific discovery that deeply challenges his/her belief in divine creation — a new hominid, say, that confirms our evolutionary origins. What happens next, explains political scientist Charles Taber of Stony Brook University, is a subconscious negative response to the new information— and that response, in turn, guides the type of memories and associations formed in the conscious mind. 'They retrieve thoughts that are consistent with their previous beliefs,' says Taber, 'and that will lead them to build an argument and challenge what they're hearing.'"

So if I am willing to continuously challenge my beliefs, I am employing a suspension of disbeliefs, in search of new knowledge. I am willing to consider things I don't believe in. A positive thing - as opposed to using 'motivated reasoning' and just sticking with what I already know - a not so positive thing. 

I have found there is little greater motivation than being told one can't do something. The only person I need to convince that I can is myself - and I do that by challenging my ingrained belief that I can't. I suspend my own disbelief, and then I can.

D a v i d E v e r i t t - C a r l s o n

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Find me on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Read my previous blog: The Wild Wild East Dailies.

The Wild Wild East Dailies Lives at The Morton Report - Your Man in Saigon Reporting

Today marks the first publication of the Wild Wild East Dailies for The Morton Report. This blog has now matriculated to a daily column in a publication known for arts, entertainment, and I love this, swanky living - as Andrew Morton describes it. Go figure, WWED is now a beacon for a more stylish life! Our first story "Your Man in Saigon" introduces the column and points to things to come. All stories will be new, but carry the WWED spirit into the future and a whole new audience. Andrew Morton is most known for his biographies of Princess Diana and William and Kate and has launched his daily culture updates on the heals of the royal wedding. I and The Wild Wild East Dailies are proud to be part of this new effort and hope to contribute a bit of Wild Wild fun from an Eastern perspective. Take a look. It's good.

D a v i d E v e r i t t - C a r l s o n

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Find me on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Read The Wild Wild East Dailies.

Motorbike Helmets for Kid's in Vietnam? Not yet.

A few years ago Vietnam finally passed a law requiring motorbike riders to wear a helmet but this law only required them for adult riders. Kids don't need them. Is somebody kidding somebody? We could blame the lawmakers for not seeing the fatalities and injuries amongst children but that shouldn't release parents from their basic responsibilities to protect those children should it? I didn't think so. And so an idea was hatched (yeah, bad pun) to do a public service campaign to speak to parents about the importance of the whole family wearing a helmet. In a country of what might be easily, 30 million motorbikes for roughly 80 million people the motorbike is a way of life in Vietnam. In fact it's an extension of life, an extra limb it has been called. But it's also a way of death, the highest rate of highway fatalities in Asia before enactment of the law.

On launch day, the government deployed 5000 police around the city (Saigon) to enforce strict fines ($10 is strict here) and lo and behold - one day nobody had a helmet and the next day they did. Except for the children. And this baffled the crap out of me. Didn't the people understand that a not fully formed skull can be crushed up to 60% easier than an adult's? Didn't they see it as important? And the answer is, 'no they didn't'. What was important to them was not paying a fine to comply with the law. Sad, I thought. No thought about the reasons one should wear a helmet at all.

Ask anyone what they believe to be a symbol of birth and childhood and you will eventually hear the word 'egg'. So I took that visual and put a helmet on it. It was funny. And it worked. We all know eggs crack easily and putting a helmet on them just reinforced the point. Photographer Mads Monsen and I worked together to create this campaign and we did it without a specific client in mind - because we thought the idea was important. Should you know of any organization in Vietnam who might be interested in running this work as a public service, please contact me. We would love to get this campaign up and running and doing the job the parents should be doing - getting all their kids to wear a helmet.

D a v i d E v e r i t t - C a r l s o n

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Find me on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Read my previous blog: The Wild Wild East Dailies.