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High Agency Capabilities – Recruits With Them Outperform Others (Because they can influence their environment)

Agency is a psychology term referring to the degree that one can control their environment. So, it’s not surprising that notable leaders like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Bill Belichick have all been labeled as high-agency leaders. Their ability to influence/control the world around them has been one of the primary keys to their success. And, of course, everyone now knows that understanding and influencing one’s environment is becoming even more necessary.

Every day, our environment is becoming increasingly volatile. So those that can contain it are exceptionally valuable. I urge the reader that they should commit to learning all they can about the value of “high agency” capabilities. Everyone will be hearing this term with increasing regularity through 2025 and beyond.

Why Do High-Agency (HA) New Hires Produce Such Great Value?

You can be assured that those with “high levels of agency” will produce a greater business value than other categories of high-value hires, including innovators, revenue generators, technologists, and managers. There are five primary reasons why being able to tame, influence, or control your environment will create tremendous economic value. Those reasons are listed below.

They solve the complete problem – unlike the above categories of hires that only solve one element of a strategic problem. High-agency (HA) leaders instead own and solve the complete strategic problem, so there is less need for internal handoffs of the complete problem.

They target high-cost problems – HA leaders create high-value because they specifically target the strategic problems with the highest business impact. High-value strategic problems are those that directly prevent the corporation from reaching its strategic goals. 

They influence their environment – as I mentioned previously. In our increasingly volatile world, HA leaders create great value because of their unique ability to overcome internal and external obstacles and influence environmental factors that stand in their way. 

They are continuously learning – Another reason why they add such tremendous value is because HA leaders are continuous learners and they surround themselves with other continuous learners. So, the team is continually spotting emerging problems, environmental shifts, and unique solutions that will provide us with a competitive advantage. 

They come with a proven track record – because they have developed their high-agency capabilities over time. HA hires produce great value because they come to you with a proven track record of success and exceptional value.

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The Benefits Of Hiring Those With High-Agency (HA) Capabilities

Of course, before your hiring managers and executives will agree to a focus on hiring high-agency candidates. You will need to build a business case that supports this focus. Five of the business case elements that you should include in your case are listed below.

Hiring them will generate an extremely high ROI – not only do high-agency leaders create tremendous economic value. They create value without requiring additional recruiting or salary spending (unlike innovators and revenue generators). So, as a result, hiring and retaining them produces an extremely high ROI.

You will experience few project failures and delays – if you hire HA leaders with successful track records. You will hire leaders who have proven they can consistently “find a way” around barriers and roadblocks. And as a result, you can expect a failure rate to be well below other projects. And because high-agency leaders also love speed. You can also expect fewer costly project delays on projects that they own. Because these HA leaders will successfully confront, blow through, or minimize all of the roadblocks that would delay others.

They make others around them better – HA employees act as role models for others. So, you can expect them to proactively encourage others to also begin attacking problems the way that they do. The best also convince others to adopt their sense of urgency.

They won’t require close management – because these individuals are extremely focused and purpose-driven. They are used to acting independently. That, coupled with the fact that they are willing to take complete ownership of a problem, means that these HA leaders won’t require much executive supervision.

You will face little recruiting competition – those with HA capabilities are also great recruiting targets. You will face little competition when you are recruiting them because most of your talent competitors are currently not even aware that they should be targeting this category of candidate.

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How To Determine If A Recruiting Prospect Has High-Agency Capabilities?

Obviously, you will need a process to determine whether a prospective candidate has the necessary HA characteristics that you care most about. So start your initial assessment process by looking for a handful of the following characteristics in their resume, LinkedIn profile, and during their initial candidate screening call.

  • They have influenced their environment – of course, their most dominant characteristic to look for is that they have not accepted the current business environment as a given. Instead, look for examples when they have been tenacious in finding ways to positively mute, shift, or change their environment.
  • They have been optimistic problem solvers – after years of successfully influencing their environment and the people around them. There should be evidence that they have become optimistic problem solvers. You should be able to spot examples of when optimism reduced their fear of the unknown.
  • They are continuous learners – as self-directed learners, they have been constantly learning about new opportunities, problems, approaches, and solutions. So, there should be evidence of this constant flow of information, ideas, and unease with the status quo.
  • They have been data-driven – there should be evidence that they have used objective data to make decisions. And the fact that they have been data-driven should be obvious in their resume descriptions of their accomplishments and failures.
  • They adapted to significant change – they know that they work in a highly volatile world. So, there is evidence that they have learned to adapt to and even welcome change.
  • They have developed disruptive solutions – there is evidence that they have not been satisfied with the best practice solutions used by most. Instead, there should be evidence that they frequently developed their own disruptive, unique solutions. They did it in an innovative way, much like MacGyver did.
  • They have sought out big challenges – there should be evidence that they have thrived on big challenges. And that confronting these challenges has given them both pride and energy.
  • They have tenaciously attacked problems – it should be evidence that, without prodding. They have tenaciously attacked problems without fear and with an uncommon degree of fervor. And that they have had a “never give up” mantra.
  • They have had a sense of urgency – it should be crystal clear that they expect to get things done quickly. And that they have acted like they assume that everything will soon be obsolete. 
  • Expect a healthy ego – after years of success in solving complex problems. Most HA candidates will have developed an above-average ego, which their hiring manager will have to be willing to accept.
  • Expect that they won’t be a perfect “fit” – because of their unique capabilities and the series of successes that have helped to define them. You can be sure that as candidates, they will seldom be a perfect organizational/team fit. So, to prevent the loss of numerous HA candidates, I recommend that you drop “fit” as a primary assessment factor.

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Tips For Implementing A Recruiting Effort That Targets High Agency Candidates

Note: The remainder of this article covers implementation tips and advice.

1) Tips for finding/sourcing HA recruiting targets

The most effective sourcing approaches in this list appear first. 

  • Human referrals will be the best source – your most effective source for identifying HA recruiting targets will be human referrals from your employees. However, you should also seek out referrals from professional association leaders, your new hires, and some of the well-connected references from your past hires in this job family. Each of these referral sources will likely know what you’re looking for almost immediately after you provide them with a brief description of a high-agency recruit’s top five defining characteristics.
  • Boomerang rehires should also be considered – you should also utilize your boomerang rehire process to identify and re-recruit any of your former top-performing high-agency employees.
  • Look for HA characteristics in LinkedIn profiles – if you have the time, you can use LinkedIn profiles, especially their endorsement section, to find prospects that meet the characteristics of high-agency leaders. Also, consider those who have endorsed your own HA current or past employees as potential recruiting targets.
  • Look for innovative solutions during benchmarking – ask your employees, while they’re actively benchmarking, for examples of outstanding and unique solutions for strategic problems that are too hard to solve. As part of their benchmarking, have your employees ask their sources to identify the leader who was responsible for developing and implementing that solution.
  • Make it easy for qualified prospects to find you – there are some actions that you can take to increase the chances that high-agency individuals will find you. Start by including several of the key HA characteristics in the content of your job postings (i.e., problem solver, aggressive, fearless, initiative, and game-changing approaches). Also, include the fact that you are seeking HA leaders in your employer branding materials.
  • Most traditional candidate-finding sources won’t be effective from the outset, you need to realize that most traditional sourcing channels won’t be very helpful in finding HA prospects. Because many of your target HA recruits may not even have a job title that helps to identify them. Most job sites certainly won’t have a category of applicants that separates those with HA’s capabilities. 

2) Tips for assessing a candidate’s HA capabilities

After a prospect has made it through your resume screening process. You will need several additional ways to assess their HA capabilities. Those recommended approaches include: 

  • Realize that they won’t be difficult to spot once you begin talking about HA – once you begin talking with someone who truly has HA capabilities. Don’t be surprised when they become excited and almost giddy about the importance of having HA characteristics. Then, be sure to ask them how they have successfully overcome barriers and helped to reshape their environment.
  • Ask them what capabilities they would use during complex problem-solving – give them a problem they will likely face during their interviews. Then, directly ask them to list the advanced capabilities they would use to solve this complex strategic problem. Of course, you should use a pre-prepared checklist to keep a score on a number of HA characteristics that they say they would use.
  • Ask each reference to rank their top capabilitieswhen you contact the references of a finalist. Ask each to rank order the candidate’s capabilities that would allow them to excel at solving complex strategic problems. 
  • Hold a peer interview – because those working in the field are likely to be able to quickly spot a genuine HA candidate. Set up a peer interview with key members of their future team and at least one of your high-agency employees. Then ask the peer panel to assess the candidate on their HA characteristics. You should also be aware that the use of peer interviews will likely improve your chances of getting an offer acceptance. Because your candidates are likely to trust what their peers tell them about the job and the company. 
If you only do one thing – make it your goal to begin reading and doing research on the value that these high-agency new hires can bring to an organization. I predict that recruiting them will soon become a standard corporate recruiting practice.

Additional Actions To Take

In a world where recruiting budgets are constantly being cut. It makes sense for smart Talent Acquisition leaders to proactively seek out new ways that will increase their bottom-line impacts. Obviously, in my book, today, that effort should begin by developing a focused program that specifically targets high-agency leaders.

However, TA leaders should also note that several additional categories of high-value recruits should also be targeted. I have previously written about many of these high-value add categories, including how to hire innovators, revenue generators, continuous learners, magnet hires, AI experts, those with a steep career trajectory, and the self-motivated (Note: each of the underlined categories has a live link to the relevant article).

So, if you’re serious about improving the business impacts of your recruiting function, I hope that this article has provided you with some direction on where to focus your recruiting.

Note for the reader

This is the latest post from Dr. Sullivan, who was labeled “the Michael Jordan of Hiring” by Fast Company Magazine. Also, please take the time to request a connection with Dr. Sullivan on LinkedIn.

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