The Personal Agency Fallacy

In asking “what can I do?” instead of “what should be done?”, we mistake agency for impact and impose the false constraints of our individual talent. We escalate to overlook self-imposed negative outcomes, buoyed by the satisfaction of “I can do this.” A well-natured^[1] “how can I help?” becomes “my time and labor is best spent doing X.” This is the Personal Agency Fallacy.

We’re planning 2025 at Zello. Reflecting on 2024 and what did—and didn’t—work. Setting goals. Objectives and key results, one might say. Kicking ass, taking names.

I’m guilty of reversing the process. I’m generally aware of what we need,^[2] and I have projects in mind. I work backwards from those projects to broader goals. I’ve been sitting on a new design for two years? Great, let’s prioritize usability and I subtly, inconspicuously, conveniently suggest solving usability problems via a redesign.^[3] I’m working on this. I’m a bad design evangelist, and while I demonstrate solving problems via design, I have difficulty demonstrating design’s innate value—let alone predicting and estimating it.

Many in this team of current and former ICs bring the same approach. Everyone has shared and individualized contexts through which they make removedly-broad suggestions. Take an idea for what you want to do, back out to a problem it solves, and frame solving that problem as a goal. We twist ourselves into performatively and perpendicularly communicating our ideas. Bias is unavoidable, and the best we can do is to attempt self-awareness, but we should strive to avoid guile.

We investigate only the directions toward which we directly affect outcomes. Skimming the surface, this makes sense. I control my labor, therefore, how can I direct my labor? How might I do this myself and not make work for others? How might I not pass the buck? Our compulsion to contribute^[4] further incentives us to ask “what can I do?” or “how can I deliver value?” Who am I to say what others should do? So I focus in my lane.

This strays counterproductively from organizational goal-setting. Our individual skillsets may be ill-fit to greater problems. Diving below the surface, considering problems from the constraints of one’s personal skillset intrinsically limits. This has a positive aspect: you directly make something happen. It has a negative aspect: this wasn’t what needed to happen. You pat yourself on the back for solving the wrong problem, or worse, doing something largely unnecessary, if not ill-informed and harmful. You’ve mistaken agency for impact.

I’ve seen this regularly in consulting over the last fourteen years. It’s fitting in a small startup — you’re scrappy and do everything you can. The polymath Founder/CEO and founding employees need back braces to bear the towering weight of many, many hats. Hell, depending on my contracting agreement, optimizing for what I can do means more billable hours.

In my professional scenario, it behooves a product designer to know when they can—or can’t—solve a sales problem. Product-market fit may be partially in our wheelhouse, but sales strategy and staffing? No. Don’t withhold opinions and certainly don’t withhold contributions, but respect others’ expertise. In a worst case scenario, in advocating for a design-driven solution I over-inflate my own relevance, and divert resources from where they’re most impactful.

Outcomes branch when one is unlimited by their immediate competencies. Many Founder/CEOs wrongly assume they wear all hats. A product founder moseys^[5] into leading the marketing org while hiring a backfill. An engineering-heavy startup skimps on Sales, while a Sales-heavy startup sells vaporware. A designer co-founds an engineering-intensive startup, and over-indexes the appeal of a novel brand.

It’s increasingly difficult to know what we don’t know, let alone to respect it, when we think that we can stretch to it. I’m no salesperson, and while I can try to recognize sales problems and opportunities, I’m unqualified to solve those problems with my own labor. One wants to help, but helping with one’s direct labor may be misguided. That one can do it doesn’t make it good that one does. We must both ask “what can I do?” and “what should we do?”, and furthermore remove ourselves to “what should be done?”.