(Typical TED stage. Almost handsome white male speaker. Dramatic pauses, grins intermixed with serious faces, small gestures, throughout)
I’m starting a cult leader training camp.
(Audience laughs)
I know I know. Kinda crazy. But maybe I should start at the beginning? Let you in on a secret.
This world is made up of individuals such as you and me. We go about our lives, day in and day out, thinking about things, making decisions, doing stuff. Acting. Actions. These actions change the world - sometimes in a tiny way, just moving the TV remote from the side table to the coffee table. Sometimes big things like war or love or creating a new life. We call these individuals Agents and their ability to impact their own fate Agency.
Over the years many have asked …. Am I really in control? Or am I a domino among many, standing until it is my turn to fall?
I’m afraid it isn’t so cut and dry. No such luck. You see this isn’t an all or nothing game, where you have Agency or you don’t. Let’s break this down.
(Holds up two fingers)
Two ingredients come into play, the ability to predict outcomes and the ability to influence outcomes.
(Holds up one finger)
First is predicting outcomes. Do you have any idea what the consequences of your actions are? You’re on a gameshow and asked to pick a door, any door …. but you don’t know what is behind door number three, or any of the doors for that matter! That’s not a real choice. That’s not Agency.
Even when you have an idea about consequences it is usually still rough. Maybe you know what the immediate result of your actions will be, and even what will happen right after that… But how far out can you see what’s coming? Tomorrow? Next week? Next year?
It depends. Let’s say you’re an expert house builder, years of experience. You know that by adding that extra beam the roof will stay up, and without it the roof will, in the next big storm, fall. You can predict the outcome with a high degree of confidence. Alas, you are a builder and not an engine mechanic. So if I ask you what happens if this car engine runs hot for a bit you have no idea what the consequence is. How hot is too hot? Will it explode in a few minutes or break next week? In some areas you have a better idea of consequences than in others. Your ability to predict the future varies based on the situation.
Let me say that again. Your ability to predict the future varies based on the situation.
Hold that thought a moment while we talk about ingredient number two.
(Holds up two fingers again)
The second ingredient is influential power. Pure mechanical power at the most basic - the strength necessary to pick up and move that TV remote and push some buttons. But soft power or indirect power counts too. Before you can pick a gameshow door you first have to be on that stage, positioned and empowered to act.
Influencing the world around you is also a bit situational though, isn’t it? You might have a key that gives you the power to unlock the front door of your house. Try to enter another house and the key won’t work.
Assign your employee a task and they hop to it. Assign it to a stranger on the bus and it might not get done at all!
(small audience laugh)
Your ability to influence the world varies based on the situation. It varies based on your skills, your positioning, the tools available to you.
Here we are again. Your ability to influence outcomes varies based on the situation, just like your ability to predict the future varies based on the situation.
OK, now let’s look at them together. You want both of these things. Take your ability to influence your world and combine it with your ability to anticipate the future. With the combination of these two ingredients, you at last achieve Agency. Freedom.
Influence without knowing what the consequences of your actions are is just gambling. That’s not a real choice. That’s not real Agency.
Knowing what is going to happen next, but not being in a position to influence that outcome? Well that’s not really a choice either. That too is not real Agency.
You need both. You perform an action and understand the consequences. You desire an outcome and are positioned to affect the necessary change. You have Agency.
Now we come to the heart of the matter. Your Agency is built up of these two parts, your ability to predict outcomes and your ability to influence the world. But your ability to predict outcomes varies! Your ability to influence the world varies! So the combination of the two, your Agency… that too varies. You can have more Agency or less Agency.
This isn’t an all or nothing world. Free or not free? Domino or Agent? It is somewhere in-between. Your agency, your ability to control the world with knowledge of the result - that too varies.
Yes, that’s right. That’s the first part of the secret. Your agency is not all or nothing but somewhere in the middle and always based on the situation and context.[a]
Your Agency varies.
But there is a second part to the secret. Are you ready?
You can change how much Agency you have. You can increase your amount of freedom. You can gain deeper degrees of Free Will.
Based on our two ingredients of predicting and influencing this becomes obvious. Want to get better at understanding outcomes, at modeling and predicting results? Go to school. Become a subject matter expert. Increase your ability to predict outcomes and you are increasing the meaningfulness of your actions, you are increasing your Agency.
How about the other side? How do you get more influence? More power? Hm. Ok maybe that one is not as easy.
Or is it? That brings us back to my cult school.
(Audience chuckles)
There has been a lot of media about scams and cults lately. Pyramid schemes, Ponzi schemes, organic farming coops. Not only media about the organizations, but also their members and especially their leaders. We are all enthralled, enchanted, entranced. How do the leaders work? How can they get people to do things, to believe things? Why are followers drawn to the leader like a moth to a flame?
Most importantly, how can I become the cult leader or be at the top of the pyramid?
(Audience laughs)
I can tell you how they do it. They do it through building and expanding their Agency until it extends beyond themselves and into their followers. They leverage their own predictive power and use it to organize a hoard of predictors. They leverage their small influence to make an army of influencers.
You can do this too.
I’ve done research, I’ve run experiments, and I’ve built a framework to follow, and I invite you to build off of it all. It might take you a few tries, it did for me, but once you get a bit of a foundation under your belt you, too, can write books. Write checks. Right wrongs. Give TED talks.
Welcome to Cult Camp. You’re already a part of it by being here, in this talk, in this moment. But you can take it further. The full Cult Camp experience is a top of the line retreat deep in the Vermont forest where we learn from each other and build a new way to look at the world, a new way to influence the world. It is a place for leaders to step into the deep waters of managing people, managing teams, managing hearts and minds. A place where you learn to not only increase your Agency, but to amplify it!
I know you’re skeptical. You might think this is yet another con or yet another generic leadership training workshop - but actually I am bringing you to the inside of the con that you’re already a part of. All around you are people whose Agency is like a domino, standing in line ready to fall. There are, however, those special few Agents who step outside the domino chain so they can see down the line and decide on their own when to knock down the next piece instead of waiting to be pushed over themselves.
You have to ask yourself what do you want to be? Would you rather be the moth, or would you rather be the flame?
Join me. Be the flame. Let’s burn together. Learn more at joincultcamp.com
Thank you.
(Slight bow with prayer hands. Audience claps. Fade)