can you have alignment w/o agency? or vice versa? maybe there is a more basic property we should be looking for. in IP, agency is usually cheap (also to cause self-damage). but alignment between IP strategy and biz strategy is commonly lacking.
Great question — and I think you’ve hit on something important.
You can have alignment without agency, that’s often what we see in highly centralised or compliance-driven environments. Everyone’s “aligned,” but few can actually act, so the organisation becomes brittle.
Likewise, you can have agency without alignment — lots of local action but little coherence, so effort disperses.
Maybe the deeper property, as you suggest, isn’t either in isolation. However, the capacity for coherent autonomy, where people can act with freedom and those actions still contribute meaningfully to the whole. That’s what I tend to look for when I think about viable organisations.
can you have alignment w/o agency? or vice versa? maybe there is a more basic property we should be looking for. in IP, agency is usually cheap (also to cause self-damage). but alignment between IP strategy and biz strategy is commonly lacking.
Great question — and I think you’ve hit on something important.
You can have alignment without agency, that’s often what we see in highly centralised or compliance-driven environments. Everyone’s “aligned,” but few can actually act, so the organisation becomes brittle.
Likewise, you can have agency without alignment — lots of local action but little coherence, so effort disperses.
Maybe the deeper property, as you suggest, isn’t either in isolation. However, the capacity for coherent autonomy, where people can act with freedom and those actions still contribute meaningfully to the whole. That’s what I tend to look for when I think about viable organisations.
do you think that is the only way to have both alignment and agency?
I think there are structural and human (or interpersonal) elements we need to consider.