The Mindset for Navigating AI Transformation

Artificial Intelligence isn't just changing the tools we use at work; it's questioning our sense of self-worth. For many people, that's the real source of anxiety. Not necessarily the technology itself, but the uncomfortable question underneath it: where do I fit in this new world?

The Mindset for Navigating AI Transformation

If you've worked in the same role for years, it has become part of your identity, and naturally, you have grown comfortable with it.

The pace of change and the uncertainty of AI's increasing capabilities leave us all wondering: what comes next? and what does it mean for me and my family?

Riding the Tech Industry Hype Cycles

The tech industry has been through many transformations before: web, cloud, mobile, microservices, etc. Each wave followed a similar pattern: resistance at first, rapid adoption, and eventually new roles for the people who embraced it by learning new concepts and adjusting their ways of working.

While the AI transformation is different (it's happening much faster), there are things we can learn from previous hype cycles. If most of your work is done on a computer, then your job is certainly changing whether you like it or not.

Your company or your boss aren't imposing AI on you or your work by choice. This is how the technology and the industry are evolving. These forces of transformation are bigger than any of us can realistically control.

This doesn't mean we're helpless. Acceptance of change, becoming AI literate and overcoming the urge to resist, are the first critical steps. The people who sail through periods of change have a distinct mindset compared to those who struggle to adapt.

So what separates the people who adapt from those who struggle? It's not just a skills challenge; it comes down to the concept of "High Agency". The word agency is used here to describe human behaviour, not AI agents.

High Agency is the personal belief that you are empowered to enact change, and you follow through by taking action.

People with high agency create opportunities, solve problems proactively, and influence outcomes through their behaviours. With this mindset comes a sense of empowerment, determination, resilience, excitement, positivity, and work satisfaction.

Understanding your own level of agency requires some honest self-reflection.

Gauging Your Level of Agency

There is no defined metric for a person's level of agency, but you can get a sense of it by reflecting on how you respond in various scenarios. Here is a simple framework to help you self-reflect. Each dimension represents a different aspect of high-agency behaviour:

Initiative & Ownership

When you see something that needs to be done, how do you respond?

  1. Passive: wait for direction; avoid ownership
  2. Reactive: respond when asked; take limited initiative
  3. Reliable: complete assigned work; sometimes go beyond what's asked
  4. Proactive: identify opportunities and risks early
  5. Strategic: create direction and mobilise others

Action & Problem Solving

How do you move things forward when obstacles appear?

  1. Stalled: avoid action; blocked by problems
  2. Dependent: need help or advice to move forward
  3. Steady: progress with persistence
  4. Resourceful: find paths around obstacles
  5. Relentless: create solutions where none exist

Learning & Adaptability

How do you respond to change, feedback, and uncertainty?

  1. Fixed: resist change; sometimes repeat mistakes
  2. Hesitant: accept change but struggle to apply it
  3. Learner: adjust when nudged
  4. Iterative: experiment and improve continuously
  5. Adaptive: reframe challenges and evolve consistently

Influence & Execution

How effectively do you turn ideas into outcomes with others?

  1. Informational: share information without driving action
  2. Transactional: execute tasks but don't influence outcomes
  3. Collaborative: communicate clearly and align others
  4. Persuasive: build support and drive progress
  5. Catalytic: mobilise people and create momentum

If your answers are a 4 or a 5 most of the time, you are likely a high-agency person.

Download as a one page pdf from here: High-Agency-Self-Assessment-v1.1.pdf

Adjusting Your Level of Agency

We can't be high agency all of the time, we all have off-days when we're tired, stressed or struggling with personal or family issues.

Simply understanding what it means to be high agency helps you improve. Don't try to change everything at once. Pick one of the categories above each morning and try to adjust your behaviour in some way during the day. Over time it becomes a habit and you'll do it subconsciously.

High Effort vs High Agency

It's easy to confuse high effort with high agency, so it's worth highlighting the difference. This is easiest to explain with examples:

Customer Escalation
High effort: "I coordinated multiple teams, attended calls, resolved customer concerns and pushed the work through."
High agency: "I reviewed previous issues to understand why the escalations are happening and introduced improved governance, monitoring and ownership to reduce escalations over time."

Technical Issue
High effort: "I stepped in and worked late assisting others to resolve a system issue."
High agency: "I documented a preventative maintenance plan, created a resolution runbook and trained the team to deal with future issues."

How Does This Help?

So why does this matter in the context of AI? The tasks that are most easily done by AI agents are the repeatable rote tasks that don't require much human agency. Knowing what high agency behaviours are, and actively developing them, highlights your value and also equips you mentally to deal with periods of change.

As AI becomes more capable, you:

Your Employment Prospects

You will also recognise when new roles emerge, such as AI governance, AI security, or AI workflow designer roles, and position yourself as an early adopter.

None of this guarantees that your company won't lay you off at some point in the future, but it does reduce the chance of it happening. And if it does happen, this mindset will help you find your next job.

For Managers

This topic of high agency can be introduced to a team or the whole company by senior management or by HR. Position it as a way for everyone to prepare for the inevitable change that is coming.

When things aren't going well, we naturally tend to reflect outwards at how others are behaving. With self-reflection, we also look inwards, and ask, "how could I have behaved differently in this scenario?"

It can then be incorporated into 1:1 meetings. If you have a software development team that follows agile practices, ask the team to reflect on the questions above before the next sprint retrospective meeting, to identify one specific "High Agency" action to focus on in the following sprint.

High agency requires a psychologically safe environment. If people are punished for making a mistake while trying something new, they will quickly revert to passive behaviours. Focus on creating a culture where people can learn from mistakes and move on.

I would strongly advise against adding aggregate scoring to the assessment above. This is a sensitive and complex topic for people, it requires human-to-human discussion, not reducing someone down to a number.

Conclusion

Times of change can be stressful, but pretending it's not happening or being frozen with fear aren't going to help. Accepting and embracing change is a much more pragmatic approach.

The people who navigate this transition best will be the ones who take ownership, adapt early, and act decisively. That's why high agency is so important.

Becoming a high agency person is a personal choice that is within your control. Now that you know about it, what will you do differently tomorrow?

Further Reading

Last updated: 15 Sept 2026