Keywords

The Norwegian motivation researcher Roald Nygård (2007) introduced the distinction within human self-understanding between agent and pawn. Agents see themselves as inner-directed, free, self-determining beings who are responsible for their actions, while pawns perceive themselves as outer-directed beings who are pushed around by forces over which they have little or no control, and thus do not see themselves as responsible for what they do or fail to do (Nygård and Kunszenti 1999; Nygård 2007). The agent–pawn distinction has not been widely used in research, but I have found it useful in reflecting on agency and responsibility with practitioners in organisations. This distinction can help when exploring the roles and responsibilities people take on in their work environments. In this chapter, I will present scope for agency as the fourth quality present in a well-functioning communication climate. There is scope for agency in a group when the members see themselves as agents, and they sense that they have the freedom and the responsibility to take initiatives in work processes.

Nygård outlines how people reveal their self-understanding in what they say about their behaviour. “I did not get time to do it” is a typical pawn expression. It indicates that it was not up to the individual to prioritise a particular matter, and it creates an impression that time is something an external time-provider hands out. In similar circumstances, an agent will say, “I did not set aside time to do it,” and thus, takes responsibility for not putting the matter higher on the agenda. Similarly, a pawn might say, “She irritates me,” while the alternative agentic expression would be, “I allow her to irritate me.”

Individuals can switch between seeing themselves as agents and pawns in their work environments. It may depend on the circumstances, and the reality may be that external forces do set limitations to what an individual can do within this group or organisation. The actual scope for agency at work can differ from one set of circumstances to another. Agent and pawn perspectives are discussed in attribution theory, which studies the beliefs and assumptions people have about why they behave in the way they do and their part in bringing about particular outcomes (Kelley and Michela 1980). Self-determination theory has brought attention to the importance of autonomy for motivation at work (Deci and Ryan 2012). Research on internal and external locus of control also explores people’s beliefs about their influence on and responsibility for what they do and the consequences of their actions (Spector 1982). These theories can explain how outcomes colour people’s evaluations of their behaviour. A Norwegian football coach tends to speak about his contribution to the team’s performance in agentic terms when they win and in pawn terms when they lose. After his team had won a cup final, he described his input as, “world-class coaching,” but after losses, he tends to blame the referee, the height of the grass on the playing field, or the lack of effort from his players.

Human agency can be engaged with the past, responsive to the present, and directed towards the future. In line with Emirbayer and Mische (1998), it can be understood as an intrinsically social and relational phenomenon. Agency takes place in social contexts and in relationships between people. It is oriented from habits and routines established in the past, partly from situated concerns in the present and partly from future-oriented desires, wishes, strategies, and plans. These temporal orientations overlap, and every new moment constitutes a dynamic present placed between a past and a future.

To illustrate the significance of the agent–pawn distinction in understanding agency in relation to communication climate, I want to revisit an example from Chap. 2. A critical quality moment occurred in a choir when they were on the podium, ready to perform Mozart’s Requiem. The conductor entered the stage, received applause from the audience, and turned to the choir to start the performance. He proceeded by giving the singers the tone from which they were supposed to start. Unease spread among the singers because they could immediately sense that this was the wrong tone. It was too deep. If they followed the instructions from the conductor, this would become a bad performance. What happened next would determine the outcome. Would any of the singers take an initiative to alert the conductor to his mistake?

If the choir was a group consisting of pawns, it would follow orders and do what it was told. They would sense that there was no scope for agency in this situation. When you are a singer in this choir, you follow orders from the conductor. He makes the decisions. As a member of this group, it is not your responsibility to intervene and challenge decisions. Who are you, a mere singer, to question the instructions from an experienced conductor? In this choir, you simply do what you are told, even if you have reasons to believe that it will lead to a negative outcome in the shape of a musical crisis.

Agency takes place in the present and the past forms it through habit and repetition. The conductor and the singers had practiced together for a long time and had been able to establish a schema for how to sing Requiem together as one unit. A critical quality moment occurred when the conductor unwittingly departed from the pattern that had been created through past repetitive interactions. What now? In some cases, a collective or group may also have established scripts and patterns of action for addressing disruptive events such as these. Aviation personnel practice responding to dramatic events, including ones where the pilot starts to behave irrationally, and they have agreed upon ways to act in such situations (Gordon et al. 2012). One pilot explained that the instruction is clear if he starts to act abnormally at work. The crew should then take over command and set him aside. There is an agreed-upon script for those occasions. Without such a script, group members can experience insecurity and confusion. The singers in the choir could respond to the lack of an agreed way to act in such unforeseen circumstances by entering pawn mode, doing what the conductor instructs them to do, despite sensing that it would lead to a terrible musical performance.

Another possibility is that there are one or more agents among the singers, individuals who are willing to use their imagination and take an initiative when something is about to go wrong. Their self-understanding indicates they have the scope to question and correct the conductor’s instruction. They can distance themselves from the schemas, habits, and traditions that are important but that also constrain social interaction. Their agency is future oriented and it exemplifies the projective dimension of human agency (Emirbayer and Mische 1998). When the conductor gives the wrong tone to the choir, it sets in motion a chain of events that can lead to a painful near future, unless one or more singers act(s) on a desire, wish, or aspiration to deliver beautiful music to the audience in the concert hall. Singers with an agentic orientation can consider it their responsibility to save the choir and the conductor from embarrassment, and to create a more fulfilling aesthetic experience for the listeners. The performance of Mozart’s Requiem is a collaborative effort. It is not one individual (the conductor) using the other individuals (the singers) as mere instruments to play with as the conductor pleases. An agent among the singers can exemplify the projective, future-oriented side of agency and try to get the conductor’s attention in the seconds before the singing starts, and if that fails, may introduce the right tone from which to start the performance.

I have discussed the example with a musicologist and conductor, and she described it as a musical nightmare, something that should never happen, but may nevertheless occur (Kvalnes 2017). When the conductor provides the wrong tone and it creates unease among the singers, a good conductor will be sensitive to the group’s change in atmosphere. Hours of repetition and practice have established the schema for interaction between singers and conductor. They have been rehearsing this composition for a long time, and should be breathing, moving, and singing together as one. On very rare occasions, a conductor provides the wrong tone to the choir, and realises their mistake due to the unusual, nonverbal responses from the singers. They sense that something is wrong and can correct the tone. The audience may not realise that a minor communication drama has taken place in front of them. If the conductor lacks this sensitivity and fails to pick up the unease, the singers must behave as agents or as pawns. According to the musicologist, there is normally no scope for agency in such a context. As a rule, the singers should be loyal to the conductor and follow their instructions. However, in exceptional cases such as this one, there should be room for some form of intervention to save the day. The choir cannot solely be governed by the habits and routines established in the past but must also be oriented towards the future.

I came across the choir example in a workshop with leaders in an organisation where they wanted to encourage agency and provide scope for employees to intervene in critical quality moments. One of the participating leaders was also a singer in a choir and had recently experienced that the conductor provided the wrong tone at the start of a concert. Unease had spread among the singers, and the conductor did not notice. In this situation, one of the singers, an experienced tenor, had intervened and discreetly introduced the right tone. The other singers followed the new instruction, and the concert ended well. However, in the aftermath, when the choir members met for a short debrief, the conductor had been irritated and angry for the intervention. Apparently, he found it difficult to admit his mistake and that the experienced singer had saved the group from embarrassment. The example served as a vivid reminder of the situations leaders can encounter if they open for agency and intervention. It illustrated that if a leader encourages employees to be agents rather than pawns, it can create situations that expose the leader’s limitations, flaws, and weaknesses. The commitment to a program of providing scope for agency is tested when it creates potentially embarrassing moments for the leader.

Taking an initiative when the conductor appears to have given the wrong tone is to take interpersonal risk. It can potentially place you in conflict with the conductor and the other singers, and lead to a dismissal or another form of sanction. The perceived level of psychological safety in the group will thus influence whether anyone will intervene to draw the conductor’s attention to the mistake or to correct the tone. The stakes are high, and there can be little tolerance for false alarms. If the same thing has happened before, and someone took an initiative to correct the tone, the singers may consider what happened in the aftermath of that dramatic event. Did the initiator receive praise or criticism for the effort? If the initiative was appreciated, it is likely to have contributed to a higher level of psychological safety in the group. It can motivate others to do the same on subsequent occasions.

A bystander effect can also inhibit constructive responses in a choir that receives the wrong starting tone from a conductor. The effect of multiple bystanders can be that the singers adopt a pawn mode. As described in Chap. 3, the effect has two main causes. Diffusion of responsibility occurs when many people are present and distribute the responsibility for doing something evenly among them. Each member of the choir may think that they are only one of many people in a position to do something, and thus, consider their individual responsibility to be minimal. Furthermore, the high number of people can create pluralistic ignorance, where those present will doubt their judgement because nobody else appears to question or doubt the instruction they have received. The bystander effect can pull everyone away from seeing themselves as responsible agents and towards a self-understanding where they are powerless pawns.

Scope for agency in a communication climate requires constant maintenance and support in an organisation. It takes effort to establish it initially, and it is likely to be under threat from psychological factors that draw people towards a pawn understanding of themselves. The test of whether this quality is present in a group comes when something unexpected happens. The group has prepared for or rehearsed for this situation. If the members are primarily engaged with the past and the schemas developed there, they will struggle to cope with the present. If they are future oriented, they can mobilise creativity and take on the role of being innovative agents.

To cope with critical quality moments, an organisation or group depends on a communication climate where there is scope for agency. Group members should have freedom to take verbal initiatives to correct the tone or point to weaknesses in plans and ideas. Responsibility comes with this freedom of speech. If a group member spots something out of the ordinary and senses that it will affect the outcome of what the group is trying to achieve together, that member has a responsibility to intervene. The group member can be influenced to become a passive pawn via the bystander effect and they can perceive a lack of psychological safety. In shaping the communication climate, it is important to counter such pacifying tendencies and to encourage people to perceive themselves as agents.

The scope for agency can also include opportunities to provide positive feedback to colleagues and group members who have recently made particularly positive contributions. As noted in Chap. 2, those moments include situations where not only an initiative is needed to stop a negative causal chain to develop further but also where it is possible to energise colleagues by providing praise and acknowledgement for their excellent efforts. The opportunity to do so may come and go rather quickly, and thus, it may require a swift initiative.

The purpose of this chapter was to introduce scope for agency as the fourth quality that can be found in a well-functioning communication climate, supplementing friendly friction, tolerance for false alarms, and psychological safety. When people see themselves and they are treated like agents, they can sense they have a scope for influencing crucial events at work. Their initiatives make a difference, and the organisation or group appreciates them. They also have a responsibility to speak up and act in critical quality moments. It is particularly during and after such moments that people can see whether they understand themselves as agents or pawns. In line with findings in attribution theory, positive outcomes can expect to trigger agentic self-understanding, and negative outcomes can mobilise people to describe their role in events in pawn terms.