The Opportunity in Plain Sight
Most organisations invest heavily in strategy, systems, technology, processes, culture and training.
Yet one of the most significant determinants of performance often remains largely invisible.
Human Agency.
What Makes Human Agency Different?
Human Agency is not Human Resources.
It is not employee engagement.
It is not culture change.
It is the capacity of individuals and groups to act with awareness, responsibility and choice.
The capacity through which all of these other things ultimately become possible.
Why Does This Matter?
Every organisation already possesses Human Agency.
The opportunity is not to acquire it.
The opportunity is to recognise it, understand it and develop it more effectively.
This creates the possibility of generating additional value from investments already being made in leadership, training, learning, culture, technology and organisational development.
Where Does Arbitrium Sit?
Arbitrium is not a competing methodology.
It is a framework for understanding and developing Human Agency.
A perspective developed to complement and enhance existing approaches rather than replace them.
A Journey of Discovery
The ideas behind Human Agency are not always immediately obvious.
For that reason, this website has been structured as a journey.
A sequence of reflections, principles and perspectives designed to make Human Agency more visible and understandable.
Human Agency in the Real World
Human Agency can be difficult to see until we examine what happens when people make choices within a real and complex system.
An eighteen-year journey through the UK housing system has provided one such opportunity.
Beginning with the financial crisis of 2008, a series of housing proposals travelled through banks, MPs, Ministers and the Civil Service. Looking back at that experience through the lens of Human Agency revealed questions extending far beyond housing:
What stops progress?
What happens when individually reasonable choices fail to combine into the outcome everyone is seeking?
And what do we actually choose to learn from experience?
The resulting Housing Market Case Study brings that journey together for the first time.
For those wishing to explore it, three documents are available:
Look at the journey.
Look at the evidence.
Draw your own conclusions.
Today’s Opportunity
The opportunity is already present.
If these ideas resonate with you, I invite you to join me on the journey.
At the end, the question may not be whether Human Agency exists, but whether we choose to recognise it.