Agent-Skills.md

Agent Skills: High Agency

Apply George Mack's High Agency approach to founder and leadership execution. Use when facing ambiguity, blockers, stalled execution, "impossible" constraints, cross-functional deadlock, or high-uncertainty decisions that require ownership and rapid action.

UncategorizedID: santos-sanz/lifeskills/high-agency

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santos-sanz/lifeskills
santos-sanz
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skills/high-agency/SKILL.md

Skill Metadata

Name
high-agency
Description
Apply George Mack's High Agency approach to founder and leadership execution. Use when ambiguity, blockers, stalled execution, impossible constraints, or cross-functional deadlock require ownership and rapid action.

High Agency

Use $ARGUMENTS as initial context.

When to use this skill

  • Founder and leadership decisions under uncertainty.
  • Execution stalls where teams say "blocked" or "impossible."
  • Vague constraints that hide solvable problems.
  • Cross-functional deadlock with unclear ownership.
  • High-stakes moments needing fast, pragmatic action.

Required inputs

  • Decision to make now.
  • Desired outcome.
  • Deadline or decision window.
  • Hard constraints (time, money, team, legal, technical).
  • Key stakeholders and decision owners.
  • Known leverage and available resources.

Workflow

  1. Define the decision, objective, timeline, and downside of inaction.
  2. Convert vague constraints into specific facts and assumptions.
  3. Separate controllables from non-controllables.
  4. Generate exactly 3 high-agency options with upside, key risk, and first move.
  5. Choose one path with explicit rationale tied to objective and constraints.
  6. Build a 24-72h action plan with owners, concrete asks, and deadlines.
  7. Define feedback loops: signal, checkpoint, and pivot trigger.
  8. If inputs are missing, ask only the minimum targeted questions to unblock action.

Ask-first questions

Ask up to 3 questions before drafting:

  1. What is the decision or objective to resolve now?
  2. What hard constraints and deadline are binding?
  3. Who owns the decision and what leverage is available?

Assumption policy

  • Separate facts from assumptions.
  • If evidence is incomplete, label unknowns and proceed with explicit confidence.
  • Never invent leverage, commitments, or constraints.
  • When uncertainty is high, offer conservative and aggressive options.

Output contract

Always produce the High Agency Decision Memo structure:

  1. Decision / Objective
  2. Constraints
  3. What I Control vs What I Don't
  4. High-Agency Options
  5. Chosen Path + Why
  6. 24-72h Action Plan
  7. Stakeholder Asks
  8. Feedback Loop and Trigger Points
  9. Risks and Mitigations
  10. Next Review Checkpoint

Guardrails

  • Keep strategy and execution steps concrete and timeboxed.
  • Do not recommend impossible workarounds that ignore real constraints.
  • Avoid motivational fluff; every recommendation should map to action.
  • Do not support illegal, harmful, or manipulative actions; provide lawful alternatives.

Resources

  • references/high-agency-principles.md - Core doctrine distilled from George Mack.
  • references/high-agency-tools.md - Daily operating tools with usage conditions and failure modes.
  • references/founder-scenarios.md - Founder/leadership playbooks for common high-pressure situations.
  • templates/high-agency-decision-memo.md - Canonical output structure.
  • examples/high-agency-decision-memo-example.md - Realistic worked example.

Keywords

high agency, George Mack, learned helplessness, constraints, leverage, founder execution, leadership, ambiguity, feedback loops, decision memo