FAQ

Please comment below if you have questions that remain unanswered. There are most likely others with the same question, so if you ask, it helps all of us out.

• How do I know if The Agency is right for me?
• What happens in Build each month?
• What happens in Incubate each month?
• Why should I believe that you (and The Agency) can do this for me?
• What is this “activate my potential” language anyway?
• Who is the “we” here?
• What is this “transition” that you keep mentioning?

How do I know if The Agency is right for me?

Do you feel like you get get to your goals faster if you:

• could problem solve better
• become more resourceful
• tap into collective wisdom
• access skills you need through barter
• stay focused and on task and increase your accountability
• clarify or refine what you are doing
• figure out how to develop revenue, especially passive revenue, to support your efforts
• increase your visibility and reputation within a network of change agents

If any of the above feel like they would help optimize your effort, and you believe in creating a more thrivable world, we can help.

What happens in Build each month?

• 4 calls to do SCRUM work – this is your weekly “how are you doing, how can we help” checkin.
• worksheets and questions to prompt you to greater clarity and focused action.
• opportunity to skill share with peers.
• Theme-based worksheets and learning resources.
• opportunity to submit writing on the theme to a booklet from the group, produced by The Agency.

What happens in Incubate each month?

• 120 minutes broken up as you want it for razor sharp thought partnership, coaching, and/or micro-retainer.
• worksheets and questions to prompt you to greater clarity and focused action. Past clients have you incubate to further develop their thinking, transition to new markets, and clarify new business ideas.
• Theme-based worksheets and learning resources.
• opportunity to submit writing on the theme to a booklet from the group, produced by The Agency.

Why should I believe that you (and The Agency) can do this for me?

Let’s start with me and work outward.
I have been stuck. I taught myself how to get unstuck. I have worked for myself for a decade. When you are a master of knotting yourself, you have to learn how to be Houdini. Whatever the resource constraints, skill needs, or decision barricades, I learned from my failures, and I can help others benefit from that hard-earned wisdom. The Agency feels like the culmination of a decade of learning how to be an effective social innovator. Unstuck. Un-knotted.

I am trained as a coach in Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). How people work totally fascinates me. I learned how to work with what you have to get what you want. As for track record, I coached social entrepreneurs on 4 continents. A clients said:

“…I can say without hesitation that my work with Jean has enabled me to break through or navigate around a range of mental roadblocks. It has involved a combination of brainstorming, challenging assumptions and beliefs, and the drawing out of spaghetti-scattered thought patterns and re-arranging them into something that I can more clearly visualize and act upon…” Greg Murray, General Manager, Templeton Galt

Really, much of what the Agency does is a more structured version of what I have done for years: work with people to get stuff that matters done. The Agency itself was built this way. A dozen people pitched in to help me pull it together. I want to help other people be this nimble too! After hundreds of social swap sessions given with people in the thrivable network, I know how to put social capital to work in mutually supportive ways. The Thrivable network knows that already. We did it with the Thrivability Sketch in 2010.

What is this “activate my potential” language anyway?

Reduce barriers to your success. People get in their own way. I know I have. And that is something everyone has control over. At The Agency, we get people unstuck. Somewhere in the process from idea to result, people get stuck. To be innovative, we need play and divergent thinking. To implement, we need focus and discernment. And to shift from one to the other, we need solid lightweight structures carrying us from idea to action to tangible outcome.

Who is the “we” here?

Everything I do involves the network of people drawn to the concept of thrivability. I love the social era! 

To pull together the work on this project so far, I am really grateful for: Pritha RaySircar, Todd Hoskins, Kathryn Bottrell, Herman Wagter, Christina Jordan, Bonnie Koenig, Cassie Robinson, Christelle Van Ham, Christopher Douglas, Nathaniel James, Christine Egger, Gil Friend, Jerry Michalski, and Art Brock. I can’t begin to list all of the people and conversations that got me here, but those are the most recent contributors to this work. Explicitly, advisors who have signed on to help include: Nilofer Merchant, Kevin Doyle Jones, and Kevin Clark. Credits and gratitude listed here: http://agency.thrivable.net/credits-and-gratitude/

What is this “transition” that you keep mentioning?

20th Century models (business, citizen sector, and government) are not working. The breakdown in the economy makes most of us feel how real that is. How do we make bridges to the new era? The Agency at Thrivable is here to catalyze bridge-building. We need to make a transition. We can help each other do that.

The transition is where we use what works from the past, discard what doesn’t work, and build toward what will work better.