#56 - Stasis or Agency: The Choice That Will Shape Your 2026
A Sunday evening reflection on the quiet forces running our lives and the small movements that will define the final weeks of this year.
Two Words That Defined My Week Last Week
It is Sunday evening. Not the slow morning version with quiet reflection, but the real version a day of life, work, family, travel, sports (another Vikings loss), and noise. Only now, when everything has finally settled, can I hear what last week was trying to tell me.
Two words followed me through every meeting: stasis and agency.
Stasis is defined as “a state of inactivity or equilibrium caused by opposing forces.”
That sounds clinical, but here’s the lived version: stasis is when your life or work slips into pause without your permission. It’s the illusion of stability that slowly drains capability.
Agency is the opposite. Agency is the belief that you can shape what happens next and the willingness to act before you feel ready. It’s the moment where intention becomes movement.
After spending time with five HR leadership teams last week and on 4 webinars, these two forces became impossible to ignore. Every team cared. Every team was working hard. Every team was thinking about AI and their future. Every person wanted to learn. Yet underneath all of it, stasis kept sneaking in during every discussion.
And with the year almost behind us, that matters more than ever with what I would say will be the most important year of business transformation ever coming up, 2026.
Stasis does not protect you. It only delays the inevitable.
What Last Week Showed Me
Across all five teams and all the webinars, the same pattern kept appearing. A lot of preparing, aligning, reviewing, and refining and not nearly enough movement.
The research backs this up. Gallup reports that global engagement is still hovering around 21 percent. McKinsey continues to find that nearly 70 percent of transformations stall or fade. Prosci’s research shows the top barrier to change is not resistance but the absence of visible leadership action.
People don’t resist change. They resist being trapped in systems that won’t move with them.
A Conversation in France That Hit Me Hard
One CHRO said to me last week, “Jason, we have done everything right I think including strategy, communication, champions, AI use cases and still nothing is changing.”
My response surprised even me: “You have all the ingredients. You just don’t have a flame in your people after listening to them.”
Agency is the flame. And no system or software drop can ignite it. It has to come from people and from leaders willing to move first.
Why Agency Requires a New Operating Model
This is the truth most organizations avoid and rang true in a webinar with over 1000 attendees last week.
You cannot unlock agency inside an operating model designed to restrict it.
More layers slow decisions.
More approvals reduce initiative.
More alignment suffocates experimentation.
This is not a talent issue, but an architectural one.
There were more questions throughout the week about how to start, how to get approval, how to make the “business case” than stories of “I did this” like the leader I will talk about later in this piece.
If it takes longer to get approval than to build the prototype, the system is the problem. If people wait for clarity instead of creating it, the system is the problem. If experimentation requires permission, the system is the problem.
A different operating model is needed now with fewer gates, more guardrails, less choreography, more orchestration and more motion. AI isn’t blocked by technology, it’s blocked by the architecture it lands inside and will not be successful in most organizations without a complete mindset shift and organizational reset and restructure.
You cannot create new outcomes inside a system built to protect the old ones. (You know what I am talking about)
A Leader Who Refused to Wait
One rewards (compensation) leader I met in Europe made this real. His team was drowning in comp cycles and spreadsheet chaos. He could’ve waited for alignment. Instead, he built a prototype.
In two hours he had better insights than after a month of work of previous work
His CHRO didn’t ask, “Why did you do this?”
They asked, “How do we scale this?”
Agency spreads fast once someone moves.
Stasis: The Silent Enemy
Stasis pretends to be stability, but it is really paralysis. So many people and organizations are living this right now and it will hurt us all in 2026 if it continues.
It shows up disguised as:
“I’ll start Monday.”
“I need more clarity.”
“I’m waiting for the right time.”
“I’ll try once things settle down.”
Stasis is not rest, it is erosion.
Stasis looks safe until it steals your future.
What Agency Actually Looks Like
A few patterns from last week:
The rewards leader who built a prototype instead of waiting.
A VP whose HR business partner takes the messy work because “no one is watching.”
The AI Readiness leader saying I don’t care if they say no, we are doing it anyways.
Agency is not noisy. It’s not dramatic. It’s not bold slogans.
It is small, consistent forward motion.
If you want to spot agency, look for people who:
Move before they feel ready.
Choose responsibility over excuses.
Stay curious in ambiguity.
Turn friction into fuel.
Bring drafts instead of waiting for direction.
Ask, “What can I do in the next hour?”
Agency isn’t a trait or a skill only, it is a pattern.
The Escalator or the Staircase
Here’s the metaphor that stuck with me last week.
Most people stand on escalators waiting for the system to carry them.
Agency is choosing the staircase.
The escalator moves only if the system does.
The staircase moves only when you do.
Which one are you choosing as we wind down the year? Take a watch of this video that I use often to remind me of this.
Rebuilding the Muscle
Start small.
One action.
One step.
One conversation.
One beginning.
You do not need more time but you do need movement.
Movement builds momentum. Momentum builds belief. Belief builds agency.
Looking Back at 2025
After last week of conversations, the year is dividing organizations into two camps:
Those who waited and those who moved.
Waiting organizations have new tools and familiar results.
Moving organizations have scars and evidence.
2025 has become a mirror or X-Ray and it showing us exactly who is ready for what comes next.
Looking Toward 2026
This is why 2026 cannot be another year of adoption.
It has to be the year of agency and a year of motion, space, courage, and human-led, AI-enabled work.
2026 is coming fast and I am pretty certain it will not wait for you to feel ready.
Your Sunday Evening Reflection
Where did you move last week and where will you move this week?
Where did you wait and what will change this week?
What one action can you take tonight, not tomorrow that you’ve been postponing?
I have been working hard to learn about the impact of AI on work and the layoffs we are seeing. I feel behind but i am going to get ahead this week (or at least as ahead as I can). My reflection is to bring that to life this week in many different ways and I am ready. This is not a plan but an action.
Your Call to Identity
Be the person who moves first.
Be the person who acts while others hesitate.
Be the person who starts.
Your life will not change when you are ready.
It will change when you begin.
Stasis is comfortable. Agency is alive. Choose life.
About Jason Averbook
Jason Averbook is a globally recognized thought leader, advisor, and keynote speaker focused on the intersection of AI, human potential, and the future of work. He is the Senior Partner and Global Leader of Digital HR Strategy at Mercer, where he helps the world’s largest organizations reimagine how work gets done — not by implementing technology, but by transforming mindsets, skillsets, and cultures to be truly digital.
Over the last two decades, Jason has advised hundreds of Fortune 1000 companies, co-founded and led Leapgen, authored two books on the evolution of HR and workforce technology, and built a reputation as one of the most forward-thinking voices in the industry. His work challenges leaders to stop seeing digital transformation as an IT project and start embracing it as a human strategy.
Through his Substack, Now to Next, Jason shares honest, provocative, and practical insights on what’s changing in the workplace — from generative AI to skills-based orgs to emotional fluency in leadership. His mission is simple: to help people and organizations move from noise to clarity, from fear to possibility, and from now… to next.
You can email at jasonaverbook@gmail.com or send message at LinkedIn to connect.
My two cents here is that we, as a profession, lack agency. I see it happen over and over again. We usually know what to do, but we lack the agency (or drive) TO do it.
As we were afraid that if we said something that we are even slightly insecure about, we'll lose our seat at the table (a place we've been fighting hard for!), and thus we take the path of comfort (or stasis, as you put it).
Maybe that served us well in the past, but oh boy, we're so behind if we rely on that going forward.
As you point out, we need to act, act, act. It's better to make a decision and take action rather than do nothing, because inaction creates no data points.
It's interesting how you articulate the dichotomy between stasis and agency so clearly. This inertia often feels like a default state for complex systems, even in AI developement.