Last week, we looked at three different types of freedom and how they show up at work. This week, we are looking at the idea of freedom as a choice and what that really means.
Choice and indifference
What is often meant by freedom in organizations is some degree of choice. Which of these projects would you like to take on? How would you like to proceed? Feel free to be creative with your slides.
However, freedom of choice is not the same thing as being free. The freedom to choose is a freedom that exists as a result of the options themselves. We are deemed free by having choices but by exercising them. As Frank Ruda describes in his book Abolishing Freedom, “A result of understanding freedom as freedom of choice that is already actualized in having a choice (and thus before actually making it) is “indifference.”1
If we are free because we have choices, then our freedom precedes our decision, and any decision we make will be arbitrary. Ruda continues,
When it does not matter what choice we make, we have the feeling that we experience the arbitrary freedom of the will (i.e., a kind of indifference). The same does not hold for “great and important decisions of the will,” since then “the feeling that we have is rather one of psychical compulsion, and we are glad to invoke it in our behalf. (‘Here I stand: I can do no other’).” 2
When we begin to look into why we made one arbitrary choice over another, we assume it is our free will that chooses, but in this, we hide the reason for our choice, and it becomes possible that even our free choice was potentially not free.
Thus when I presume that I have the freedom to choose and I choose arbitrarily, I leave it open as to why I chose option A and not option B. I attribute the sovereignty of choice to my free will and thus leave the reason for the choice undetermined. It is precisely in such a gap (of determination) that I end up being determined without willing it—and I even admit it (without willing to). 3
Does this mean that freedom of choice is false? Not entirely. From one perspective, choice becomes the meaning we place in what we do and how we do it.
Freedom does not reside in the subject’s ability to consciously choose its own ends—it is always just choosing among given possibilities—but in its ability to invest itself in the means without regard for the ends. When this occurs, the subject loses its dependence on the particularities of its situation that determine its ends. Rather than working to ensure my survival, I can find satisfaction in my work for its own sake. 4
Ruda takes a different perspective. Freedom comes when we realize we have no choice; fate has already decided. In this paradoxical situation, our choice emerges only when we see that we have no choice.
I am unfree as soon as I conceive of my freedom as something that is in my power. Freedom turns into a capacity. Only by acting and thinking as if I were not free—that is, being a fatalist—do I affirm a determination that I cannot deduce from my capacities, namely that I am free only when something happens to me that forces me to be free and forces me to make a choice…Through fatalism one affirms the impossible possibility that true freedom is possible, although there is no objective guarantee (neither in me nor in the world) for it. Simply put, only a fatalist can be free. This is because there is nothing to hope for, there is nothing to rely on, and there is nothing in our power. But this helps us avoid falling for the trap of acting as if we were free. What we can thus derive from Descartes is a second principle of a contemporary provisional morality: Act as if you were not free!5
Freedom does not come from choosing various options but rather from creating a choice in a situation where no choice seems possible. This raises freedom to a whole other level. Freedom becomes an event requiring courage.
As a practical example, say someone is leaving the team, and you are taking on a new role. You are being asked to do more. What if you say no? That choice seems impossible. When you accept that it is impossible to say no, you can take on what it means to say no. And you have found the opportunity for freedom.
When we only think about the choices we have available, it creates the illusion of free will. We obediently choose from the options available even though the choice doesn’t matter, and thus give up our freedom.
As Dimitris Vardoulakis argues, following Spinoza, “There is no more effective tool for the implementation of obedience than the illusion of the free will.” By failing to imagine that such things are possible, we fail even to grasp their existence.” 6
Personal Values vs Organizational Values
The courageous act of freedom is ethical and one that depends on our values. We come across values when we lean into how we do what we do. Today, every company touts its values. They see it as a critical sign of their culture. However, there is not (and in fact, there cannot be) 100% overlap between the values of an organization and that of its employees. For now, I will ignore the fact that many company leaders ignore their company’s values. 7 Instead, we should focus on the tie between ethics and our values as a path to freedom.
It is important not to confuse the pursuance of some authentic self as being ethical. As Alenka Zupančič writes in Ethics of the Real,
Kant does not try simply to encourage us to act according to our ‘deepest convictions’, as does the contemporary ideology advocating that we heed our ‘authentic inclinations’ and rediscover our ‘true selves’. Instead, the procedure of the Critique is based on Kant’s recognition of the fact that our inclinations and our deepest convictions are radically pathological: that they belong to the domain of heteronomy.
The defining feature of a free act, on the contrary, is precisely that it is entirely foreign to the subject’s inclinations. 8
This act, foreign to our inclinations, is actually free and ethical. It relates to what Ruda described as the impossible act that allows for freedom.
Todd McGowan takes this further by bringing in Hegel and connecting it even more clearly to the impossible, described here as an inner limitation.
Kant and Fichte’s version of morality is that of the rebel. Though they align morality with the law rather than with its transgression, they fail to take this alignment far enough. Hegel pushes it a step further. By identifying ourselves with the achievement of the moral law rather than striving to achieve it, we reveal that freedom is not the absence of limitation but the encounter with an internal limitation that drives us to act. 9
When we choose our own path, we gain true freedom. Recognizing that this is not just pushing back on authority is essential. As long as we are pushing back against authority, they still have power.
As long as one negates an external authority, one remains on that authority’s terrain rather than on one’s own, which produces a very circumscribed notion of freedom. The child can disobey, but it is still the parent who establishes the rules that the child disobeys. If freedom manifests itself only as rebellion or resistance, it isn’t freedom as such. The child really becomes free when it moves past rebellion, lives on its own, and determines its own life. In the same way, Hegel’s conception of freedom begins with negation, but it ends with the recognition that this negation must manifest itself in some positive form if the subject is to free itself completely from the external authority that it negates.10
This doesn’t mean we must rebel and break all the rules. Even obeying the rules can be a form of freedom, as McGowan explains,
From the perspective of reason, the subject’s decision to obey the speed limit while driving ceases to be capitulation to an external authority and becomes the expression of the subject’s own freedom. In this act of obedience, the subject follows a law that its investment in the world has authorized. As a result, this limit does not function purely as an external limit for the subject but as an internal one. Or, to put it in Hegel’s terms, the Grenze (barrier) is also a Schranke (limit). The free subject conceives the speed limit as its own self-limitation and thus experiences it as a sign of its own freedom, not as an constraint imposed externally. 11
Ultimately, Freedom becomes the limits we choose to put on ourselves and the limits (the impossible things) we decide to make possible. Kant ties this back in again to courage as he talks about freedom as a form of enlightenment.
Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! “Have courage to use your own understanding!”–that is the motto of enlightenment.”12
Emancipating your team (beyond choice and indifference)
So, how can you use this to free yourself or help your team?
First of all, we should abandon the idea of empowerment, as Marquet states.
[E]mpowerment still results from and is a manifestation of a top-down structure. At its core is the belief that the leader “empowers” the followers, that the leader has the power and ability to empower the followers…What we need is release, or emancipation. Emancipation is fundamentally different from empowerment. With emancipation we are recognizing the inherent genius, energy, and creativity in all people, and allowing those talents to emerge. We realize that we don’t have the power to give these talents to others, or “empower” them to use them, only the power to prevent them from coming out. Emancipation results when teams have been given decision-making control and have the additional characteristics of competence and clarity. You know you have an emancipated team when you no longer need to empower them. Indeed, you no longer have the ability to empower them because they are not relying on you as their source of power.13
For decision-making control to be a form of freedom, it cannot just be freedom of choice, which, as we saw above, is limited. It must be more.
First, we must recognize our team members as free. And show them that we are as well.
I am only truly free when the other is also free and recognized by me as free.14
We must take ownership of our own choices. Part of what makes this hard is that we are often forgiven for things that are seen as not our choice. One of the reasons that there is often little internal pushback about layoffs is that it is seen as a condition caused by the market rather than a free choice of executives. Jason Read relies on Spinoza to explain why this is,
As Spinoza stresses, the more we imagine a thing to be necessary and not free, the less we become angry or indignant. The more that we understand the economy to be governed by its own laws, the more we understand its various effects not as the product of a social system but as facts of life, the less we become angry or indignant at its vacillations. 15
Seeing everything as a choice goes beyond not acting like a victim. We need to understand that even in the impossibility of doing otherwise, we have freedom and, therefore, are responsible for our actions.
Zupančič connects this idea to guilt:
As a first approximation, we might say that guilt is the way in which the subject originally participates in freedom, and it is precisely at this point that we encounter the division or split which is constitutive of the ethical subject, the division expressed in ‘I couldn’t have done anything else, but still, I am guilty.’ Freedom manifests itself in this split of the subject. The crucial point here is that freedom is not incompatible with the fact that ‘I couldn’t do anything else’, and that I was ‘carried along by the stream of natural necessity’. Paradoxically, it is at the very moment when the subject is conscious of being carried along by the stream of natural necessity that she also becomes aware of her freedom.16
This brings us back to where freedom lies: Freedom is the courage to do something that is impossible.
What does this mean as a middle manager?
As a middle manager, you can welcome arguments, show that it is possible to challenge what is possible, and encourage the courage to be true to and challenge your convictions.
As McGowan said, “Mutual recognition is not a sufficient condition for the subject’s freedom, but it is a necessary one.” 17
Recognizing the freedom you and your team have is a start.
I will end with a final thought from Frank Ruda about finding freedom in what is beyond our power.
I am unfree as soon as I conceive of my freedom as something that is in my power. Freedom turns into a capacity. Only by acting and thinking as if I were not free—that is, being a fatalist—do I affirm a determination that I cannot deduce from my capacities, namely that I am free only when something happens to me that forces me to be free and forces me to make a choice.” 18
This is the opportunity to find freedom that forces you to be free and choose when it seems impossible.
- Frank Ruda, Abolishing Freedom ↩
- Ibid ↩
- Ibid ↩
- Todd McGowan, Emancipation After Hegel ↩
- Frank Ruda, Abolishing Freedom ↩
- Jason Read, The Double Shift: Spinoza and Marx on the Politics of Work ↩
- Let’s not forget that a core value at Enron was integrity. ↩
- Alenka Zupančič, Ethics of the Real: Kant, Lacan ↩
- Todd McGowan, Emancipation After Hegel ↩
- Ibid ↩
- Ibid ↩
- Immanuel Kant, What is Enlightenment ↩
- L. David Marquet and Stephen R. Covey, Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders ↩
- Todd McGowan, Emancipation After Hegel ↩
- Jason Read, The Double Shift: Spinoza and Marx on the Politics of Work ↩
- Alenka Zupančič, Ethics of the Real: Kant, Lacan ↩
- Todd McGowan, Emancipation After Hegel ↩
- Frank Ruda, Abolishing Freedom ↩