Every time I hear the word freedom I remember that point in Braveheart, right before William Wallace is about to be pulled apart by horses, when he yells “FREEDOM”  So we all know William Wallace was motivated by freedom, and was willing to die for it.

The question we all need to be asking is; Am I willing to fight and die for freedom.

Too often we give up our freedom to get something temporary.  If I want a car I get into debt, (slavery if it’s more than I can afford),  We become indentured servants to the bank to be able to drive the car.  Think about the credit score.  What it really indicates is how available we are to give up our freedom.

There are numerous examples of how we are giving up our freedom.  Take a moment now and think….  What freedoms  are you giving up?  What are you getting in return for giving up that freedom.

You have to be careful with this excersize.   You and I must decide if what you are giving up your freedom for is better than being free.  For instance.  I am married.  I gave up  some freedom to be married.  However, I would have never know the happiness I know now if I were not married and didn’t have kids.  I gave up some freedom to get a ton of happiness.  To me well worth the sacrifice.

I give up some of my freedom to have a career, However I am extremely more motivated to get a good job and provide for my family than if I had been single.  I am also motivated to minimize the time I spend working and maximize the value I bring to clients.  Because this maximize my freedom to spend time with my family.

We all need to think this question as we make decisions; Is this going to maximize my freedom? Is this going to maximize my happiness?  We need to experiment with this?  One way too is to ask other people if they have made similar decisions and what was their outcome.

We all should be yelling freedom everyday, at work, at home and when we are anywhere else.  Freedom.. Liberty.. Agency ..Autonomy All tell us about what we need to be fighting for.

If businesses are trying to better motivate their employees they should try a little freedom.

Below is a video about how companies giving there people more freedom/autonomy can add to greater productivity.

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. – - – from the blog of Inkling Corporate blog
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery – Author of The Little Prince

Why are there always a few idiots who stay when asked to evacuate hang out thinking that God and Mother Nature will spare them. They can’t believe their beach front property with foundations of sand will withstand the storm.  Then don’t want to believe the warnings, because they are too lazy to move or just won’t believe their lives are going to change. Even though they watch the satellite picture of a massive swirling cloud moving ever closer. They count everyone else as foolish for running off when they believe no storm is not going to be that bad. As the storm overtakes them they call for help but none can come. Because their sandy foundations are hopelessly  lost and they are left to themselves to perish in the storm.

There are massive storms, like hurricanes, that strike the business world.  It is sad because there are idiots in the business world that hang around when there are so many warnings that evacuation is necessary and the sandy foundations for which their businesses are built are soon to be washed away.   Maybe they think to themselves the weather has been good for so long nothing is really going to happen.  They look down on the overworked underpaid prognosticator and think that poor(no money) fool just wants me to leave so he and his friends can loot my beach house.  Or maybe they are just too lazy and too stupid to even pay attention to the winds of change.

For instance, The music industry saw the mp3 hurricane bearing down on them, and instead of evacuating they tried boarding up the windows, throwing down a few sand bags, and then when the storm hit they called for help from the national guard, congress and the courts, to try to protect them from the storm.   As the storm subsides they are all upset because the storm washed their foundation of sand out to sea and their beach front property is gone. We all see them as fools who wasted so much energy, time and money on the plywood and sand bags that all got washed out to sea.

What is astonishing is that there are several more technology hurricanes brewing.

There is the online hurricane threatening the Movie industry.  They too are sitting around trying to board up windows and throw down a few sand bags.   In hopes that their beach houses will with stand the storm.  But their foundations are on sand.  The prognosticators and prophets are even louder with their warnings to these industry leaders, “The sandy foundations on which your beach houses are built are coming down when the storm hits.”  It’s easy for those of us with nothing to lose to see the idiots for the fools they are.   They should be evacuating to find refuge from the storm.  There are even companies that are building safety nets for the movie industry.  They are trying to tell them the landscape isn’t going to be beach front property but you will be able to survive. However the movie industry doesn’t want to believe they can’t still own the billion dollar beach front property.  For some reason they are blinded to the fact that technologies hurricanes are going to wash it all away.  The movie industry is taking the same approach calling for the national guard(congress) to come stand at the ready to help them save their sand.

The television and newspaper industries are feeling the storm surge moving inland.  The arrogance of these industries is astounding.  My brother is working with several large advertisers that are planning on moving all their ad revenue from print and TV to online.  They are getting so much more for their dollar.  My brother running his online business tried to build and alliance with a local newspaper.  The guy he talked too saw no need to partner with an online video producer.  Once again the storm is coming and thei sandy foundation is about to be washed away.

I have always liked the song “The Foolish Man Built His House Upon the Sand”  and I was facinated by the parallels that can be tied to how the technology is the storm that washing away the foolishly built beach front property.

let me know what you think or if you can add anything to the story.

This is a very interesting video. If what he is saying is true we all need to think a bit more about how we present our products and services.

I just read this article The No-Cost Way to Motivate – BusinessWeek by Patrick Lencioni.

The article basically suggests that managers need to be more aware of the lives of the people the manage. I think it doesn’t go far enough.

I believe managers should have conversations with people they manage. Then need to listen and find out what need, what they want, and what their hopes and dreams are. Not only should we listen, but we should try and find ways for to meet those needs and wants. Of course they need to be appropriate, timely and prudent.

While I hope managers will do these things I know few will take this advice. But I can hope.

I have had hundreds of people who work for me. Many of those people, given the chance, would come to work with me if I called them up today. Because they know I listen and respect them.