Can you ever be truly liberated at work? I have been pushing my freedom agenda for a couple of years now. It has become my mantra. Freedom from location, freedom from hierarchy and freedom from dogma. It has worked well in some places while in others it is still to get off the ground.
The way that we have been working is wrong and needs to change. People need to be set free, liberated from the things that constrain them at work to allow them to do what they do best. People are not good at the rote and repetitive work. They are at their best when they are engaging and creative. Machines deal with uniformity and people deal with variability.
Yet liberty does not mean absolute freedom. Liberty is the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s behaviour or political views. In society. Liberty requires some boundaries. You should not be at liberty to kill or to steal.
With freedom comes responsibility yet with responsibility comes constraint. It is a paradox. Without some sort of framework there can be no liberty. Perhaps like Yin and Yang these things need to be held in harmony.
How ever much something is created for good there are always people who will use it for evil, a breadknife, a car or the Internet for example. This is the price we pay for living in society. I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil. Perhaps the doing of good creates evil.
Being given freedom creates a need for greater governance. Without it lies anarchy. It is not control that is needed within the workplace but direction, development and support. Liberty at work comes from being allowed and encouraged to deliver what you do best within a framework of direction and governance.
The freedom to create.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 