Freedom is natural to humans & even animals. When you take the freedom away the 'will' withers away and along with that any drive for creativity. Animals in zoo live short lives of boredom & anxiety, even with the best of food, security from predators, and medical aids - because of the lack of one thing called 'freedom'. We humans are no different. However, we pay a heavy price for being civilised by way of curtailing & blunting our freedom. Any law, rule, norm, guideline, or policy is a direct affront on our personal 'freedom'. We need to get up at specified times and be in the office at designated times, walk on the left side of the road, or stop at a red light and so on. The more civilised we become, the more sacrifices shall be asked for on our personal freedom, to the point where we would not be much different from a caged tiger.
Then comes the big question - 'Are we not really caged & tamed tigers in our offices or organisations we work for?' With mountains of rule books, manuals, policies, norms, traditions, and hierarchies most of our freedom is in a suspended cold storage. They even grossly transgress beyond the physical & time boundaries of the organisation we work for. If so, then are we stunting our creativities?
Fortunately no. Humans have an uncanny and unfathomable capacity to surrender to innumerable rules & restrictions so long as they are fully convinced of its good purpose - either for them directly or for their folks. They even don't mind severe limitations to their unfettered freedom if this means a greater good for the community. But the key is the conviction & willingness part. Once convinced, the bondage is perceived as freedom. Religious fanaticism is an extreme example of this. Therefore, the organisational policies need to be truly convergent to the greater good of all its employee's first and other stake-holders next. That's not easy. The dominant stake holders are the share holders & the government. And many new policies and procedures are forced on the organisation keeping only profits & taxes in view and may miss the conviction part. About the government - less said the better. The vision, mission, and policies need to be congruent with practices and procedures. However, that may not be enough, if it does not sink into the conviction of the people it is meant for. We don't mind sacrificing our short-term freedom so long as this assures us bigger freedom in the future. Any new policy or procedure is basically binding and demands a sacrifice by the people. Therefore, a perception of a bigger 'take away' in the future for all the participants should be the key ingredient in all the organisational dreams and the defined paths to such dreams. Unlike the animal world, we can keep a man tamed & bonded to even extreme states of confinement, as long as we can convince him of a larger 'take away' in the future, even in a very distant one. And the truth is if the 'take away' is real, & tangible you need no hard efforts to convince. Any obscure, veiled , or hidden agenda mostly fails to be convincing and therefore the need for expensive & time consuming workshops, alignment programmes, & pep talks.
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