by Ari Weinzweig, Zingerman’s Co-Founding Partner, for Specialty Food Magazine

Given how important the concept of freedom is to the foundation of our society, it’s interesting to me how foreign the notion of free choice—mindful, freely made choice—can feel in the modern day American workplace. As most of you know, I never believe that I’m here to tell anyone what he or she should or shouldn’t be doing. But I will say with certainty that learning to make free, mindful choices about everything I do—and then own the fact that I made them—was one of the most meaningful changes I’ve ever made in my own life. And it’s had an equally important impact on the effectiveness of the work we’re doing at Zingerman’s.

Recognizing the Mindset

I had approached so many things in my life as something I “had to” do or “should” do. The implication was that someone was strong-arming me into doing something I didn’t want to do. Mentally I was dragging my feet on a goodly portion of what I was doing. Sure I showed up where I was “supposed” to, but mostly I did it because I should. Doing what I thought I “should” meant that a lot of my emotional, and probably intellectual, energy was left dragging somewhere back in the suburbs.

The “have to” mindset is manifested most clearly in our choice of words. If you listen to the language many people use, it is as if they’re being forced to follow orders from others at work, their wives, husbands, colleagues, kids, significant others or whoever else plays an important role in their lives. Whereas if we opt to do it, we’re apt to be a lot happier, have more fun and feel better about ourselves, them and our organizations. (Please know that I understand that people in poverty—of whom, we know, there are far too many—have far fewer overt choices than most Americans do. And there are plenty of people in the world living under the threat of force. Those, to be certain, are clearly different issues than I’m talking about here.)

When it comes down to it, I realized a few years ago, I don’t have to do a darned thing—I don’t have to hand in this article, I don’t have to show up for work tomorrow, I don’t have to be nice to our staff or customers. I don’t have to pay bills and taxes or use my turn signals. It’s all, truly, my call. I decide what I want to do, and then I deal with what happens afterward.

Freer Choice = Happier Life

The change in my mindset, which truthfully took about three years, was well worth the effort. Being clear that everything I do is my own choice has radically increased my energy, significantly lowered my stress, greatly raised my fun level and, I’m confident, helped make our organization a lot better in the process. Add to that the fact that we’re teaching this same free mindful choice approach to everyone in our businesses, and you can start to see the size of its impact. If you’re up for some inexpensive but highly effective improvement activity, this is a good place to start.

Learning to Chose Choice

This isn’t the easiest kind of work to do. It can be simpler, I think, to just blame others for the way the world is, or isn’t, working and for “forcing us” to do things we didn’t want to do, than it is to own up to the reality that most of the time (or probably all the time) the only one who’s making us do anything is, actually, us.

To get clarity on what I’m describing, take note at your next meeting of how many times someone says, “I have to,” “I can’t” or “I should.” There’s a lot of power floating around those tables, but when we’re using language like that, the power is noticeably not inside of us. This isn’t just my theory—I’ve lived it, both the passive and unempowered part, and then, later, in the positive, free-from-being-put-upon way of working. I’ll tell you firsthand, feeling “forced” to do things is simply never a good feeling. And no one—and no organization we’re a part of—is going to get to greatness unless each of us reclaims and owns that we’re all actively making our own choices all day, every day.

Choosing Your Problems

The way I see it, what we do here is always based on each of us exercising free will and free choice. When we do whatever it is we do, we do it because—mindfully or not—we choose to do it. In the process of choosing our actions, we, in essence, pick which problem we want, because most every decision we make will have some less-than-optimal consequence that, sooner or later, will come into play.

At the Office

Free choice at work most definitely does not mean some sort of mass freak-out. We have lots of systems here and plenty of processes that we’ve all chosen to be accountable for and that we can all work to start changing if we so choose. At Zingerman’s, our work is almost never (crises excepted) about giving orders. The idea, instead, is to be explaining “why.” It’s about laying out expectations in advance, being clear about consequences before they come due, and allowing for dialogue whenever possible. Don’t get me wrong—the work still has to get done and leaders still lead; it’s just that we understand that those who follow do so by choice, not because they’re forced, and that the truth is that most anyone can step up to lead when they need or want to. Is it easy? No, but great things rarely are.

Speaking of which, please take note that this free-choice thing is a two-way street. While few front-liners anywhere actually like being lorded over, most will still sit back and wait for those in charge to give orders before they take action. The average American employee seems to act as if he or she is being compelled to do everything from going to work and going home, to living the Golden Rule and giving good service. The worst thing is that few folks even realize it. This isn’t just a personal problem—people who feel (and act as if) they’re being compelled to work create huge problems in an organization.

Opt In, Opt Out

The truth—or at least our truth here at Zingerman’s—is that everything is about free choice. Our approach here acknowledges and asks that we all make mindful decisions all day long, both on the outside, and the inside, as well. To wit:

1. We believe that most humans will feel freer and more fulfilled if they decide to decide; to own all day long, whether we acknowledge it or not, that we’re each actively making lots of choices. We decide whether we’re going to move quickly or not; to be in a good mood or bad; to smile or look sullen; to stop and pick up paper on the street or simply walk past it as we’ve done 2,000 times before. A huge part of our training work at Zingerman’s is to help everyone who works with us become aware of those choices. When we do that well, there’s not a lot of room left for victims. If someone opts not to pursue positive outcomes—even after being regularly encouraged, respected and rewarded for going after what they believe to be right—there’s not a whole lot we can do for them. By contrast, when everyone is making conscious decisions about their state of being, tensions drop, energy increases and everything just plain works better.

2. From the outside in, we need to encourage others—especially those who aren’t accustomed to working this way—to make conscious choices about what they’re doing, or not doing. Part of that means that we need to respect that others will make choices we won’t particularly like. This is inherent in encouraging people to be themselves and telling them to speak up for what they believe. Which is, I know, far easier said than done. The idea of letting staff say “no” in a constructive manner—and not be immediately stomped on for saying so—is not the norm in many workplaces. But dialogue, respect and fair treatment never need to go away because someone opted not to do what we would have liked them to. Without a doubt, after a lifetime of being the “boss,” this approach is certainly easier to adopt intellectually than it is to implement. (Believe me, wait until the first employee politely tells you to take a hike …) But I believe, from the bottom of my very hardworking heart, it’s imperative if we’re going to grow the kind of caring, creative community we’re after.

Owning Up to Freely Chosen Consequences

Free choice doesn’t mean “choice free from influence” or “free of consequence.” Both are great fantasies, but there’s just no such thing. Often this means that we need to find effective, positive and positively uplifting ways to work together even when we don’t agree with each other. Living and leading with free choice means that we all need to learn to communicate using an adult-to-adult, peer-to-peer approach, through which we encourage mindful choice-making, openness, collaboration and conscious commitment. It’s not an overnight achievement, but the more we work at it, the better we get. It teaches everyone in the organization to negotiate as peers, not like the stereotypical settings in which “superiors” manage “subordinates,” or “subordinates” succumb to CEOs.

This subject likely isn’t on the top of any business school’s list of topics for 2011, but after working with it for a while now, I will say that the mindset of free choice is a key factor in raising organizational energy and in helping everyone we work with feel more empowered and more able to go after the life they want to lead. The beauty of it is, working to live, teach and reinforce the idea of mindful free choice costs nothing. Personally, that’s a choice I’ll happily make over and over again.