Sometime in the early 1600s, stable owner Thomas Hobson faced a business dilemma: His best horses were the ones most in-demand from his customers. Nothing was surprising about this. However, because the best horses were hired out most often, they were also the most overworked. This threatened their health, shortened their productive life spans, and left the rest of the stable underutilized.
Hobson came up with a plan. He implemented a strict rotation policy and then allowed customers to rent only the next horse in line.
When folks balked, insisting on their right to rent the horse of their choice, Hobson responded: “You have a choice. Take the next horse available or take your business elsewhere.” Since he had no competitors, the choice he offered was really no choice at all.
Hobson secured his reputation as a savvy businessman so widely that, after his death, the revered poet John Milton immortalized him with not one but two lyric epitaphs. And although Milton’s works are not as widely read as they ought to be, Hobson also found his way into contemporary culture through cinematographic storytelling. The 1954 movie named for him—together with its 1983 remake—provides this week’s entry into the Ethical Lexicon:
Hobson’s choice | noun
The appearance of free choice where only one option is actually offered.
As with so many other phenomena, the illusion of choice can work for us or against us. When my high school students used to gripe about how much they hated school, I suggested simply, “Since you don’t like it here, why don’t you leave?”
They would answer, predictably, “We have to be here. We can’t just leave.”
“You certainly can,” I replied. “Just stand up and walk out. No one is going to stop you.”
“My parents will kill me.”
“Trust me. Your parents will not kill you. If you don’t want to stay, get up and go”
“Well, you know . . .”
Of course, I did. And now, so did they. No one was forcing them to go to school, but the alternatives were undesirable in the extreme, and therefore not worthy of consideration. Once they realized that, they stopped complaining. At least until the next morning.
This demonstrates how the Hobsonian illusion of choice eliminates the sense of being coerced, thereby restoring our feeling of autonomy. When we see ourselves more in control of our decisions and less victims of circumstance, we experience less resentment and more motivation to make the best of things as they are.
On the darker side, however, it’s possible to exploit the illusion of choice as a form of manipulation. Many publications offer prospective subscribers a choice between a print subscription and a print plus online subscription, both for the same price. Although there’s no meaningful choice, the illusion of getting a “free” online subscription makes the deal appear sweeter than it really is.
Even more insidious is how Hobson’s choice creates a sense of inevitability. You might remember that scene in The Godfather where Michael Corleone explains how his father sealed a business deal by making the other party an offer he couldn’t refuse: “He put a gun to his head and told him either his signature or his brains would be on the contract.”
Most of us aren’t going to threaten murder to convert clients. The issue is more subtle than that. If we believe have no choice, we’re less likely to accept responsibility for our decision or the quality of our work. We also become more inclined to give up entirely by declining to make any choice at all, forgetting that no choice is also a choice.
Because the human brain is lazy, we often refuse to consider that there might be alternatives beyond the obvious. When facing what appears to be a Hobson’s choice, here are three strategies to expand your options.
Seek out diversity of thought
The truism that the answer is almost always in the room applies only when the people in the room are not all in ideological lockstep. By intentionally engaging people from diverse backgrounds, viewpoints, and disciplines, we promote orthogonal thinking, which produces unpredictable revelations when individuals from seemingly unrelated fields and perspectives collaborate and brainstorm.
Very often, options are not as limited as they might seem. The more angles we investigate, the greater the likelihood that unimagined alternatives may appear. Since two heads are better than one, three, four, or five heads are better still when they approach problems in divergent ways.
Adopt atomic vision
Sometimes the big picture is just too overwhelming. Try breaking down dilemmas into parts, then begin quantifying, classifying, and organizing the tasks necessary to tackle specific elements of the problem. Once you do, you might find it easier to consolidate those various approaches into a single, coherent strategy. The tighter your focus when defining obstacles, the better you position yourself to construct practical solutions.
Play to your weaknesses
Often, we dismiss a potential course of action because we think it’s outside our skill set or beyond our own ability. But feeling trapped by unattractive options might be just the catalyst we need to push us out of our comfort zones, either by developing new skills or by seeking out new partnerships and collaborations.
In his classic portrayal of Team USA hockey coach Herb Brooks in the film Miracle, Kurt Russell rallies his players as they contemplate facing the Soviet team, universally considered unbeatable:
“Everyone in this room knows what people are saying about our chances. I know it. You know it. But I also know there is a way to stay with this team.
You don’t defend them—you attack them. You take their game and you shove it right back in their face. The team that is finally willing to do this is the team that has a chance to put them down.
The NHL won’t change their game. We will. The rest of the world is afraid of them. Boys, we won’t be.”
History is filled with stories of heroes who achieved the impossible. The thing is, it was never impossible, it was merely unimagined.
Herein lies the answer: Once you begin to imagine, what you believe is impossible suddenly appears within reach.
So dream on. But don’t wait for your dream to come true. Take control and make it happen.