The Myth of Free Agency in an Angry Market

Unrestricted free choice is a myth. We think we are free to observe the world objectively, but we are often held hostage by our own boundaries and trade-offs.

Last night the world watched a phenomenal Super Bowl halftime show. Bad Bunny delivered a masterclass in performance. Yet a specific, vocal segment of the audience felt stuck in their own frustration. They hated it because he wasn’t speaking English. They viewed a global cultural moment through a narrow, localized lens. They chose anger over the opportunity to witness excellence.

In management, we see this exact same “stuck” mindset. It is the refusal to adapt to a changing market.

I remember a client who walked into the office a year ago. He went on a rant about how he only sees “foreigners” now. He missed the days when the agency was owned by someone else. He claimed he couldn’t even understand Gurjot, my colleague.

The irony was clinical. Gurjot has no accent. His parents are from India, but he is as Canadian as they come. The client wasn’t reacting to a communication barrier. He was making a false claim based entirely on appearance. He was so committed to his own narrative that he was willing to ignore the audible reality standing right in front of him.

From a strategy perspective, this is a catastrophic risk. When leaders or consumers choose to be close minded, they are essentially opting out of the future. They aren’t just being “unpatriotic” or difficult. They are becoming operationally obsolete. If your small, hateful mind prevents you from appreciating a Bad Bunny show or the expertise of a professional like Gurjot, you have lost your free agency. You are no longer making choices. You are just reacting to your biases.

Since we always live in between the world we want and the world that exists, the work isn’t waiting for the market to look the way it did thirty years ago. The work is deciding and acting even when you think you are stuck in a changing landscape.

History doesn’t wait for people to become comfortable with progress. In business, if you trade your objectivity for tribalism, you are underwriting a loss. You are choosing to be a liability instead of an asset.

True free agency is the ability to see excellence regardless of the language it speaks or the face it wears. Are you acting from a place of strategic clarity, or are you just stuck in a past that isn’t coming back?