CHAPTER TWO
“If a man can only obey and not disobey, he is a slave; if he can only disobey and not obey, he is a rebel; he acts out of anger, disappointment, resentment, yet not in the name of a conviction or a principle.”
ERICH FROMM
TO UNDERSTAND APPROPRIATE OBEDIENCE and disobedience, let’s reconsider the scenario in the previous chapter.
We saw the nurse resist what she thought to be a destructive order. Her skillful resistance caused the physician to reflect on his own reasoning and to take a different, presumably safer course. The patient recovered and the story had a happy ending. We know, however, that it could have played out differently.
Was it the success of the patient outcome that made this an act of Intelligent Disobedience as opposed to outright insubordination? Or were there intrinsic factors that made it Intelligent Disobedience, regardless of the outcome? To answer this we need to examine our concepts of obedience and disobedience.
Most cultures have a bias that obedience is good and disobedience is bad. If you doubt that, read the same sentence in reverse: Most cultures have a bias that disobedience is good and obedience is bad. That doesn’t make sense to us because it isn’t true. Why is that?
All human society must be organized around certain rules. How will we live together? How will we defend ourselves against hostile forces? How will we make decisions that affect the community? How will we respond to those who don’t follow the rules the community has developed?
To Obey or Not to Obey
We recognize that to enjoy the many benefits of community and organization requires a degree of voluntary, and at times involuntary, obedience to the norms. This is the default position in society. It has been observed that there are three components to appropriate obedience:
1. The system we are part of is reasonably fair and functioning.
2. The authority figure setting the rule or giving the order is legitimate and reasonably competent.
3. The order itself is reasonably constructive.1
I am inserting the term reasonably into these conditions because we are dealing with imperfect human systems and human beings. In many situations, “reasonably so” is the realistic standard. In a few situations, such as the safety of nuclear power plants, the standard must be higher.
In the nurse’s case, the first two conditions were present. The third was not. If all three had been present, then obedience was the appropriate default response, not because she had been given an order but because it was an order that appeared correct and did not violate her own knowledge of the situation.
The nurse didn’t consciously ask herself if the system was fair; that was to her a given. Nor did she have reason to question the second component. It was presumed the doctor was a real doctor, with appropriate training and credentials. The third component, however, triggered an alarm: based on the information she had, the order, if executed, could be harmful, maybe deadly.
The Simplest Test
This is the simplest test, and often the most practical test, for Intelligent Disobedience: based on the information we have and the context in which the order is given, if obeying is likely to produce more harm than good, disobeying is the right move, at least until we have further clarified the situation and the order.
Why is that so hard to do? We are wired to obey. It is an evolutionary adaptation for allowing the growth of complex human organization and society. A general summary of works by developmental social psychologists such as Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg tell us that although our tendency to obey is strong, our reasons for obeying evolve as we grow:
At first we obey because our parents say to: “authority is always right.”
Then we obey because we become aware of the social rewards and penalties for obeying and disobeying: gold stars for the former, after-school detention for the latter.
Later we obey because we realize the need for society to have the predictability that rules and laws bring: confidence that everyone at the four-way stop sign will wait their turn.
Ultimately, if our moral development isn’t stunted, we obey because we realize the intrinsic value of the rule or order in the context in which it applies.2
In the nurse’s situation, she in fact was obeying, but not the ill-conceived order. She was obeying a higher set of values that had grown up with her developmentally: values of placing human life and safety above her own fear of reprisal; of adhering to her hard-won training; of maintaining professionalism in a crisis situation. She discerned that the order was not correct, given the context and its potential for causing more harm than good. Whether consciously or instinctively, she chose to obey the higher level values, which directed her to take a stand.
Are there higher level values we all share as a guide for the choices we make? It does not appear life is so simple. A brief examination of history shows how dramatically values can change in a culture over the short space of a few generations. We can see the variation there is in the weight given to similar values in different cultures or even among different families. Values that we hold dearly conflict with other values we hold and may shift in importance as we change or the realities around us change.
Despite this, there are some values worth standing up for, regardless of shifting cultural mores. We may conceive of these values as inherent in life, as emanating from a higher source, as a rational way to live, or as aspirations for the people we wish to become. Regardless, there is an inner sense of values to which we can refer when faced with difficult choices. This is sometimes referred to as an inner voice. However that inner voice has come to be, if we recognize and honor that voice, it becomes the internal balance to the social pressures exerted upon us.
The Value of Obedience
Still, as we have seen, obedience is our default mode. Is this good?
Obedience is not itself good or bad. It is the context in which it occurs that gives it positive or negative value. Obedience can even be a malicious act. How? The person receiving the order knows that implementing it will have adverse consequences but implements it anyway because it will make the authority who issued the order look bad and be publicly discredited for issuing it. Leaders, beware of creating an environment in which you insist on unwavering obedience!
If obedience is not itself good or bad, neither is disobedience. Let’s imagine that this particular nurse had issues with authority figures. Many people do. If she remained developmentally unaware of these issues, she might respond to the physician’s order not based on reason but from an unconscious need to assert her independence.
I once sat in a dentist’s chair having a cavity prepared for a filling. Each time the dentist drilled and thought the tooth had been prepared, his dental assistant would check and tell him it wasn’t good enough. The first time or two this could seem like a healthy collaboration on their part. After the fifth time, it was evident there was a power struggle occurring. The result was the enamel in my tooth was drilled too thin and broke, requiring more extensive repair of the tooth.
The last thing a physician needs in an emergency room is a nurse acting out unresolved authority issues. The correct default stance in that context is prompt, accurate obedience to legitimate authority issuing appropriate professional orders.
Although we often rail against authority, there is a great benefit to systems in which it is clear who has the authority to establish rules and issue orders: it avoids endless conflict between competing ideas. There are always different goals that can be pursued and different ways of pursuing them. If each individual insists on his or her preference, or each faction on theirs, the result is paralysis, or worse, internal warfare. In healthy systems, dialogue is encouraged to inform the best possible decision. But once all voices have been heard and a decision is made by those with the authority to make it, if no core values are being violated, supporting that decision is the correct mode.
Let me underline this point by referring back to the inspiration for this story, the trusted guide dog whose core value is keeping the human in its care safe. We will examine the training that equips it to do this in a later chapter. For the moment, keep in mind that the young dog is first socialized to obey the rules and commands it needs to know. Only when the dog is socialized is it taught the equally critical skills of Intelligent Disobedience.
Deciding Whether to Obey
There are underlying rules operating in any group that enable its members to reach decisions as situations arise that require making choices. There are likely two related rule sets, or what we might call social algorithms, running at once in the guide dog or in the human being about how to respond to a command or order. The first is the algorithm of obedience:
♦ I am receiving a rule or order from a legitimate source, not from a random direction.
♦ I understand the rule or order, what its goal is and what is expected of me in achieving that goal.
♦ The order is good, or at least neutral in terms of the impact it will have.
♦ Because no serious harm will result from implementing the order and no core value is being violated, I will obey the order.
This is the dominant algorithm that we use most of the time. If we didn’t, life would deteriorate into endless conflict.
The parallel and balancing algorithm is of Intelligent Disobedience. It is used far less, but when it is called for it is crucial that it override the obedience algorithm:
♦ The rule or order is not coming from a legitimate source or the legitimate source is missing important information that is relevant to the rule or order.
♦ The goal itself is wrong given the situation, or it is right but the rule or order won’t achieve that goal.
♦ If implemented, the order will violate core values and is likely to cause serious harm.
♦ Instead of implementing the rule or order, I will resist it as effectively as I can, while contributing to finding a better way for moving forward.
As in guide dog development, so should it be in human development. Teach both necessary obedience and appropriate disobedience. Teach when. Teach how. Today, in nursing education programs we can be comforted knowing that nurses are given examples of situations in which they are required to query an order and, when necessary, to raise that query to a higher level. This does not mean it is necessarily easier to do so in the face of authority than it was when the nurse in our story intuitively did the right thing. But the groundwork has been laid. That is a start.
Different than Civil Disobedience
When people first hear the term Intelligent Disobedience, they wonder if it is the same as civil disobedience. The two are not the same.
There is, of course, a moral dimension to the assessment of whether to obey an order. Sometimes that moral dimension goes beyond questioning a specific order; it questions the legitimacy of the entire system in which the order is given. In assessing the options for correcting the system, for making it more just and inclusive, individuals or groups may conclude that the effective course is to publicly violate the systems’ laws or rules. They do this in the hopes of raising others’ awareness and support for change. That is civil disobedience.
The actions of civil disobedience are intentionally disruptive and often result in arrests of the violators and in media attention for the cause at hand. This is quite different from the actions of Intelligent Disobedience, which do not flagrantly violate existing laws nor usually challenge the whole system. In order to draw the distinction between Intelligent Disobedience and civil disobedience, let’s do the following thought exercise.
Imagine that the emergency room scenario described in the last chapter had taken place in the United States during the period when many parts of the country were racially segregated by law and by custom. A white patient was rushed into the hospital in distress with cardiac symptoms. The attending physician promptly examined him and ordered the nurse to immediately administer the drug that was the standard protocol in that era. Seeing nothing amiss from her cultural or professional perspective, she just as promptly complies.
Minutes later, another patient is rushed into the hospital with virtually identical symptoms, but he is black. The physician sees him being wheeled in and snaps at the nurse “Send him across town” meaning to a hospital for “negroes,” as they would have been called then. “Get him out of here.”
The “Negro” hospital was at the other end of town. The nurse judges that the patient’s chances of survival would be low if administering the drug is delayed. She now is confronted with a situation in which the first condition isn’t met (a fair system) and the order coming from the presiding physician (second condition) although technically legal is likely to result in irreversible harm (third condition unmet).
The nurse now has to decide whether she stands on principle and takes on the whole, unjust system by defiantly treating the patient and vocally demanding the hospital change its policy. Doing so would risk hospital security being called in and her intervention with the patient being forcefully interrupted. Or does she obey the order to remove the patient, risking his life? Which would be more appropriate in this situation—full obedience or outright disobedience? Is there a third, intelligent choice?
What do you think? Once again, we are faced with making a choice that can have irreversible consequences while we are under unforgiving time pressure. What principle do we use?
The principle ethicists might use to answer this is responsibility toward others and moral inclusion. We admire courageous individuals who stand up for the minority and for the unfairly disadvantaged. Instead of disobedience being antisocial, it becomes prosocial when it is done from the principle of inclusion, rather than exclusion.3
But is it Intelligent Disobedience in this case?
We can argue that civil disobedience at that moment, when the entire culture, institutional structure and onsite authorities would oppose her efforts, would not be in the patient’s interest. The goal is to give the patient timely, appropriate treatment to keep his condition from further deteriorating and endangering his life.
With that goal in mind, Intelligent Disobedience in this situation might be to move the patient into a quiet corridor and discreetly administer treatment that would assist the patient’s survival until he can be treated at the other hospital. After the event, the nurse would have a different decision to make as to whether she was prepared to challenge the entire system, a challenge of a much larger order of magnitude.
Wise Leaders Value Intelligent Disobedience
Intelligent Disobedience does not imply that the authority figure is acting immorally, though that case certainly occurs. The individual with formal authority may simply be wrong for a variety of reasons. In the case of the emergency room physician, we saw that he may have been too tired to think accurately. There are many other well-intentioned reasons that a person with authority may ask us to do something that is wrong for the situation. By disobeying the specific order, we are not only making an attempt to respond appropriately to the situation, we are also saving authorities from doing things that would harm them or their reputation.
In my coaching and consulting work, I have repeatedly encountered senior executives who are mortified at what they discover is being done “because you said so.” They may make a casual comment that is mistaken as a directive to change an operating procedure or a policy. It makes no sense. It makes operations more difficult. It costs more money. Yet, it is being done because the authority figure let out a momentary thought or frustration that was given unexpected weight—the weight that authority carries in a culture that has not consciously countered this tendency. These are not even demands by authority—yet they are implemented.
Mature authority figures recognize that having people around them capable of and willing to use Intelligent Disobedience is in their self-interest, as well as in the group’s interest. They look for this ability in people they invite into their inner circle. The very best leaders promote the development of this capacity in all of their people.
Wise Parents Value Intelligent Disobedience
As I alerted you in the introduction, I am writing to you as the whole person you are. You may have picked up this book because of a professional imperative for Intelligent Disobedience in your organizational culture. Yet you may also be a parent, grandparent, guardian, or teacher. The lessons of appropriate obedience and disobedience are as important or more important in these areas of your life as well.
When an author discusses a book he or she has written or is writing, the author becomes a magnet for stories. Let me share two particularly poignant stories with you. The first is the story of a manager who took her children to a conference, trying to balance her work and family life. She was the loving authority figure but, nevertheless, the authority figure. Therefore, she required obedience from her children.
The time came in the program for her to participate in a presentation. Her children were too young to reasonably expect them to accompany her without becoming a distraction. She made sure they would be comfortable in the room, and then impressed on them the need for safety in her absence.
“Under no circumstance are you to leave this room. Do you understand? You are not to open the door for anyone. Do you understand? I need to know that you understand you are not to open the door or to leave the room for any reason.”
She left her children, confident of their compliance.
Down in the conference hall the presentations were proceeding smoothly. Her attention was on the proceedings, as they needed to be. Until …
A bell started to sound in the conference space. It was not immediately recognized for what it was, so most attendees continued in their conference activities. Then an official ran into the presentation room and shouted, “This is not a drill. There is a fire. Please evacuate now!”
The mother’s heart skipped a beat. Her children were on a higher floor in the hotel. She had ordered them under no circumstance to leave the room. UNDER NO CIRUCUMSTANCE!
She rushed out of the presentation room and began pushing her way against the tide of people streaming out of the hotel.
Imagine the panic she must have felt!
Imagine the consequences she feared if her children dutifully obeyed her absolutely strict order! The potential in this situation is almost too tragic to contemplate.
Now, imagine her relief when she saw her two children coming down the stairs as she was rushing up them.
“Mom” they said, “don’t get excited. We talked it over and decided that we should not stay in the room when we heard the fire bell.”
Take a breath. It is heart stopping for me to even write about this story, told to me by one of the manager’s friends and later confirmed by her personally.
The children had pulled a chair to the door so they could look out the security peephole. When they saw the people in the room across the hall leave, they decided they should too. Whether they could articulate this or not, they were operating on a higher value than the value of obedience.
Later in the book we will see stories of young people who did not know when to disobey. For now we can appreciate these children who did.
Let me tell you one more story that makes the point of the life and death potential of even children knowing when and how to intelligently disobey. This is the story of an editor at my publishing house, a very good editor and a very good parent.
He and his family went for a day trip along the winding cliffs of the Pacific Coast Highway. If you have ever driven the stretch of this road between San Francisco and Big Sur in California, you know the dizzying drop-offs that occur at various points and the dramatic vistas of ocean and rocky shore. Sometimes you can see down the steeply sloping hillsides; other times they are too sheer.
Drivers make frequent stops at the scenic overlooks. Occasionally, you get the added treat of spotting seals or other sea mammals. If the fog is out, you see the crashing surf. Always, you hear it. If you get trapped on a low tide beach when the tide reverses, you can be battered against the cliffs and drown.
They had been out of the car for a while and Neal, the dad, felt it was time to move along. He told everyone to get in the car. His kids hesitated. This was a stretch of the road where you could not see what was directly below you on the cliffs. “Dad, we think we hear someone under the cliff calling for help.” Neal listened. He couldn’t hear anything. “It’s probably the wind or a bird,” he said. “No, Dad. We heard voices.” Neal listened again, straining to hear what they might be interpreting as human voices. “I can’t hear anything. Get in the car.”
The kids refused to obey. “No, Dad. You need to call someone to help.”
With great reservation that he would be wasting the highway patrol’s time, Neal phoned, reported their location and the fact that his kids insisted they heard someone calling for help. The kids further insisted that they wait to be sure the patrol knew the right spot. This was disobedience bordering on a “sit in” demonstration.
The highway patrol arrived with the equipment needed for search and rescue. It did not take long for them to locate the stranded hikers at the foot of the cliff. How proud Neal was that his children had refused to obey. How chastened he was that he had almost overridden them.
Developing the Right Balance
These are stories of appropriate disobedience with positive endings. As we will see, there are many stories in which individuals did not overcome the weight of authority and the expectation of obedience.
The emergency room nurse, like the children in these stories, somehow acquired a sufficiently strong internal values compass so that, without professional preparation for the intensity of the moment, she was able to intelligently disobey. As we continue our examination of this subject, we will see that, despite our belief in our own goodness and intelligence, we cannot be certain that we would have disobeyed in the heat of the moment with the weight of authority demanding we do as we are told. We need to learn how to get the balance right between the appropriate obedience all cultures and legitimate authorities have a right to expect and the timely use of Intelligent Disobedience when we are asked to do something we believe is harmful. We can extract several fundamentals of Intelligent Disobedience from this chapter:
1. As distinct from civil disobedience, Intelligent Disobedience works within a system rather than challenging the system itself.
2. While acknowledging the legitimacy of authorities within that system, Intelligent Disobedience evaluates the morality and workability of specific orders received from those authorities and acts accordingly.
3. Intelligent Disobedience references a set of values held by the individual or the society that take precedence over a specific order.
4. Once the order has been weighed against the higher values, a decision is made and appropriate action is taken.
5. After Intelligent Disobedience has been used to avoid the potential harm in a specific situation, a deeper examination of the system itself may be performed.
6. Leaders who value good outcomes more than assertion of their own authority understand that serious errors are avoided by the use of Intelligent Disobedience.
7. Parents, teachers, and caregivers will encounter expressions of Intelligent Disobedience.
8. By recognizing and honoring these acts, they prevent regrettable outcomes, build confidence in the youth who are in their care, and affirm the merits of Intelligent Disobedience.
