No commitment…No decision?

In the book Zillion Dollar Thinking, the MODELTM System depicts four simple and contiguous steps. The second step in the model is critical but often overlooked.

Here is an excerpt from pp.27-28…
“The step of commitment is the one most likely to be omitted from any form of decision making. Why? We generally have a hard time confronting the simple word and the act of "commitment." Why is the marriage proposal so hard for many people? I suggest that it is not the prospect of rejection that looms so large, but rather the enduring lifetime commitment that is attached to the wedding vows. (As the word "commitment" is vital in marriage, it is also vital in the military, team sports, skydiving, firefighting, and many other endeavors. It is just as critical here in this MODELTM.)

That said, in most any decision-making process, the critical step of commitment is avoided for the same reasons. Many times the word commitment invokes feelings relating to sensitive subjects such as sacrifice, pledge, bond, vow, individual character, endurance, performance, and on and on. In other words, this step should have a do or die attitude or attachment to it. In fact, the dictionary meaning is: "an obligation to fulfill...a promise to act upon...a duty to achieve...a responsibility...a guarantee...a trusted action...a steadfast purpose."

Considering this, the next few posts will concentrate on the value and critical position that commitment makes in decision making…

According to Peter Drucker (The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker’s Essential Writings on Management), simply making decisions doesn’t help if they aren’t actionable:

Decisions are not effective without action Commitments
“Converting the decision into action is the fourth major element in the decision process. While thinking through the boundary conditions is the most difficult step in decision-making, converting the decisions into effective action is usually the most time-consuming one. Yet a decision will not become effective unless the action commitments have been built into the decision from the start.”

Until There’s Work Assignments...There’s Only Good Intentions
Drucker says it’s actions that count:
“In fact, no decision has been made unless carrying it out in specific commitment steps have become someone’s work assignment and responsibility. Until then, there are only good intentions.”

A Declaration of What You’re Not Going to Do
Drucker further tells us why people doubt policy statements:
That is the trouble with so many policy statements, especially of business is that they contain no action commitment. To carry them out is no one’s specific work and responsibility. No wonder that the people in the organization tend to view these statements cynically if not as declarations of what top management is really not going to do.

For full article and credits:
http://sourcesofinsight.com/2008/05/15/action-commitments/

Author’s comment:
“Sound familiar?”