How Committed Are You?

As the old joke goes “In a bacon-and-egg breakfast, what's the difference between the Chicken and the Pig?” The Answer: The Chicken is involved, but the Pig is committed!

How committed are you to your objective? Do you take ownership for making it happen or are you just on-board or bought-in? I know we can argue about the meaning of words but it’s the thoughts and behaviours that go along with these words that influence achievement of the objective or not.

I was working on facilitating Team Alignment with a group the other week. There was a lot of discussion about people’s commitment and behaviour to decisions and objectives set in Executive Team meetings. Responses ranged from:

• Agreeing with the direction and taking the associated actions back to their division to cascade the necessary actions
• Nodding in agreement during the meeting and then leaving the group and ignoring what happened in the meeting
• Nodding in agreement during the meeting and then sabotaging the direction by openly saying “this is what was agreed but we are not going to follow it”
• Doing nothing – some leaders assume people in a meeting are in agreement if they don’t say “no” or “I disagree” hence the team member can later say “I never agreed”

Personally I signed up for a marathon – I never thought I’d do a marathon as I gave up running about 5 years ago because of joint pain. This marathon is a walking marathon. The decision happened over time – I saw signs in the London underground for a marathon through the streets of London at night. Then I went to a presentation on jewellery creation and at that seemingly light-hearted presentation there was a promotion for this night time marathon. At that moment I decided to do it; the only question was whether to do the half or full marathon. Later that day I received an email from a former colleague that his wife had died from ovarian cancer leaving him and 3 young daughters. I decided to walk the full marathon; it was easy compared to what his family had been through and still had ahead of them.

I registered that day for the Shine marathon raising funds for Cancer Research UK. A few days later I received my participant package – t shirt, 8 week training schedule, sponsorship papers and my participant bib I would wear the night of the walk with a space for who I was walking in support of. As I wrote the list of people I was walking for – Mom, Dad, my Aunt, my cousin, my friend, my mentor – my decision turned to commitment; I made the commitment to walk a marathon and raise money to fight cancer!

It’s meant I’ve missed social activities to train, it’s meant I’ve gotten up well before work in the mornings (and I’m not a morning person) to do a 2 hour walk, I’ve walked home from work through Central London at rush hour, it’s meant blisters, blood blisters, sore muscles, aches and pains. With less than 3 weeks to go there is no wavering from the training schedule – everyone around me knows it.

Please help me achieve my objective of raising money for Cancer Research: http://www.justgiving.com/AnneTaylor2013

What objective are you committed to?

Live Your Potential!