3 Questions That Enable Leaders to Call for Commitments
Back on the farm, we threw bales of hay down from the hay loft to feed the cows. Our cat waited for us to lift a bale to see if there might be a mouse nest. Most of the time, when mice went running, the cat came up empty. He couldn’t commit to one mouse when so many were present.
Options are shiny distractions that drain energy and dilute opportunity until commitments are made.
The courage of commitment is the ability to eradicate options.
Lead team members to make commitments:
It doesn’t matter how many alternatives are on the table if you don’t understand the power and cost of eliminating options.
Danger:
It’s easy to reject an ugly idea. The truly dangerous thing is a bright shiny idea that dilutes your resolve to commitment to a clear path forward.
Shiny new ideas are more dangerous than ugly dumb ideas.
From option to commitment:
#1. How are you willing to take responsibility?
Begin by exploring options. Move quickly to asking team members what they are willing to commit to do.
How are you willing to inconvenience yourself to bring this commitment into reality?
#2. What are you willing to invest?
Investment transforms imagination to reality.
- How much time are you willing to invest?
- How much energy are you willing to divert from current activities?
- How many resources are you willing to allocate?
#3. What are you willing to stop?
‘Having it all’ is a savage lie that drains our belief in the necessity of eliminating good options.
If your schedule is already full, any meaningful commitment requires you to take something out of your bucket. Those who keep all their options open end up paralyzed or frantic, and always over-committed.
How might leaders help team members make commitments?
Where does the courage to explore commitments over discussing options come from?
Good morning Dan.
This article brings to light one of the great challenges of our time. That is the abundance and easy access to ideas and information. I believe also that the key is commitment. There are typically so many good choices available to a team, most of which will successfully address the problem or opportunity. The real challenge becomes choosing a path and committing to that path 100 %. Most teams will expect the path to be easy at that point. But when trouble comes, members of the team may question the choice. When this happens, commitment can faulter. Successful teams will remain committed, survey the situation together, and modify the plan. But the glue that leads to success is the commitment.
Have a great Wednesday!
Jay
Thanks Jay. You bring up the recurring challenge of facing resistance. When you encounter resistance it may indicate that you are on the right path.
Any meaningful activity encounters resistance. Commitment to the end result while maintaining flexibility of method enables forward progress.
In response to the second question, commitments involve time and fiscal resources that are already allocated. Options are the bright shiny “what if…” ideas that must move from options into commitments to be effective. Holding many options open may be another name for procrastination and\or resistance to change.
Thanks McSteve. YES! I’m glad you brought the term procrastination to the conversation. Generating more options…discussing opportunities…thinking about possibilities may all be forms of procrastination, especially when we never get to the real work of making commitments and taking action.
Dan,
As the old saying goes, You have quit preaching and gone to meddling. Love the mice analogy. Focusing on one mouse will become the image for this concept. Thanks for a great message.
Alan
Thanks Alan. Your comment made me chuckle to myself. Yes! This is a meddlesome post for me too.
Thanks so much for including #3. Especially in American culture, I feel that the expectation is to keep adding and adding (I’m American) until we drop. Then, as you point out, we can end up less effective and/or burn out, which doesn’t help the organization or the team.
Thanks Katell. It takes real courage for leaders to acknowledge that subtracting goes with adding. I think we might live in fairy tale land where everything ends up happily ever after.
Thank you for the post, Dan. The three questions dovetail nicely (I think) with the ones I have used in many situations over the years: What do you want? What does it cost? Are you willing to pay the price? It actually comes from the parable of the rich young ruler, a parable that has a lot more depth, and application, than most people imagine.
Thanks Jim. Love the progression of your questions. The point is to get to commitment. You can’t lead if you can’t get to commitment.
haha… it boils down to willingness. Awesome.
Thanks Dan. Like Katel above, I’m taken with #3.
Conventional management wisdom always asks, “what are we going to keep doing? What are we going to change/ add/ do differently? And, what are we going to stop doing?” And it always seems to be expressed in that order.
I wonder how more powerful discussions like this would be if we started with “what are we going to stop doing?” It’s like deleting files on your hard disc to make room for a new program. Rather than adding a new program only to find that you’ve run out of space…
“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.” Michael Porter
A truly thought provoking post. It is certainly true that you cannot simply go on adding and adding without also assessing what needs to be done differently or not at all