A chicken and a pig were walking down the road one day
discussing what they might do with the rest of their lives.
‘I know’ said the chicken, ‘let’s go into business together
and set up a breakfast diner serving up bacon and eggs and all day breakfasts’.
‘No way’, said the pig, ‘that’s a really dumb idea’.
‘Why?’
‘Because’, said the pig, ‘if we do that me and my relatives
are committed while you would only be involved. You might be well motivated to
make this a goer but we would be the only ones with skin in the game….quite
literally.’’
In today’s modern world, the
motivation word is somewhat overused and overhyped. We will all have been
subject to ‘motivational speeches’ that
get everybody fired up for a few hours then, when they go back into their
normal world, nothing different
really happens.
I recently read this passage
from a world leading psychologist.
"MOTIVATION is
simply the desire for something. All people are motivated. And most individuals
are motivated to perform better at whatever they do in love, work and play.
However, far FEWER people are actually COMMITTED to
doing the things necessary to perform better. COMMITMENT is
demonstrated when one regularly and consistently demonstrates the SPECIFIC behaviours
and activities that are LIKELY to DIRECTLY result
in optimal performance”.
This is the difference
between thinking about doing (as we all do) and just doing (as very few
do).
That got me thinking.
As Benjamin Franklin once
said ‘tell me and I will forget, show me and I will remember but involve me and
I will learn’.
I
am also reminded from my readings of behavioural economics that we are more likely
to change behaviour if we are involved and are able to take a participatory
approach to behavioural change. Commitment devices can help us overcome our
self-will weaknesses. Making our commitments
public leads to reputational damage should we break our commitments. Even the
very act of writing a commitment can increase the likelihood of it being fulfilled.
So what does this mean for improving our level of commitment to the
brand, the businesses, we all work with?
We are all motivated to do well but are we really and truly committed to the processes necessary to be
the best and to improve ourselves? Are we really committed to do what it takes
to achieve our personal and/or professional goals? And we shouldn’t be looking
for our managers or anyone else to help us here. This is down to us.
Last week I came across the story
of a world class golfer who had lost the winning habit. He was still motivated
to win but his family, his coach, his friends and his fans wondered if he had
the commitment to still win.
So he wrote out a plan of
action and he made a series of specific commitments not to his coach, his
family or friends, but to himself to take the specific behaviours and activities that were likely to
result in optimum performance.
This is not the place to
talk about golf but needless to say off the back of these quite public and
written down commitments he has won 3 times. He is back! He had recovered the
habit that is borne out of commitment.
And he had done so by
involving himself in the process. Not by listening to a motivation tapes,
speeches or talks. As Mr Franklin implied-these words would soon be forgotten.
We can all learn from this.
Commitment isn’t about ‘positive
thinking’ or a ‘great attitude’, it is about doing what needs
to be done. It’s about being focused on the task at hand despite your
mind telling you that you don’t feel like it or you are too tired. It is about getting things done.
Are you committed to whatever you want to achieve or do in life or are you just motivated?
Are you committed to whatever you want to achieve or do in life or are you just motivated?
Are you a pig or a chicken?
