Inspiration

I recently had a very close friend and business partner ask me; “what can we do to inspire the employees?”  What I thought about was “what causes non-inspiration?” The word commitment popped in my mind; a written or verbal contract between two or more parties, pretty basic definition.

Inspiration decreases as commitments are broken. Digging deeper I found that every aspect of every minute of all our lives is governed by a written, verbal or assumed commitment. When a parent asks a child to finish their homework by 6pm so they can be on time for a practice, the child hasn’t or didn’t finished the agreed upon task, the parent’s frustration is apparent.  Then the child lobbies with all the excuses known to his/her life. The disagreement is always about why it was broken and the apology for breaking the commitment comes later or never at all. What if a group of women decide to play league tennis and one of the players is continually late for practice or God forbid is late for a match!  Can you imagine the discussion?  The drama increases and trust decreases.  When they committed to play, which is the easy part, they probably assumed that all would be on time, bring the right snack, wear the right outfit and never be late for a match. The commitment is out of sync.

When two people commit to anything and their understanding of the importance of the commitment defers; chaos increases and trust decreases.

Face book has a standard of commitment when you friend someone.  Being a BFF for life requires keeping your commitments; “You can only date my ex-boyfriend if we have broken up for at least one year.”  Another simple example is a group of parents agree to sign up their child to play basketball; all pay the fee and fill out the proper forms, practice begins and two sets of parents continually are late bringing their kids to practice.  Twice during the season they either miss or are late to a game which causes the team to forfeit.  What outcome has occurred?  School wins or loses; Team moral up or down? Players inspired? The parents in the stands that have a more serious commitment will be discussing the late parent’s lack of commitment.  Can you see it now!

“The clothes make the man”, is a saying I have heard my whole adult life.  Picture yourself waiting for a plane trip and here comes the pilot; tall, looks like he runs 20 miles a day, uniform fits like a glove, hair high and tight, your opinion is that he takes his job seriously.  He made a commitment to himself to be ready, physical fit and dress for success. You tell yourself that he kept his commitment to himself, his company and his customers. Inspiration is up and trust is up. Assumptive commitments are very important but hardly discussed.

In the work place there is a daily event of hitting and missing commitments. The written ones seem easy to rectify but the verbal and assumed ones are where we have the most trouble. The glory and honor of leading men and woman in business, Armed forces, and coaching is held to a high percentage of hitting commitments. Hardly ever written down and always verbal and always assumed by the folks being lead. Leaders are measured by the commitments they make and keep.

There is another part to committing that happens that adds to the non-inspiration. The nothingness when both parties notice the broken commitment occurred.  I affectionately call this “the hiding”. When the time between “I am sorry for breaking the commitment” shrinks, inspiration increases proportionately.

Lastly there are rock stars out there today that teach and educate on this subject; Dave Ramsey and Seth Godin to name a few. Both state that when a person makes a commitment to improve their current state they alienate their network of friends and family. This group is named “the herd”. Their job is to get you back to being just like them.  One more beer you can be late tomorrow.  Have cake you have been dieting long enough. Buy those shoes on your credit-card, your due for a raise soon.

Maybe being unpopular is how to inspire?

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