Commit or quit

Do you ever sit in a conversation where everybody furiously agrees, leave feeling great about what you’ve decided – but then nothing happens?

I see this a lot.

Everything important you’ve ever achieved has required commitment – from university to employment, marriage to children. Involvement isn’t enough. As the saying goes: the difference between involvement and commitment is like a bacon and egg breakfast. The chicken was involved, but the pig was committed.

Good decisions are not about what we should do or will try to do; they’re about what we will do. Fuzzy decisions fail. Good decisions demand a genuine commitment to action, which means:

A) Being extremely careful about what we say yes to, or tacitly agree to B) Only saying what we mean C) Taking tangible action that backs up our promises, as soon as possible.

When it comes to change, you need to commit or quit.

For strategic conversations, that means securing a specific, tangible commitment from everyone in the room – and, when you can, taking action on that commitment immediately. In my workshops, I’ll often have people stand and publicly commit to the rest of the room what they’re going to do next, and when possible, I’ll have them make a phone call, schedule a meeting, send an email or take the next step before they leave the room.

The longer you leave it, the more likely it will die.

In your next important conversation, how can you make sure people really commit?