The Power of Strategic Commitment
Achieving Extraordinary Results Through TOTAL Alignment and Engagement.
By: Josh Leibner, Gershon Mader & Alan Weiss, Ph.D.
Published by: American Management Association. 2009
“The Power of Strategic Commitment” should come with a highlighter and margins, wide enough to accommodate notes about examples (IBM, Southwest Airlines), lists of things you can do to become a truly effective leader and to help you remember supervisors who managed but did not lead.
The authors contrast employee “compliance” with “commitment” and posit that employee commitment is what makes a business successful. My background is in social work and I was surprised at how much social science, human behavior and motivation found its way into a practical business text.
The authors know what many business authors and business “leaders” do not: it is all about the people you work with, what makes them productive and how you can empower them to contribute. Not only should the book be required reading in Management 101 but it should be part of every leadership training program in the country.
It is not enough to talk about authenticity, integrity, courage, support, honesty, passion and empowerment. Few would argue with these terms. What makes the book a must read is the discussion on why these traits are central to leadership, what your employees are looking for in a leader and how you can develop your own skill set. Sadly, there are plenty of examples of what happens when managers do not have these traits and what happens to good plans when there may be compliance but no real commitment to success.
If you are afraid that a social service approach to leadership is “too soft and mushy,” read the book. Real leadership is harder than rocks and requires courage that many simply do not have. When done well, however, the leader grows as a person as does his/her management team and employees. When people are committed to the same vision (we often say that successful nonprofits are driven by a shared “passion” for the cause), employees are empowered to make the enterprise effective, provide better services or products and to meet the needs of customers and clients. Productivity rises, problems are averted (or at least quickly addressed), work is personally rewarding (and not just monetarily) and customers are better served. Not only will the organization achieve its goals but I bet staff turnover and expenses will be reduced as well.
Reading the Table of Contents is instructive and the sub-headings alone are useful prescriptions. The authors discuss “consensus “as a strategy and the Margaret Thatcher quote should be needlepointed and displayed in conference rooms throughout business (and government). Mrs. Thatcher said, “… to me consensus seems to be: the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes , but to which no one objects.” When you read the section “Why slow is fast” you will think twice about consensus as a goal. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the Appendix leads with “Tips, Techniques and Tools” and turns the text into a legitimate “how-to-do-it” and not just a set of valuable observations.
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David Zemel, Principal
On Track Consulting, LLC
www.ontrackok.net
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