Business Commitment

Commitment is the act of binding yourself intellectually and emotionally to a course of action.

• Is the faithfulness and devotion to the obligations and duties of the company through;

Dedication: Putting the needs and desires of the company above your own.

Responsibility: a particular burden of obligation, reliability and dependability.

Loyalty: devotion , dedication & faithfulness to commitments and obligations.

To create a business commitment environment, the management must make sure that the employees are satisfied, if the employee has no job satisfaction then there

is no way what so ever they will be committed!

An interactive survey took place in North America covering thousands of employees in the U.S.A and Canada concerning the job satisfaction issue, and the results were unpredictable as you will see in the graph in the next slide.

This survey revealed a shocking fact that about 60% of the employees are dissatisfied with their jobs and already looking for another job, and this puts a greater pressure on the management to keep their employees satisfied to achieve “Employee Business Commitment”.

To ensure employee satisfaction in a company, the management should apply the “Relative advantages approach”, the relative advantages approach is an approach that concentrates on providing employees with relative advantages in most areas to keep them satisfied, dedicated, loyal & committed to the wellbeing of the company.

Financial Relative Advantage: Where the employee should feel financially secured, because once an employee feels he’s not financially secured he/she will immediately look for another job.

Social Relative Advantage: Where the employee feels he/she is in a socially respectful position.

Psychological Relative Advantage:

Which is probably the most important relative advantage of the three because it deals with the emotional and behavioral characteristics of an individual, giving the employee a psychological relative advantage through training, encouragement and better communication will definitely lead to employee satisfaction.

Do you feel that you are committed to your business? How can you tell? Commitment is not something that you can directly see.

There are two main characteristics that show commitment;

o Focus.o Personal sacrifices.

First, you will show a focused or having a single-minded purpose in what you are doing. Everything that you do would be directed towards making your business better. Sometimes this focus can be so strong that it will appear that you have blinders on. Many people will say that you have "tunnel vision". You don't see anything outside of your focus going on around you.

Second, you will be willing to make personal sacrifices to reach your goals. This can be as simple as giving up an hour of television a day to work on your business. Others will tell you that if you watch any television that you are not committed. I don't agree with this one. When I am focused, I am focused. But everyone needs to get away from time to time. Don't let your family life become a personal sacrifice.

People need to attach a meaning to the sacrifice. If this sacrifice does not provide them with a sense of achievement, they will not be willing to do it.

Commitment follows meaning. A job is only a job until you identify with it and see the meaning in what you are doing and why you are doing it. People do not sacrifice unless what they are doing has meaning. To make that sacrifice, you need to see how what you are doing impacts your business.

Commitment is a willingness to look for a new and better way to do something and then do it. It focuses on eliminating procrastinating and confronting head on what is not working. This spirit of commitment allows a person to take risks they would not have taken before. This risk is looking to the future instead of rehashing the past.

In summary, commitment will be evident in the focus that you apply toward your own goals. The surest measure of commitment is in the personal sacrifices you are willing to make to achieve your goals. James Womack has stated that "Commitment unlocks the doors of imagination, allows vision, and gives us the "right stuff" to turn our dreams into reality.”

I’ll end up by Thomas Edison’s quote that says;

“The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are; first, hard work;

second, commitment; third, common sense.”