This summary and review of the book, The Power of Strategic Commitment: Achieving Extraordinary Results Through Total Alignment and Engagement, was prepared by Benjamin Spears while an Accounting major student in the College of Business at Southeastern Louisiana University.
Executive Summary
The Power of Strategic Commitment: Achieving Extraordinary Results Through Total Alignment and Engagement was written by Josh Leibner, Gershon Mader and Alan Weiss. This book focuses on getting a business to that next level. Most businesses question and try to come up with new ways to be productive. They bring in new people, try new techniques or products, but never realize that the commitment of the team is the answer they can’t seem to find.
The book starts off by identifying a big issue of commitment vs. compliance. This theme of defining terms that most managers know the definition of but have not used in practice continues throughout the book. Commitment is the innate willingness of people to follow and contribute. Compliance is the forced adherence to plans created through manipulation, punishment, and coercion. The difference between these two can determine whether a company can reach its full potential.
To generate commitment, several things must be done. First, you must evaluate the current state of the organization. Second you must build a cohesive, trusting team environment. Third, you create and align the leadership team behind a compelling and challenging strategy. Fourth, reach down to lower parts of organization, stakeholders, and customers to create alignment, and finally make sure new content and context are sustainable. This can build unstoppable momentum toward the intended strategic goals.
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Engaging middle managers is imperative in getting strategic commitment throughout the company. Middle management is responsible for execution of the strategy. No matter how good of a strategy is crafted, without middle management on board it will probably fail.
The organization will not be committed without its leadership being totally on board. If a manager or CEO wants change, it starts with them. There are ten important qualities listed in the book for leadership to meet this challenge. To be honest, bold, enthusiastic and authentic are some qualities that are needed.
Taking a stand is one of the keys to strategic commitment. Imagine a ladder where the bottom rung is apathetic and the top rung is ownership. A CEO cannot expect everyone at the top of the ladder, but must strive to get people to continue moving up the ladder.
You have to intertwine strategic commitment into the very DNA of the organization. Creating a reward system, changing focus from input to output, and changing the nature of feedback are all important steps.
The last chapter of the book focuses on the diversity of businesses. It says that no matter what the differences are, strategic commitment is relevant and applicable in any environment. The rules may slightly change, but the goal of strategic commitment should be in every worthwhile venture. From nonprofit to government, a committed group could change the outlook of a dismal business. It could even strengthen an already strong company.
The Ten Things Managers Need to Know from The Power of Strategic Commitment
1. Commitment and compliance are not the same thing.
2. You cannot motivate others.
3. The first rule of generating commitment is brutal honesty with yourself.
4. True commitment is focusing on the content and context aspects of their strategy.
5. There is no compliance for leaders. Commit or get out of the way
6. Compliance is the forced adherence to plans created through manipulation, punishment, or coercion. Commitment is the innate willingness of people to follow and contribute.
7. Gaining support of middle management in a strategy is crucial to the implementation and execution of it.
8. The best CEOs hold themselves accountable for everything.
9. Everyone in the organization needs to feel like they have a part in the strategy making process.
10. Strategic commitment should be relevant in virtually any environment.
Full Summary of The Power of Strategic Commitment
This book was written by Josh Leibner, Gershon Mader and Alan Weiss. This book focuses on getting a business to that next level. Most businesses question and try to come up with new ways to be productive. They bring in new people, try new techniques or products, but never realize that the commitment of the team is the answer they can’t seem to find.
Why commitment trumps compliance
Most leaders confuse commitment and compliance. Commitment is the innate willingness of people to follow and contribute. Compliance is the forced adherence to plans created through manipulation, punishment and coercion. Commitment will always trump compliance. One major concept is that companies are not performing up to their full potential. Several factors should be considered such as the complexity of businesses today, the importance of agility and responsiveness, the increase in the amount of outsourcing, the increase of matrix management, and the increase of choices for the customer.
What is strategic commitment?
True commitment comes from leaders focusing on both content and context of their strategies. Content is made up of validity and clarity. Context involves credibility, sincerely, courage, resolve, competency, care, and concern. When both content and context are high, you will produce strategic commitment. Without both, the best to hope for is uninspired compliance.
Working back from the future
The leadership team must be on the same page to ignite the process of strategic commitment. A leader has to be upfront and honest about the current condition of the business and own up to it. Doing a commitment audit is one way to find commitment deficiencies. In the crafting of the strategy the questions of what and how must be answered.
Pushing through the thermal layer
Middle managers are crucial to the implementation of the strategy. The leadership team must get middle management going in the same direction to achieve the same goals with commitment to them. Avoid alienating middle management in the process. Present the strategy to them as your own that you firmly believe in. The CEO must make sure is able to listen and prove that he has been listening. The leadership team must make sure and overcome the barriers to engaging middle managers such as failed plans and emotional baggage.
Leading from the front
One person, the leader, can make a difference. The best CEOs are willing to hold themselves accountable. A new strategy requires a personal commitment from this leader. There are ten qualities to being the good leader. A lot of the qualities lean on being honest, bold and courageous. Even after having all the qualities of a good leader, a person must be able to open up and listen to the other people in the company. Selecting just a few trusted aides is not always the best decision.
The ten qualities
1) Orient around making a difference, rather than protecting ego and status
2) Make the vision come alive in a meaningful way
3) Be authentic
4) Operate with integrity
5) Act with boldness and courage
6) Have other’s backs unconditionally
7) Communicate openly and honestly
8) Generate passion, energy, and enthusiasm
9) Build and empower leaders around them
10) Be committed to development and growth
Taking a Stand- The Key to Strategic Commitment
Putting a stake in the ground means no retreat. Set a goal, proclaim it, and do not back away from it. Taking a stand is one of the critical aspects of generating strategic commitment. Committed teams can see any problems achieving the goals as challenges to overcome. A non committed team just sees failure. The ladder of strategic commitment goes from apathetic at the bottom to ownership at the top. The CEO must keep people climbing up the ladder. They don’t all have to be at the top, but they must be moving up.
The ladder of strategic commitment (from the top going down)
1) Taking a Stand-Ownership
2) Helpful
3) Curious
4) Compliant
5) Skeptical
6) Resistant
7) Cynical
8) Apathetic
Building and Restoring Trust
Trust is one of the most important aspects in building organizational cultures. Trust is a function of being honest, being dependable, exercising judgment, and generating partnership. These functions are all linked to different context drivers. Being honest is linked to credibility and sincerity. Being dependable is linked to Courage and Resolve. Exercising judgment is linked to competence. Generating Partnership is linked to Care and Concern. The easiest way to begin building trust is to tell the truth and assess the areas that need to be fixed. There are five steps to building trust. You must identify the trust issues, set up an effective dialogue, put the issues on the table, create a new way forward, and align on new behaviors and practices.
Return on Strategic Commitment
The results of strategic commitment can be impressive. Financial performance can increase substantially with everyone on board. An environment of strategic commitment creates an obsession with satisfying customers and increasing customer loyalty. Quality is embedded in the business. Safety becomes a more paramount concern. Innovation is encouraged and freely implemented better. Cross functional collaboration becomes much easier. Integration of cultures is a much smoother process. Employee morale is directly tied to strategic commitment. Even in hard times, a committed company can still raise morale.
Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way- HR at the Crossroads
The human resources officer can become the chief commitment officer. If the CEO is willing, then the HR officer must be able to coach and enroll him in this process. HR must demonstrate the power of strategic commitment in its own department first. HR must bring forth to the CEO the perceptions of his team and perceptions about his team. HR must make the CEO understand the issues preventing employees from getting completely behind him.
Strategic Commitment as Organizational Lifestyle
Commitment must become part of the organization’s lifestyle. This is done in a number of ways. Creating the proper reward system is a start. Companies must focus on progress and outcome, not the activities involved. Your hiring practices must be able to hire people that commit to, own, and deliver on objectives. Employees that are hired to strictly get a paycheck will not work. Feedback and communication are also imperative in generating commitment.
The Diversity of Strategic Commitment
Strategic commitment should be applicable in any business. Different organizations such as nonprofit, government, or education can still apply these principles. Volunteer organizations actually need commitment more than others. In new start-ups, strategic commitment can offer some huge advantages.
The advantages of a committed start-up.
1) Strength and Courage
2) Virtual Ownership in the Company to Parallel the Founders’ Ownership
3) Greater Innovation
4) More Rapid Feedback About What is Working and What Isn’t
5) Greater Sacrifice
6) Recruitment of Talent
Personal Insights
· The author is one of the most brilliant people around because………
I think the authors are a very brilliant group of people. Reading this book has completely changed the way I thought about strategic commitment. The difference between compliance and commitment is one that is commonly ignored. Most businesses can put up an ethics code, do nice financial projections, plan new product entry and marketing, but never stop to realize their employees aren’t even on board with the new plan. The work these guys have done with their clients is pretty amazing stuff.
· If I were the author of the book, I would have done these three things differently:
1. There were some examples that were very vague. I would have went into more detail on those examples.
2. The companies in the examples were mostly bigger companies with stock options and incentive plans. I would liked to have heard how a small business would be able to motivate the minimum wage class of worker
3. The book focused mostly on the leadership and their goals. It could have also focused on the employee motivated to become a leader, but that was not their intention.
· Reading this book made me think differently about the topic in these ways:
1. I have never differentiated between commitment and compliance until now.
2. The Strategy of a company should not be exclusive. You have to at least let others feel that they are involved.
3. Just coming up with a good business strategy is the easy part. The implementation is the challenge.
· I’ll apply what I’ve learned in this book in my career by:
1. If I’m running a team, to make sure they all feel comfortable talking to me.
2. I would like to become a consultant, so what they have done is a good example of what I can do.
3. I may be able to use some examples they gave in their book and apply them to real world experiences in businesses I work for.
· Here is a sampling of what others have said about the book and its author:
There were only 3 reviews on Amazon. The lowest the book received was 4 stars on rating. They think the book leans toward trying to get your organization to go in the right direction or “buy in” as one person said. The only negative mentioned was that it falls short in organization design. One of the reviews was by Rick Otero, the EVP of Capital one. This review is also included on the author’s website.
Bibliography
Anonymous (2009). Reviews. Retrieved April 21, 2010, from Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Power-Strategic-Commitment-Extraordinary-Engagement/dp/0814413749/ref=dp_return_2?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books.
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Contact Info: To contact the author of this Summary and Review of The Power of Strategic Commitment, please email Benjamin.Spears@selu.edu.
David C. Wyld (dwyld@selu.edu) is the Robert Maurin Professor of Management at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. He is a management consultant, researcher/writer, and executive educator. His blog, Wyld About Business, can be viewed at http://wyld-business.blogspot.com/.
Originally published:
Summary and Review of The Power of Strategic Commitment by Josh Leibner, Gershon Mader, and Alan Weiss
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