Commitment brings contentment. Commitment comes with the acceptance of imperfection.
In my last blog I celebrated the return of loyalty to work. According to Towers Watson people are becoming more interested in staying with one employer for life. If people are more committed to their employer, they will be happier at work.
How can you be happier if you are stuck with one employer?
You will be happier because you will no longer be searching for perfection. There are no perfect employers. Organizations are full of people and people can be difficult at times.
I just read today about a little trick that drives commitment. Jeffery Ford, an Ohio State University professor asked his MBA students to do the following exercise. Each student was asked to write a letter to three people they didn’t like at work. The letter needed to contain the following information:
- An acknowledgement of something that the person had done that the letter writer had not previously acknowledged.
- An acknowledgement of something the writer truly appreciated about the person.
- An apology for a mistake or oversight the letter writer was responsible for but had not previously owned up to.
After the exercise, the letter writers were surprised at how much better they felt about the three people they had previously disliked. According to Jeffery Ford, “They discovered it was their interpretations, assessments, evaluations and conclusions about the other person that was the source of their liking or disliking them, not the other person.”
You may not go so far as to write the letters but taking the time to do the above exercise in your head will certainly help your own commitment levels.
You may even consider writing a similar letter to your own company. You don’t need to mail it. Just write it. What it is good about the company that needs to acknowledged? What really should be appreciated about the company? What might you apologize for that you have not acknowledged in past?
Commitment is hard. Contentment is hard. Leaving is easy.
Posted by Sandra Oliver on April 5, 2010
Leadership, Personal Effectiveness
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