Evidence for Commitment LO213

(no name) ((no email))
23 Feb 95 9:22:53 EDT

Michael McMaster writes (in part) LO193:
> This issue of commitment is important to our way forward.

It is a *very* important issue, and is key to one of the projects we're
working on with a client, a group about about 500 people. One of the key
influencing factors to investors is "how committed are your people?"
It has senior management concerned, because they have no answer, beyond
"Uh, very!" They have no criteria for measurement or assessing commitment.

Our first question is: What IS commitment?

Our second questions are: How do you measure it? What evidence do you
require to make the definitive statement: "This person is committed!"?
Is there a scale from "uncommitted" through "somewhat committed" to "wholly
committed," and how do you know when someone has moved along that spectrum?
What observable behaviors could you expect to see in an organization that
exhibits commitment to the successful execution of their mission?

Before we start exposing our own preliminary thinking on this issue, as
actually executed within a real, live organization, I'd like to elicit your
contributions first. Does anybody have a set of guidelines or criteria
they've successfully used in the past?

--Carol Anne
From: Carol Anne Ogdin <Carol_Anne_Ogdin@deepwoods.com>