The Commitment Gap

A bridge disappearing into the fog so that you can't see the other side.

A recent poll by Gallup determined leaders feel much more connected to their organization’s culture than do managers and individual contributors. This probably isn’t surprising to anyone who’s worked in a larger corporation but the difference was surprising to me. Twice as many managers feel strongly connected compared to the average of all employees. This is a very big gap. What’s going on?

The Commitment Gap

Let’s start by examining the question. What does feeling connected to my organization’s culture mean? For me, it comes down to alignment and sensing the culture is a good fit. It also represents my level of commitment. It represents my level of willingness or dedication to achieve something. The alternative to commitment is compliance, where I agree to do something as an obligation. The difference is very significant. Leaders in the Gallup survey are highly committed and there is a big commitment gap between them and the other employees.

graphs showing difference in levels of connectedness with compamy culture of leaders and employees. Source - Gallup.

Why Is There A Commitment Gap?

This is the leadership challenge. It is easy to be personally committed to achieve something. It is an entirely different challenge to generate commitment in the people around you. Many leaders find this extremely frustrating. I have heard leaders say “They should be as committed as me.” The way to close the commitment gap isn’t by dictating how an employee should feel. This is the compliance path which is unsustainable and frankly involves a lot of hard work and frustration.

Building Commitment

The alternative is to build commitment by connecting with the people around you. Start by seeking to understand what is important to them. How do they see the world? Put aside your own views and be curious. Don’t challenge different views, listen to understand what is behind them. Your goal is to figure out what is important to the people around you so you can connect your vision to it. Figure out how your vision aligns and supports what is important to other people. You will only build commitment when they start to believe following your vision will take care of what is important to them.

If you do this, the people around you may not have as high a level of commitment as you, but I guarantee the commitment gap will be a lot smaller.

Comments (6)

Spot on I say.
Great work Andy

Thanks Dave!

This gap is believable to me, at the end of the day most senior executives have some “skin in the game” through options or significant bonuses and those tend to become smaller percentages of compensation as you go down the tree. It’s all well and good for some big picture thinkers who stand to take home 6,7 or sometimes bigger payouts to talk about their “vision” and “values” – but that rings pretty hollow to the people on the ground who get to do more tactical grunt work.

They know there’s a limit to their slice of that bonus. They appreciate that they get paid dependably, and they may very well be choosing to not take the risk associated with that executive compensation package. Saying all you get is “compliance” out of your soldiers because they roll their eyes a bit when the General is talking about “their vision” may be short sighted.

Perhaps more valuable is considering how much your vision and values really matter to that soldier in the field. What could they specifically do in their role that you’re hoping this vision statement and culture will deliver? Has that been expressed?

Can they see YOU making hard choices to show the same thing? If a leaders values are about putting the customer first, do the employees see that leader going out of their way to visit customers or provide support themselves in some way? If the vision is about managing costs, does the leader fly first class?

Your employees see more than you might assume. Most organizations with outstanding cultures have leaders that walk the walk.

Frame these ideas as virtues instead of values. What price are we willing to pay to keep our virtues? Can we shout out people who exemplified them on a weekly basis?

Such excellent points Franz! I completely agree, leaders shouldn’t settle for this gap. There is a LOT they can do to close it and showing up in a way that role models the company values is a great start. At Intel, founder Gordon Moore ( a multi-billionaire always travelled in coach.

I think it is important to distinguish an organization’s desired culture from its actual as-is culture.

Organizations are complex adaptive systems, therefore it makes sense to define culture as the collective behaviors within the org that emerge from the many interactions between its elements. These elements, among many others, include: its people, each with their own values, beliefs, aspirations, hopes & fears, personalities, attitudes, agendas, quirks & emotions, past experiences…; the org’s values, mission, vision; its history; reward systems, HR policies, its processes, routines & rituals; leadership styles; role modeling; pace of its industry; its financial situation; its organizational structure; …

Whatever collective behavior emerges from these interactions *is* the org’s culture, which may be far different from the culture (i.e., the collective behaviors) the org wishes it had.

Given this framing, one conclusion that can be drawn from the Gallup survey results is that it is the leaders who are out of touch with the as-is culture of their org, believing it is way closer to the desired culture than it really is. Which leads back to Andy’s recommendation for leaders to get in touch (listen, observe …) with what really goes on at ground level in their org, or, as another famous Andy (Andy Grove, co-founder and CEO of Intel) put it: “managing by walking around,” which he personally practiced.

Thanks Herman, there were times as a leader I thought to myself ‘why don’t they get it?’ In reality, it was me who was out of touch.

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