I took a basic Online Marketing workshop the other day (led by Louanne Walters) and had a wonderful insight.

As Louanne was explaining the difference between inbound and outbound marketing, I suddenly realized that she and I are basically doing the same thing in the marketplace.  We are offering “transformation” to savvy business people whose current approach isn’t working for them.  Her medium is social marketing, mine commitment management.  Let me explain.

Traditional outbound marketing consists of commercials, news paper ads, postcard campaigns, etc. – meaning that we are communicating out in order to get people to buy our products and services – hence the term “outbound.”

Of course, we all know by now, that this trend has completely shifted and the goal has become to attract people to us, or “like” us as we would say in Facebook terms.

The reason we are writing blogs, conduct webinars, tele-seminars, give away ebooks and do whatever else is to engage people.  It’s about attracting them to want more, rather than inundating them with stuff they didn’t ask for.   To some this shift is obvious, others are still blind to it.  In their blindness they say, “Why is my Marketing not working?”

What does that have to do with Commitment Management?

Well, just like the marketer needs to transform him or herself to communicate in such a way that it attracts interest, managers need to transform to become the kind of person other people want to make commitments to.

Traditional managers have a practice of telling people what to do and when to do it and if people don’t perform, they tend to pull rank on them.  Sometimes it works, but often it doesn’t.  It depends on how compliant people are.

But it rarely produces the kind of commitment that has people jump through hoops to get the job done.

And that’s what it is all about – Attracting Meaningful Commitment – so that the manager can manage it.   The commitment that is, not the person!

So, the Art of Commitment Management is about attracting commitment to us rather than assigning responsibility to others.  That’s the big paradigm shift that has already occurred, but is not obvious to many managers out there.  They are still wondering, “Why aren’t THEY performing?”

As is so often the case, what hurts us is not what we do, but what we are blind to.

Thanks to Louanne for opening my eyes further to seeing the underlying patterns of marketing.  Just when I thought I had Facebook figured out….

If you’re like me you’re wrapping things up for the week.  Did you hit your targets for the week?

Ever wish your direct reports were more accountable?

Would you like to know how to make that happen?

Based on our Amazon best-selling business fable “Who Will Do What by When? How to Enhance Performance, Accountability and Trust with Integrity,” I periodically offer a six-week Accountability Training that will be held Fridays from 12pm-1pm EST for six weeks on a conference line.

This is a program for experienced managers and leaders who want to learn how to enhance engagement, commitment and accountability on their teams.

You will learn how to:

·         Reengage people who have become complacent

·         Manage individual and team commitments instead of micro-managing people

·         Get things done under the most stressful circumstances

·         Hold effective action meetings and meaningful minutes

·         Create a culture of trust, where people make requests, promises and complain effectively

·         Identify and manage unproductive emotions

·         Make yourself more accountable and become a more effective leader

The program consists of 4 group calls and 2 individual, personal coaching calls.  Call me if you would like to discuss your interest.

Birgit Zacher Hanson at 813-963-6224 ; BZH@HeadsUpPerformance.com

An article on Harvard Business Review reads as follows:

“People who viewed an image of a dead cat (or something equally negative) after recalling a newly learned Swahili word were better at later remembering the word than people who viewed a neutral image, say Bridgid Finn and Henry L. Roediger III of Washington University. The viewers of negative images remembered 57% of what they had previously recalled, compared with 44% for people who saw neutral pictures. An emotionally arousing event may enhance “reconsolidation” of memory because the brain’s emotional centers have close connections with the reconsolidation region, the researchers say.”

That is interesting!  Perhaps it teaches us a lesson that it is not always about making people “feel good.”  Apparently a negative emotion can be beneficial when it comes to recall.

But let’s not abuse that to justify a lack of emotional intelligence, ok?