This conversation is about making promises to peers about your contribution to the success. It asks: What promise am I willing to make to this enterprise? And, what price am I willing to pay for success? It is a promise for the sake of a larger purpose, not for personal return.
The commitment conversation is a promise with no expectation of return.
Commitment is distinguished from barter.
The enemy of commitment is lip service, not dissent or opposition.
The commitments that count the most are ones made to peers, other citizens.
We have to explicitly provide support for citizens to declare that there is no promise they are willing to make at this time.
Refusal to promise does not cost us our membership or seat at the table. We only lose our seat when we do not honor our word.
Commitment embraces two kinds of promises:
Promises about my behavior and actions with others
Promises about results and outcomes that occur in the world
To pass and make no commitment carries no cost or loss of membership.
The Questions
What promises am I willing to make?
What measures have meaning to me?
What price am I willing to pay?
What is the cost to others for me to keep my commitments, or to fail in my commitments?
What is the promise I’m willing to make that constitutes a risk or major shift for me?
What is the promise I am postponing?
What is the promise or commitment I am unwilling to make?
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The Commitment Conversation