My friend John Jantsch’s new book, The Commitment Engine, is really about one thing—making work worth it. Most of us spend a great deal of our lives at work, and being happy at what you do and where you’re doing it makes all the difference in the world.
John and I talked about The Commitment Engine and here’s what he had to say:
What is the driving force behind The Commitment Engine?
The thing that started me on the quest to write this book was a desire to understand why one seemingly successful entrepreneur felt completely fulfilled by their business while another seemingly successful entrepreneur felt their business was sucking the life out of them. I started with the happy customer and worked my way back to the happy owner and found the commitment connection.
Why do you think clarity, community and culture are so important?
What I discovered is that they are the common bond in companies that I call commitment engines – clarity is strategy, culture is clarity amplified and community is the natural outcome of clarity.
What is the business value of focusing on these things?
While I talk about things like peace, grace and love in this book, I also draw a very direct line between clarity of purpose and profit. When an organization is crystal clear about the single-minded “why” of what they do, they will attract a staff that shares this purpose and that staff will care for the community in a way the breeds extreme customer loyalty – perhaps the most profitable characteristic of all.
I don’t know about you, but this makes perfect sense to me. And as I read the book, it’s got me thinking about the companies I know who seem to be truly focused on clarity, community and culture (and I’m happy to say we have several of them as clients), and how they’re so very different from other companies who are only focused on profitability.
My friend Marjorie Clayman wrote a terrific review of The Commitment Engine, and you should check it out, because she talks about completely different things than John and I covered here.
If you’d like to know more, you need to buy the book, doggone it. And really? I’m pretty sure you won’t be disappointed. And for our Kansas City friends, there’s a reception at the Kansas City Public Library on Wednesday, October 24th that starts at 6 p.m. You should most definitely register and come join us to hear John talk about this. I’m pretty sure he said that drinks were on him, but we’ll have to ask him when we get there. (I crack myself up sometimes) (seriously).
Shelly Kramer is a Principal Analyst and Founding Partner at Futurum Research. A serial entrepreneur with a technology centric focus, she has worked alongside some of the world’s largest brands to embrace disruption and spur innovation, understand and address the realities of the connected customer, and help navigate the process of digital transformation. She brings 20 years’ experience as a brand strategist to her work at Futurum, and has deep experience helping global companies with marketing challenges, GTM strategies, messaging develoment, and driving strategy and digital transformation for B2B brands across multiple verticals. Shelly’s coverage areas include Collaboration/CX/SaaS, platforms, ESG, and Cybersecurity, as well as topics and trends related to the Future of Work, the transformation of the workplace and how people and technology are driving that transformation. A transplanted New Yorker, she has learned to love life in the Midwest, and has firsthand experience that some of the most innovative minds and most successful companies in the world also happen to live in “flyover country.”
