Author: Dick Richards

ISBN: 0-8144-0785-4

The following review was contributed by: Roger E. Herman & click to view Roger E. Herman's Reviews  

Balanced Approach to Gaining Commitment

To be an effective leader, one must inspire a broad and deep genuine commitment to a team’s mission, vision, desired results, and members. A number of books have been written on ways to get people to sign on, to agree, to perform. Applying the principles they promote will generate performance, adherence, and a certain degree of loyalty. Full commitment is a different issue.

Richards presents an approach that is balanced between intellectual commitment, emotional commitment, and spiritual commitment. Emphasizing the art of leadership, he shows how leaders can craft deeper relationships that generate genuine commitment to produce meaningful achievement and fulfilling satisfaction.

In the area of intellectual commitment, four chapters present the elements of insight, vision, storytelling, and mobilizing. Under emotional commitment, the chapters address self-awareness, emotional engagement, and fostering hope. Rendering significance, enacting beliefs, and centering build the understanding of spiritual commitment. The wrap-up chapter is titled Towering Conclusions and Further Strategies. A brief list of resources (interviewees and websites) and an index complement the text. Each chapter concludes with a handful of questions to stimulate contemplation.

The entire text stimulates contemplation. Using a wide range of people and their experiences and philosophies, Richards engages the reader in an introspective and educational journey. In chapter after chapter, I found myself inspired and enlightened, motivated to apply what I was learning in my work.

You will find this book to be a sort of combination of a walk in the woods, a comfortable soak in a hot tub, and time in a classroom with an energetic professor scribbling concepts rapidly across a white board while his writing hand struggles to keep up with his mind. Plan on reading this book twice; you won’t get it all the first time. Margaret Thatcher’s quote will help you understand that opportunity.