Commitment – ElPropósito3 min de lectura

A look at the mindset we bring

We all have commitments of different kinds, and how we approach each one reveals two types of personality: one with a certain sense of responsibility, and one with intentional commitment. I recently read this line from Robert Sternberg, a leading authority on intelligence: "…the major factor in whether people achieve expertise is not some fixed prior ability, but purposeful engagement." Past knowledge is no guarantee of future success. Put another way, how we take in knowledge determines what we can achieve in the future, compared with what we live when our eyes stay fixed on the present. In practice, I find it telling how teams with that intentional commitment to move forward and give their best, for the team and the whole organization, hold an attitude that goes beyond positive. I’d call it a constant search for the way forward.

We all have commitments to our family, our friends and even society. Parents have commitments to their children: the kind and style of education they want to give them, their nutrition and, more broadly, the habits that will help them grow into better human beings and good citizens. We might say meeting that commitment, or reaching a certain level of it, would be more than enough. The honest answer is no. A parent’s intentional commitment pushes them further with their children and helps them discover new ways of making their way in the world, ways the parent may never have had, for whatever reason. The same happens in business. A leader could settle for hitting the targets, yet, with the resources to go the extra mile, doesn’t. What can we say? Their intentional commitment was capped by a lack of greater ambition to do more and give more. That’s one of the key factors in our potential: able to give more, we settle for what we’ve achieved. Why?

I’d like to answer with Tim Gallwey’s performance formula: Performance = Potential – Interference. Is our potential fixed? No. It may be so great that we don’t even know it, precisely because of all the interference we’re exposed to. You won’t be able to. Why give more if they’ll just ask for more? What’s the point of running one more kilometer when you’ve already run twenty-one? You never managed this before, so how could you now? Those questions and doubts are what limit our performance. So how do we develop and unleash our full potential? Here I’d like to cite Carol Dweck, who in her book Mindset describes two mindsets: fixed and growth.

People with a fixed mindset firmly believe their limiting beliefs and think what they were given is enough to live on, even if they’re actually living a miserable life. They’ll always tend to blame someone else for their troubles and ailments. People with a growth mindset know that what they’ve learned so far got them to this summit, and that reaching the next one takes a deep conviction that their development and growth depend solely and entirely on what they set out to do and what new things they acquire. The purposeful engagement Robert Sternberg describes can be found in our life purpose, the source of wisdom and knowledge we carry inside that helps us live a more balanced life. Likewise, if a team needs commitment, it only has to look to its team purpose, that basic instrument it relies on the way pilots and ship captains rely on theirs.

"The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset." Carol Dweck

Warm regards and all the best,

Rodrigo Baccaro

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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