The Commitment Engine: Making Work Worth It

Companies are made up of people. And when those people are committed and interested in what they're doing, sales can go up and stay up. It's easier for innovation to happen. And customers stick around because they want to be part of such a culture.

Building a truly committed workforce takes intention, time, and a certain amount of fearlessness. But it's more than worth the effort. The goal of "The Commitment Engine" is to help you create the type of culture you've always wanted in your organization, but never knew how to build. The book is filled with useful instructions, and serious inspiration.

"The Commitment Engine" is written for business leaders, HR professionals, and entrepreneurs who want to transform their organization's culture into one that's joyful, effortless and, most of all, meaningful.

John Jantsch is a marketing consultant and the author of "Duct Tape Marketing" and "The Referral Engine." He's the founder of the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network.

So, keep listening to hear some of the author's hard-won business lessons, several strategies for building passion and commitment in your team, and the four types of stories you need to tell in your organization.

"The Commitment Engine" is divided into three main parts: The Path, which focuses on clarity of purpose. The Patron, which addresses culture. And The Promise, which addresses community. There are 22 chapters in total.

Throughout the book, the author includes many short case studies that show what real organizations are doing to transform their cultures and make work more meaningful for their employees. There's a wonderful story early on that we think really shows how these efforts can pay off.

Mary and Tony Miller own a successful janitorial service, and after several years of growth they had more work than they could handle. They were hiring over 50 new employees per month. But the problem was staff turnover. The industry standard was a turnover rate of 400 percent. And that's exactly what they were experiencing.

They decided to do something radically different to engage their employees. They read in a book that they needed to identify and fix the hurdles employees faced to stay in their jobs. So Tony bought a van and began to provide employee transportation to and from work.

That helped some, but it didn't really fix the problem. After several weeks of driving around the neighborhoods where their employees lived, the couple realized that, while their workers often lacked transportation, what they lacked even more were hopes and dreams. Poverty and a lack of opportunities had robbed many employees of hope.

The Millers decided to transform their company to focus much more on their people, and their dreams. They invested in ways to make employee housing more affordable. They promoted school and college tuition programs. They even created a program called Dream Manager, which made setting goals and dreaming part of the everyday culture in the company.

The Dream Manager program put each employee who wanted to be involved in a coaching relationship. They worked to define their dreams, and come up with a step-by-step plan to make them happen. Since the start of the program employees have graduated college, adopted children, stopped smoking, bought homes, launched fitness initiatives, and even started their own charities.

The Millers tell their employees to give them a good three to five years, and they'll help them work out of this job and on to something better.

The results are pretty amazing. Turnover is down 45 percent, and they've grown to 300 employees and 10 million in sales. Their Dream Manager initiative has been modeled in organizations around the globe.

More importantly, the Millers both found their true purpose and passion in these efforts. They're committed to building and enriching the lives of their team. And they're more fulfilled in their work now than they ever were before.

We thought this was an inspiring example of what can happen when you set out to build a committed workforce. Your organization will benefit. And so will you.

Let's look more at Part One, which focuses on clarity. There are a lot of lessons in these first eight chapters. All of them focus on helping you uncover your own wants and needs, and how those two things affect your organization and relationships.

Stop and think for a moment about the work you do. Does it fill you up, or suck the life out of you?

The author says that for most people, it's the latter. And you can't build a committed workforce unless you're first clear about your relationship with the work your organization does.

How does your work connect with your dreams and desires? If you're not sure, then this is something you need to think deeply about. There's a good chance that your work connects to these things, even if it's not obvious at first.

The author shares some of the most useful lessons he's learned as a business owner. We thought these were all really valuable, especially if you're doing some soul-searching of your own to figure out how your work brings meaning to your life.

One of these lessons is to do work you love. More importantly, though, you need to do work that motivates you to finish what you start. The author says that many projects, and even businesses, are started with joy and enthusiasm. But you need to love it enough to see it through to the end, no matter what.

Another lesson we liked is to serve customers you respect. If you want to bring life into your organization, you need to focus on finding and serving customers that you know, like, and trust.

Perhaps the most important lesson the author's learned is also the single most important strategy for bringing new life into your organization. That lesson is to become an elevator. Do whatever you can to lift up other people in your organization. It will pay off in the end.

There are several more of these business lessons, and the author revisits all of them in more detail throughout the book.

Part two focuses on culture, and there are eight chapters to help you build passion and commitment in the workplace.

One way to do this is to tell your story over and over. Why did you start this business, or why are you involved with your organization? Why are you excited about what you're doing?

Business storytelling can be a powerful motivator for people. When you explain the why and how of your organization, you can help others to find their own place in the story. And that's an important step in building commitment.

The author says every business needs four stories. These stories should be engaging, inspiring, and easily retold by your employees and customers.

The first is the passion story. This is often the owner's story that tells why he or she started the business, and how it fulfills their mission or purpose in life.

Another is the purpose story. This one explains why you do what you do in business.

You also need a value proposition story. How do you want your customers to see your brand? At heart, what do you offer them? Find a story that really shows how you provide unique value to others.

The last story you need is a personality story. This needs to illustrate the qualities on display in every action, product, service or decision in your organization.

The author points out that it's important to protect your standards. So your team needs to know how to tell your business story in a simple and consistent way. Using the same symbols, words, and phrases will cement the story in the mind of your team, and your customers.

We thought chapter twelve was an important addition to the book. The focus of this chapter is this: how you treat your staff is how they will treat your customers. Here, you learn how to find people who fit seamlessly into your culture. And you learn how to treat everyone on your team like gold.

To start with, you need to look for people with a specific set of skills – beyond the skills they need to do their work. No matter what your organization does or what role you're hiring for, you should look for people who have these abilities. And, you should make an effort to unearth these same skills in the people you've already hired.

So what are some of these?

The ability to collaborate is one. Business is fluid, and your organization will thrive if it's full of people who can easily work with others.

Another key skill is creativity. Even if you're hiring for a role that doesn't really require creativity, it's important to realize that this talent comes out in problem solving, general ideas, and collaboration.

Your people also need social knack. This is the ability to engage in a great conversation, know how other people tick, or present ideas to a group. A team with social knack will be able to make ideas pay off because they know how to communicate and build relationships.

Your business or organization also needs to show that your employees come first.

One way to do this is to support the whole person. Everyone who works for you or your organization is giving you a huge chunk of their time and energy. In turn, you need to support this person by helping them live a better, healthier life.

Of course, there are endless ways to do this, and the author shares plenty of examples from some of the companies he profiles in the book.

One company, Thirty Seven Signals, gives every employee $100 a month toward a gym membership, and another $100 to invest in community support agriculture, or CSA. They also get one all-expenses-paid vacation each year to one of several destinations.

That might be a bit much for your business, but there are plenty of ways you can support your people. Could you give them a paid day off each quarter to volunteer for their favorite charity? What could you do to help them live a healthier life? Can you provide learning opportunities to help them achieve a dream or goal?

Supporting your people doesn't have to cost money. All you need to do is find ways to help them live a balanced, rich life.

Part three of the book covers community. The author uses this term to mean anyone who comes into contact with your business: prospects, customers, suppliers, partners, and even your competitors. This last section shows you how to communicate the passion and purpose you defined in parts one and two, to your community at large.

So, what's our last word on "The Commitment Engine"?

We really liked this book, for several reasons.

First, the book is filled with inspirational and meaningful passages. One of our favorites is in chapter two. Here, the author says, "Business can feel like one jagged, lurching ride at times. When you replace doubt with purpose, ambition with love, dread with wonder, and fear with courage, something incredibly graceful can emerge."

We think this particular quote really illustrates the heart of what this book is about. And there were plenty of times we wanted to quote entire passages of the author's writing. He's moving, eloquent, and soulful, and you'll want to read with a highlighter in hand to make some of these lessons stand out.

While there are plenty of instructions and sub-topics in the book, the real value lies in the author's own passion for this topic, and his ability to communicate that passion in a way that can help you realize your own higher purpose. The author truly wants to help us bring life and joy back into our organizations, and this desire rings through on every page, and in every paragraph.

By the time you're done with the book you can't help but feel an urgent need to make some of these changes now. Not really for yourself, but for all the people working in your organization. The book serves as a wake-up call to bring life, meaning, and joy back into work.

"The Commitment Engine," by John Jantsch, is published by Portfolio.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.