This is the second part of the series Work in Progress. Last week, I covered my broad journey at Privia Health. Subscribe to get the next part in the series.

In an apathetic world, full of short-termism and an addiction to the slow drip of incentives, the treasured virtue is commitment.

We are surrounded by conditional people, who need to “be engaged” or receive the whip of stimulation to get moving. They wait, until the move is obvious and success certain.

But we unlock the best in life when we become committed, even in the face of uncertainty.

We crave commitment

People say that I was lucky to join Privia Health at the beginning. And it’s true. I had remarkable luck to join something early, that ended up great.

But it’s also true that I stayed through more and longer than most. I stayed through burnout, bosses leaving, leadership changes, ownership changes, friends quitting, missed promotions, and product pivots.

And that original luck would not have been realized without commitment. And without other people being committed to me.

We want to be committed to our work. There’s an ocean of difference between work that is transactional and work that we committed to. That we feel a part of. That we’ve put our heart into. The work is an extension of us. It is ours.

Others want us to be committed, too. Employers want committed employees with an “owner’s mentality.” Customers want committed “partners,” not just vendors. We want committed parents, teachers, leaders, and citizens. Commitment brings communities together.

Commitment brings fulfillment. There is a deep joy and satisfaction in seeing our work come to fruition. Rather than feeling transactional, the relationship with our work is generative and reinforcing. It fills us up instead of bringing us down.

The apex of work requires commitment. More than hard work or a work of genius, it is impossible to do great work without commitment. Great work requires care, quality, details, and purpose that the uncommitted do not have the stamina for.

Commitment is on us

I started as a low level employee, with the junior title of “Associate.” My salary wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t impressive. Maybe surprisingly, I did not receive any stock options until a couple years after being hired.

So there weren't many clear “rewards” for me to commit at the beginning. But I decided to commit anyway, without knowing where it would take me.

Too often, employees are treated as interchangeable cogs in the machine. They are important at times, but ultimately disposable. This creates a deep cynicism and skepticism. So they put up self-defensive walls, keeping their relationship to their work at an arm's length. Ethan Alter puts it well: “disillusionment is the default.”

Growing up, we are used to others committing to us. Parents and teachers orient their lives around helping us, despite us giving little or nothing in return. In adulthood, that orientation reverses: we must show commitment to them. Our company, our customers, our family.

Thus, we MUST make the first move. Yes, commitment is a risk requiring faith. Yes, it’s easy to be cynical. And yes, it’s tempting to wait until the right thing proves itself to us. But we need to show commitment first.

The only way to know if something is worth committing to, is to commit. Commitment can be tricky because we can commit to the wrong thing. We can be used or overcommitted to the wrong opportunities. But opportunities are never certain. They never come with a promise that “yes, this will work out!” So ironically, the best test if something is worth committing to, is to commit ourselves to it and find out.

Commitment is a choice

You can always tell who is “all in” or not. I remember one impressive individual (still at Privia today), whose commitment to the work was unquestionable. I could hand them a pile of sh*t work: ugly, difficult work that others failed at before.

But they didn’t need convincing or rewards dangled into front of them to do the work.
They were committed.

Being committed is a choice. Do we decide to put ourselves out there or do we hesitate? Too often, we hold back until we know what the other party will give us. When the rewards are obvious. We mistakenly want others to commit to us first, without us first committing to them.

Commitment precedes compensation. If we want rewards, the rare rewards, we must give and give and give, and give some more, before we ask to take. It may take awhile and it’s a risk. But asking too much, too early will backfire. It took nearly a decade at Privia for me to reap the bigger rewards that followed years of earlier commitment.

Committed is not the same as comfortable. To be committed is to sign up to continually tackle problems instead of coasting. There’s no sitting back. In fact, when we are committed, we lean into the challenge because that’s what must be done. 

Motivation wanes, commitment remains. Young love is a beautiful thing, and the first year of anything can be invigorating. But the early chemistry wears off and what remains is commitment to take us through the next chapters. Commitment, paradoxically, may mean sticking with something despite not having the motivation. If we're continuing to look for signs of new motivation, we won’t stay committed.

Commitment mentality

If you doubt commitment, talk to a doctor or nurse about their work.

I’ve witnessed thousands of clinicians who committed to helping people at their most vulnerable place, in times of confusion, pain, and even impending death. Their commitment transcends logic, beyond what most of us would be willing to give.

Their commitment was contrasted by the rest of healthcare, who seemed ready to run at the moment a better financial opportunity emerged.

All-in immersion. It’s hard to deny the conviction of the immersed individual. When we are consumed with our work, when we work with an intensity that shows we are all-in, that aura resonates and is undeniable.

Care for the craft and customer. When we care for the quality of our work or the impact to the customer, we are committed. When we take pride in our work, when we are uncompromising, because the work requires doing, we are committed.

Loyal when others are leary. When times get tough, many leave, only some stay. If we run or show doubt at the first sign of problems, we will never become committed. Most people hesitate or back off when trouble arises. The solution is to do the opposite: at the first sign of difficulty, we need to volunteer and put ourselves on the front lines to solve the problem.

Being conditional is working with our head, being committed is working with our heart.  The ROI may look bad and uncertain. It may be hard to calculate or explain rationally. But if we are choosing our work based on the ROI alone, we are not truly committed because there will always be another, better ROI around the corner. Ryan Vaughn framed it well: “The antidote to uncertainty is NOT certainty. The antidote to uncertainty is faith.”

Commit to others

Most people analyze businesses or jobs for the financial value they create. 

We have been trained to be conditional, to objectively analyze and deconstruct opportunities based on the numbers. We make decisions in the spreadsheet.

But if we remain in the spreadsheet, we stay at the surface level, unable to access the emotional reserves that come from a deep commitment to our work.

When we are committed, we have the capacity to commit to others. We can pay it forward to those who we believe in, maybe even before they believe in themselves. When everyone else is conditional and transactional, we can be a breath of fresh air, someone willing to take a chance on someone or something new.

Working with committed people is refreshing, with conditional people it’s depressing. We feel momentum when we are surrounded by committed people, who share the same conviction. But conditional people taint the experience for the committed. The famous investor John Doerr separated “mercenaries” and “missionaries.” Mercenaries are driven by the desire to make money. Missionaries are driven by the desire to make meaning.

Incentives can help, but also hinder. Leaders create an incentive structure that mirrors the company’s success, through equity, profit sharing, or bonuses. The problem is when the work becomes less about the work, but more about the reward. It’s not bad to get paid. But people mistakenly believe the solution to a transactional relationship is a better transaction. 

Commitment comes in many forms. Maybe the work you commit to is not what we normally call “work.” Maybe you commit to something other than a job. As David Brooks says in The Second Mountain, maybe you commit to a vocation, a marriage (or relationship), a philosophy and faith, or a community. But we need to find commitment, somewhere.

At the end of the day, we must ask ourselves: are we committed or conditional? And we must seek out the commitment that captures the best in life.

Next up, I’m going to talk about the challenge of reinventing yourself at work, and evolving through change and chaos. Subscribe below to get the next part in the series.

Send me a message at rick@thewayofwork.com if you have any feedback or what I should dive deeper into.

Note: views are my own and do not represent the views of any company or people referenced within.

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