Harvard Business Review, May-June, 1998: 98-105

Remember, internal commitment is about generating human energy and activating the human mind.

External commitment. This is a contractual compliance. This commitment is external because all that is left for the employees is to do what is expected from them.

External commitment is a psychological survival mechanism for many employees – it is a form of adaptive behavior that allows individuals to get by in most work environments.

Internal commitment. Individuals are committed to a certain project, person, or program based on their own reasons and motivations. By definition, internal commitment is participatory and very closely allied with empowerment.

The degree to which internal commitment is plausible in any organization is limited. Moreover, the extent of participation in corporate goals and aspirations will vary with each employee’s wishes and intentions.

For top managers, the essential thing to know is that there are limits to internal commitment.

How do you produce internal commitment?

1. Pay, like other popular incentive schemes, often advances the idea external commitment while creating a bias against internal commitment.
   
2. Many employees do not embrace the idea of empowerment with any more gusto than management does.

1. Recognize that every company has both top-down controls and programs that empower people, and that some inconsistencies are inevitable and must simply be managed. When these inner contradictions become apparent, encourage individuals to bring them to the surface; otherwise, a credibility gap will be created that can pollute the organization for many years to come;
   
2. Don’t undertake blatantly contradictory programs. For instance, stop creating change programs that are intended to expand internal commitment but are designed in ways that produce external commitment. Make sure that what is being espoused will not contradict what actually happens.
   
3. Understand that empowerment has its limits. Know how much can be created and what can be accomplished. Know that empowerment is not a cure-all. Do not evoke it needlessly. Once it has been created, do not misuse it.
   
4. Realize that external and internal commitment can coexist in organizations but that how they do so is crucial to the ultimate success and failure of empowerment in the organization. For instance, external commitment is all it takes for performance in most routine jobs. Unnecessary attempts to increase empowerment only end up creating  spirals of cynicism, disillusionment, and inefficiencies. As a first precaution, distinguish between jobs that require internal commitment and those that do not.
   
5. Establish working conditions to increase empowerment in the organization. If you want to help individuals move away from external commitment, encourage them to examine their own behavior. Many employees are willing to become more personally committed if management is really sincere, if the work allows it, and if the rewards reinforce it.
   
6. Calculate factors such as morale, satisfaction, and even commitment into your human resources policies, but do not make them the ultimate criteria. They are penultimate. The ultimate goal is performance. Individuals can be excellent performers and report low morale, yet it is performance and not morale that is paramount. When morale, satisfaction, and sense of empowerment are used as the ultimate criteria for success in organizations, they cover up many of the problems that organizations must overcome in the twenty-first century.
   
7. Help employees understand the choices they make about their own level of commitment. One of the most helpful things we can do in organizations is to require that human beings not knowingly kid themselves about their effectiveness.
   
8. Remember that empowerment can run contrary to human nature, and be realistic about how to achieve and use it.

Empowerment

Limits of Empowerment