Committed!

This word is fashionable. How many advertisements emphasize commitment! A big company is committed; savings are committed; even food is committed! It may be understood as "committed to save the planet". A few years ago, "committed" meant being on the left politically. Today, the single mindedness imposes that everyone - in the sense of the individual as well as the company - is "committed" whatever the political color.

This raises two questions for me. First, commitment should only concern individuals (how could a thing be committed?). Second, the vector of commitment seems to be unanimously imposed. But one cannot deny that Mother Theresa or Mendela were committed, for example.

This narrowing of the definition and its underlying actually masks a lack of commitment at the first level of behavior. It is as if benevolence alone allowed us to ignore the basis of individual commitment, like an absorbing element. Through the missions we carry out with our clients, I notice a sort of gap between the basic behavior and the discourse. Indeed, commitment to a project requires a collegial approach where the first element of success is respect for others. However, the minimum respect expected, such as respecting schedules and deadlines, or respecting the clarity of a report or a call for tenders, is not there. Not to mention sometimes the weakness of participation, proposals or criticisms, in the name of a supposed tolerance. These imperfections can be blamed on a lack of accountability on the part of management or a lack of good team leadership.

Instead I think that we need to rediscover the first commitment of each person, which legitimizes any other type of commitment, namely that of making ever greater demands on oneself, on one's contribution to others, on one's capacity to exchange with others. This is the best basis for a project, but above all it is the best basis for ensuring that together we can authorize other commitments.