A very good friend once asked me to write her a short blog post; said it at least needs to be smart, but with flare to be interesting and informative, yet relatable and certainly not boring. A walk in the park – albeit the bush in deepest, darkest Africa.

Once, while at the breakfast table in yet another hotel, in yet again another part of the world, I thought about reliability and the human factor:

My waiter was slow.

While sitting there, two words came to mind – dedication and commitment. How strange that two things so simple get to be so complex.

At the very moment my food arrived, a thought sprang to mind—the chicken and the pig. 

Staring at me trusty bacon and eggs I realized that this chicken and this pig are my dedication and my commitment.

You see, as it happens to be – the chicken was dedicated – it contributed to my breakfast.

Albeit, I certainly appreciated and enjoyed the fruits of her dedication, and she certainly has to endure the pressures of life to produce – she will still do so day for every single day of the rest of her life.

She, however, did not give her whole self – she didn’t make a commitment.

The pig on the other hand, is fully committed. He contributed to my breakfast every fiber in his body so to speak. He gave his all.

You see, dedication is only a half effort. Commitment is investing every fiber of yourself, and settling for nothing but one hundred percent.

In the business world this is the same.

Some companies and their people are dedicated and do well. They consistently maintain steady growth, explore other areas, and generally keep their shareholders and clients happy.

Then you have the few that stand out above the rest. Those fully committed companies. The ones that do not grow “on average” – they dominate the market. These are organizations that are committed. They give their all, and in return, their success is unmatched.

And strangely – a study published in last year’s Harvard Business Review examined these very same, top global companies – the clear differentiator to their success is the management of business processes. Almost 90% of all companies surveyed live and preach process management. They are dedicated to it.  They live by it!

So my message – Be the new normal.  Be processed.

As I run out of thought – I hear my neighbor’s cat. Since he is on holiday he asked me to feed the thing…

Here kitty, kitty, kitty. Nice kitty.

 – Francois Potgieter (Bytes Technology Group)

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Francois Potgieter is the Business Unit Manager at Bytes Technology Group where he is responsible for the Enterprise Information Management solutions (EIM). The business unit focuses on business process management (BPM), document management and general EA consulting. Francois is based out of Johannesburg, South Africa.

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