The middle step of our delegation processes are vital one is commitment. And yet, in many textbooks and many courses that I've seen over the years, this is hardly mentioned at all, sometimes never. So why is commitment so important? Well, let's digress for a little and understand the underlying psychology of what's going on. When we make a commitment. I want you to imagine that there's a little organ in your brain, which I call the two mini cricket organ.

Now, there is no little Jiminy Cricket organ in your brain. But it stands for something that is real. It's a psychological process known as cognitive dissonance. Let's understand who Jiminy Cricket is first. So Germany cricket is a character from story of Pinocchio. And in the Walt Disney version, he's illiterate.

Crickets, who acts as Pinocchio's conscience, your Gemini cricket organ, your cognitive dissonance acts as your conscience. And cognitive dissonance is a fancy psychologists way of saying, the brain ache that you get the discomfort you feel when you try to hold two contradictory, conflicting opinions simultaneously. So how does that apply to our commitment? Well, if you ask me to do something, and I say, Aha, okay, well, yeah, maybe, then I've made no commitment, which means if I don't do it, I've not really lost anything. But if you look me in the eye and say, will you do it, but I look you in the eye and say, Yes, I will. And I haven't done it.

Now. I'm holding two conflicting beliefs in one hand I'm holding the belief that I am a person of integrity. If I make a commitment, I will keep my word I will do what I commit to do. The other hand, I'm holding another conflicting belief, which is that I made a commitment. But I haven't kept it. I always keep my commitment.

I haven't kept my commitment. I always keep my commitment. I haven't kept my commitment. Those two ideas conflict, that hurts my brain. And Jiminy Cricket nags at me to put it right. That's cognitive dissonance.

In order to put it right, in order to make these two conflicting, contradictory statements true, I had to take one of them and get rid of it. Which 1am I most likely to abandon my most likely to abandon the belief that I'm a person of integrity, who does what I say I'll do or am I most likely To look at the fact that I haven't done it and think I'll just get it done. And for most of us, it's that one in it. We just get it done. Now, I know that sometimes things get in the way, and it hurts me to accept it. But I just cannot do this thing because there's other stuff going on, that has come up, I made the commitment in good faith, but I can't do it.

But most of the time, and in fact, in psychological experiments, something like 80% of the time, if I make the commitment, I will deliver on it. Especially if reminded, because if I minded that I made the commitment to do it by Wednesday, if I'm reminded on Tuesday, then I think, Oh, I could either make myself a liar, make myself someone that doesn't keep that word, or I could just do it. In Germany, cricket nags at me to get it done. So I can retain my positive self image as a person of integrity. That's what I call the Germany cricket effect. That's what psychologists call harnessing cognitive dissonance to drive behavior that is consistent with your commitments.