¹Imagination Lab Foundation, Lausanne, Switzerland

Correspondence: J Roos, Imagination Lab Foundation, Rue Marterey 5,1005 Lausanne, Switzerland. Tel: +41 21 321 55 44; Fax: +41 21 321 55 45; E-mail: johan@imagilab.org; URL: www.imagilab.org

Abstract

Our purpose is to re-orient future research on commitment by framing it in terms of responsibility. We define commitment as an obligation to serve an interest even if that interest is distinct from self-interest, and assume that committed managers are responsible managers. Discouraged by the literature on commitment to strategy we used literature inspired by Jungian psychology to suggest that playful processes may generate such commitment. Following these ideas, as action researchers, we staged strategy retreats for three unrelated groups of company leaders, hoping to induce and observe moments in which people were open enough to be imaginative and spontaneous. We found that participants collectively embodied themselves in the strategy content they were developing. They made themselves vulnerable to the group by doing so, and at some stage the process became irreversible. To the extent they did this, which happened in two of the three cases, the managers committed to the strategy content and, hence, acted responsibly.