Commitment &Dedication - Dont use desperation.
Even determination is no match for RED TAPE!

Red tape: you can't get rid of it, you can't get around it, you can't get out of it, it can prevent you from achieving success.

What position are you in? What do you know about your business? What do you know about the people you work with? What do you know about yourself when you work? How many more questions can you ask yourself without becoming crazy?
What it all comes down to is you and your team's dedication and commitment to work and ethics. Anyone should be able to spot it, coworkers should be able to tell who is and who isn't dedicated to their work and committed to the company. Not that these people need to be weeded out, they need direction and to know how and why they're there and what they can do to step up their production and contributions.

Simple things can help make this happen:
Reward them. If you have a sit down talk with them and be nice and blunt. Listen you're doing okay work but we need you to do stellar work, and here's how you can improve. When they start becoming more effective on a more consistent basis and you congratulate them on their improvements and increased dedication and commitment, reward them. Compliments always work, but give them gift certificates to dinner, or a spa, or even a personalized gift to keep them remembering that they were rewarded for their hard work, dedication, and commitment, which will ensure future achievements.

Don't play favorites. If someone is doing amazing work, reward them obviously, but also make sure your other employees are being taken care of because if they suspect you're giving all of your attention to Bill in Sales, then their dedication and commitment will start to decline. You can publicly address someone for doing good work, but I always prefer to do it privately just so it doesn't arouse suspicion. Everyone should get a chance at the limelight, not like an employee of the month, but at least one chance to sit down and hear positive things about their production. Do not let yourself be privy to the cliche and treacherous “compliment sandwich.” Unless you're running a pyramid scheme, stay away from that one.

Make examples of bad employees to compliment those who are doing good work—this is almost like Genghis Khan's version of the compliment sandwich. If someone royally messed up, you punish them and explain to others why they're being punished so that mistake is never made again. You don't have to fire the person you're making an example of, however, they should be feeling mighty guilty for what they've done and willing to prove to you and to them what they will do and how hard they will work to make up for it. If they do get canned, tell everyone why and how they can avoid. Avoid all possible threats to your employees so as not to start a “fear factor” among them—something that destroys morale and can lead to a decline in their dedication and commitment.
Provide safety for your employees. Make them feel safe from the world around them, from poachers and risks. Your competition will always be looking through your list of gems and with good reason, hence you calling them gems. Make sure that your best are taken care of so that if opportunity arises for the competitor to swoop in and poach them from your line up, they will be so committed and dedicated that they will turn down any offer (within reason) made to them as well as if it is good enough, match it. If an employee doesn't feel comfortable doing something, either give it to someone who can OR walk them through it and make them feel comfortable doing it, without sounding threatening.

Again, sorry to berate you with the words, but commitment and dedication are what make the foundation of a team work and what, in the end, makes you your money. If you can stress these words to every branch, every employee as well as your customers, then you're golden.  Bottom line: CHERISH the ones that make you succeed, because even Michael Jordan needed excellent teammates to become the best basketball player in the history of the NBA.

The opposite of dedication is desperation. Outback Steakhouse is a good example of what happens when I company gets desperate for business. They show an advertisement on television, making you RUSH to be one of the first 1,000,000 people to receive a "FREE" steak. Then you rush to their website giving them all of your personal information, and don't even realize that you have just been socially engineered, and now have left yourself vulnerable because Outback Steakhouse is storing all of your information with 999,999 other people's information in a database somewhere that can be stolen or hacked or both. That does not sound like the best of ideas.

To further the point of desperation, lets look at CNN headline news and Capital One ZERO to broke in 60 seconds, since they have some of the highest fees in the credit card industry, I can't believe that people still even pay them a yearly fee just to have a card. Who is more desperate? CNN for trying to make money by showing four Capital One advertisements at once, or Capital One for pay for them to try to get customers? Well, we already know the headline news about Outback Steakhouse had to one-up CNN on the desperation front.

Now, in the span of three months I found 3 of these 4 ad spreads, all of Capital One's ads. Who is more desperate? The first was June of 2011 and the second was August of 2011. The third time happened in September, but no reason to keep posting the same photos of Capital One's desperation.

As always, ridiculous and interesting headline news is always around, not just on CNN.

This is one of the most notorious songs about commitment and dedication. Stevie Nicks' Leather & Lace with Don Henley:

"Leather And Lace"

Is love so fragile
And the heart so hollow
Shattered with mistakes
Impossible to follow
I'm saying you're fragile
I know you try not to be
I search only
For something
I can't see, you are my Queen

You lived my life
And You are stronger
Than you know
But I carry this feeling
When you walked into my house
That you wouldn't be walking out the door
Ten years later I still I carry this feeling
When you walked up into my house
That you wouldn't be walking out the door

Lovers forever
Finally face to face
My city or mountains
Stay with me stay
I need you to love me
I need you today
Give to me your strength
Take from me
My faith

You in the moonlight
With your sleepy eyes
Could you ever love a man like me
And you were right
When I walked into your house
I knew I'd never want to leave
Sometimes I'm a strong man
Most time I'm cold and scared
And sometimes I cry
But that first time I saw you
I knew with you to light my nights
And Somehow we'd get by

Lovers forever
Face to face
My city or mountains
Stay with me stay
I need you to love me
I need you today
Give to me your leather
Take from me
My lace

Lovers forever
Face to face
My city or mountains
Stay with me stay
I need you to love me
I need you today
Give to me your leather
Take from me
My lace
Take from me
My lace
Take from me
My lace