We have heard a lot about the need to be proactive in professional life. But like all good advises, this also falls in to a category where we are not told how to be proactive. In the run of trying to achieve this goal, we end up achieving different thing and assume that we have been proactive enough and then wonder why still the results are not satisfactory.
In this blog, I am trying to decipher the secret of how to be proactive.
To understand ‘Being Proactive’, we must understand the opposite of it- what we call generally as ‘being reactive’. Being reactive as the name suggests, is to act on an issue once the issue has happened. We sometimes calls it also as ‘Fire-fighting‘ in our day to day work environment. Or in simple terms it is to get to a stage where you think “I wish, I could have done it better …..”.
Hope you are getting my point.
What is being proactive?
Having said what ‘being reactive’ is, I am trying to explain what it means to be proactive. Like for all new management concepts, ‘Being proactive’ requires a small shift in paradigm. While all these days, you kept thinking how I will complete my tasks. Now I am requesting you to change the thought process.
Whatever comes to you as your WISH, from now on, convert it as your NEED.
The moment something becomes your NEED, pro-activeness becomes engulfed in to you. A Wish is always a wish, it might or might not get fulfilled and it all depends on how much effort you have put in to convert your wish to reality.
There is no push to satisfy a WISH or rather there is no such thing as 'Satisfying a WISH'. But you can always strive to satisfy a NEED and there is a natural urge to satisfy a NEED. If your wish is to get highest client satisfaction, unless you convert that wish to your need, you will not start thinking on how to achieve it.
It is like dreaming. To dream you don’t need to pay anything. But to make your dreams in to reality, you need to sweat yourself. Similarly, to simply wish for something, you don’t need to pay anything and you do not hold a stake in the outcome. Are you getting me?
For example, for a normal citizen can only WISH that his country is safe from an alien country. But at the same time a soldier’s mind doesn’t work with simple wishes. He over a period of time has developed a strong will to safeguard his country and the same has become his NEED. In such a situation, his urge to satisfy his NEED gives him the power to anything, including giving up his own life to safeguard his NEED. After winning a war, the soldier become a hero and holds full stake in the victory.
Why? Because he took a pro-active step in his life to joining the army, getting trained, and being on war-foot. This happened because, the whole idea of being a soldier came from the realm of his ‘NEED’ to protect his country than just a ‘WISH’ that his country is safe.
See how simple it is to change things by just changing our perceptions!
Now take this in to the context of a client servicing.
When you think ‘What I need to do to complete my tasks?’, it is a clear reactive mode of client service. Here your tasks are already laid down by the client and you have so much to catch up. Because of this you get in to vicious circle of trying to achieve the targets and never getting over it.
‘Being proactive’ is thinking from
· ‘How do I ensure, my client is always in delight mode?’
· ‘How do I ensure, I am completely on top of delivery and all the action items are acted up on with timeliness and quality?’
· ‘How do I ensure, every small action item during client meetings becomes an input in to process fine-tuning and re-engineering?’
· ‘How do I ensure. client doesn’t have to remind me of my deliverables?’
· ‘How do I ensure, all of the above is my NEED and not just a WISH?’
We are taught so many techniques and tools to help ensure all of the above. For example, risk mitigation plans, project plan works sheets, resource allocation charts, Daily activity charts, Action items and so on. But the fact is that, unless this basic shift happens in our mind first, all of the above are just off the shelf products which gets used meaningfully for some period and then becomes a ritual and many time waste of time/effort.
The basic paradigm about these off the shelf tools is that, they can do the issue resolution for us. It is incorrect. They are just catalysts or just some means to achieve the objective. The actual and only requirement to be proactive is to change our perception about ‘how to be proactive?’
Be active as well as proactive. All the best!
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