Nowadays many companies ask their employees for proactivity. And job offers request candidates to have this soft skill.
So, what is being proactive about and how can we work with proactivity? Because I think that it is a skill we can acquire. But it requires interest, planning and assertiveness.
Where does the term “proactivity” come from?
The word proactive originates from the Latin pro = for, and activus = active. Apparently it emerged in the 1930s in experimental psychology, but with a different meaning to the one we know today.
Victor E. Frankl coined the term how we use it nowadays in 1946 in his book “Man’s Search for Meaning”. He described proactivity as directing consciously our behaviour and taking responsibility, instead of looking for causes in external circumstances or other people. Frankl stressed the importance of courage, individual responsibility, perseverance and awareness of choices irrespective of the situation or context.
The term proactivity has become popular from the 1990s with Stephen R. Covey’s book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” as well as books on self-help, personal development and leadership referring to Frankl and Covey.
What is proactivity?
Being proactive means planning in advance and acting result-oriented in order to determine and induce the development of an event and situation. Instead of waiting for things to occur and reacting to situations, it is about taking control on your own initiative and make them happen. Working proactively means deciding what we want to do and how we want to do it; thus carrying out our work more effectively and productively.
How to be proactive
In order to work proactively, we need to fulfill several conditions which allow us to anticipate events and decide appropriately what to dedicate our time to. Otherwise we may fall into the inertia of merely reacting to tasks and urgencies as they arise.
Know your job
Hence, in the first place we need to know well what our job and our responsibilities are and how they contribute to the company, clients and colleagues. It is also important to know to what extent you may make decisions autonomously.
Know the mission, strategy and priorities
In the post “How to prioritise, respecting your own and others’ time” I mention the importance of showing interest for the company’s mission and strategy as well as its most important projects and how your work fits in there. This will help you better orientate your job and make decisions on how to dedicate your time, as well as differentiating the important and urgent. In order to work proactively we need to be clear about the priorities we should focus our energy on.
Plan your work in advance
The next key is organising and planning our work with foresight. This means anticipating company needs, project stages requiring our contribution, meetings or presentations needing preparation etc.
Think about your priorities and goals
I recommend you take time every week to review what the priorities and main objectives are in your job. This will help you remember what is most important and maintain the focus of your work. So ask yourself which are the projects and tasks, related to the most important goals, you ought to dedicate time to.
Review your agenda in advance
Next I recommend that, at the end of a week, you check your agenda for the next few weeks. That way you will be more aware of what awaits you and which appointments, commitments and meetings require some kind of preparation.
Maybe you need to prepare a presentation or proposal or need another department to furnish information. Possibly you need to reserve a meeting room and ensure the necessary means (projector, flipchart, provisioning…). Perhaps you simply need to figure out how to get to a meeting and how long it will take you.
If you do not take these points into account in advance,you risk having to do them on the run or even forcing others to help you, thus obliging them to act in a reactive manner and interrupt other tasks.
Plan your tasks
Once you have reviewed your agenda, in order to note down the issues requiring preparation, write down the necessary tasks for each of them. Think about tasks to be done both by you and other people. Then reserve time in your agenda to work on the actions requiring more time. Also, there are other tasks, taking less than two minutes, that you might want to tackle right away such as:
- Figure out how to get to a meeting location and copy the itinerary into the appointment. That way you will also find out how long it will take you to get there. And you may reserve the appropriate time buffer in your agenda.
- Book a meeting room or make the request for somebody to do so, indicating date, time, number of attendants, needs for water, snacks, technology etc.
Request required information in advance
As I have mentioned before, there are issues that require information from or the contribution of other people. So the sooner you ask for it, the better these people may organise their work. What is more, you ensure receiving the information on time for your meeting or for preparing the presentation, proposal or report.
How to deal with interruptions and urgencies
Now you may say that this is all very well. But try as you might plan your work, contingencies and interruptions keep coming up. I admit it can be complicated to maintain the focus on the important when you are being interrupted with assumed urgencies. Moreover our dear mind does not help. Because it tends to give more importance to urgencies and incites us to solve them right away.
Remember your priorities and goals
Earlier I recommended you take an interest in your company’s priorities and objectives and determine your own. That is because knowing them will also help you better face urgencies and contingencies. It will actually help you assess and place them in a broader context. You may ask yourself question like: Is it really more urgent than the most important thing I am doing? Is it worth it interrupting what I am doing to attend the urgency? What is the contingency’s importance amongst the other priorities and when is the deadline?
In the post “How to prioritise respecting your own and others’ time” I recommend taking a moment to assess the issue you are being interrupted with and remember to ask when it has to be done; even though temptation is high to stop what you are doing and turn your attention to the urgency.
Lack of planning on your side does not constitute an urgency on mine
In my work life I have learned that unforeseen issues are seldom unexpected. Sadly most of the times they are due to a lack of foresight and planning, i.e. not working proactively in advance.
There are also people who only interrupt you because they just came up with something they need from you and want to get it off their mind. Possibly they have not even stopped and thought if an e-mail would have been enough. Or perhaps they have not assessed the issue’s real importance or urgency. If they had sent you an e-mail you could have decided when to read it, when to handle it and if it required interrupting your tasks.
On top there are companies where a reactive and “as you go along” way of working has established. Many complain about too many interruptions not allowing them to get work done. Though then they are usually the first to interrupt others.
Assertively ensure respect for your time and work
Though it may be complicated at times and seem like you are going against the current, ensuring that you dedicate your time to what is important and getting priority tasks done will make your point and give you a feeling of satisfaction and achievement at the end of the day.
So next time you get interrupted, take a moment to assess the real importance and urgency of what is being requested and remember to ask for the deadline.
If you are immersed in a priority project, which requires your full attention, I even suggest you reply kindly but firmly that you cannot attend the person interrupting you right now. Suggest that he/she sends you an e-mail or returns at a certain time. There are few things really so urgent that they cannot wait half an hour or an hour for example.
Recap
- Proactivity is not nature but nurture.
- Proactivity means planning ahead and acting result-oriented.
- Knowing the strategy, priorities and goals, it will be easier to anticipate events and work with foresight.
- Assess contingencies and urgencies before throwing yourself into solving them right away, thus interrupting what you are doing.
- Respect your time and ensure respect for it.
Do you work proactively or reactively?
Do you manage to organise your work and work proactively, with foresight and focused on what is important?
Or on the contrary do you find yourself facing tasks as they arise? In this case do you think these tipps will be helpful?
