Pro-active Approach

Prevention is better than cure; you can prevent failures only if are proactive.

It is not enough if a manager is active; he must be proactive.

A manager ought to be proactive in such a way that he makes the required change early in his organization, before they are forced upon the organization.

Don’t wait for problems to arise. Go all out to find them and nip them in the bud.

Look at the word responsibility – “response-ability”- the ability to choose your response. Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feeling.

Our basic nature is to act, and not be acted upon. As well as enabling us to choose our response to particular circumstances, this empowers us to create circumstances.

Taking initiative does not mean being pushy, obnoxious, or aggressive. It does mean recognizing our responsibility to make things happen.

Reactive Language	Proactive Language
There’s nothing I can do.	Let’s look at our alternatives
That’s just that way I am.	I can choose a different approach.
He makes me so mad.	I control my own feelings.
They won’t allow that.	I can create an effective presentation.
I have to do that.	I will choose an appropriate response.
I can’t.	I choose.
I must.	I prefer.
If only.	I will..

Another excellent way to become more self-aware regarding our own degree of pro-activity is to look at where we focus our time energy. We each have a wide range of concerns- our health, our children, problems at work, the national debt, nuclear war. We could separate those from things in which we have no particular mental or emotional involvement by creating a “Circle of Concern”

Proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about. The nature of their energy is positive, enlarging and magnifying, causing their “Circle of Influence” to increase.

The proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it instantly, correct and learn from it. This literally turns a failure into a success. “Success,” said IBM founder T.J. Watson, “is on the far side of failure.”

It is not what others do or even our own mistakes that hurt us the most; it is our response to those things. Chasing after the poisonous snake that bites us will only drive the poison through our entire system. It is far better to take measure immediately to get the poison out.

Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Suggested steps to be pro-active:
1. Plan you tasks in advance.
2. Pre-identify the risks of respective task.
3. Make a mitigation plan to respond the above risks
4. Review of task & achievement regularly to identify the upcoming risks/problems.