I am not the result of circumstances. I am the result of my decisions."
Stephen Covey
Proactive thinking (or behavior) involves taking action on a problem situation rather than simply reacting. This means taking responsibility for yourself and your life, and not passively observing what happens. People with this type of thinking do not need outside guidance; they themselves know what to do and how to do it.
External factors in the surrounding world act as stimuli to which we respond. Between the stimulus and the response to it lies something very important - the ability to choose a response. And the one who does this correctly differs favorably from those who avoid personal responsibility and immediately begin to look for someone to shift it to.
Being proactive is difficult because it takes time, as you have to consider different options, weigh alternatives and make your own decisions. The opposite of this is reactive thinking, where a person is influenced by the environment and external forces.
You decide whether to continually respond to problems or proactively prevent them. Let's take a few minutes to look critically at our actions during stressful situations:
- Do you react to events happening around you, do you take initiative?
- Are you trying to control the situation?
- Do you take an active or passive role?
- Do you expect very different results and prepare for the consequences?
- Do you only make decisions when your back is against the wall?
- Do you put off solving a problem until the last minute?
- Or are you making conscious decisions as part of your long-term plan?
No matter how you answer all of these questions, it is important to understand that the situation may differ depending on the area of life. You can be proactive at work because you are completely focused on it, and at the same time suffer failures in your personal life or do not care about it. Each area sends its own unique requests and if you are not prepared for them, you will only have to react.
A simple example: you know that you should go to the dentist once every six months. Everyone knows this. But who follows this rule? Until a person’s teeth hurt, until the pain becomes unbearable, he will stubbornly ignore it.
There are a variety of problems in everyone's life. Proactive people do everything they can to stay alert: take care of their health, spend time with family, get work done, and constantly learn something new. Reactive people hope that the problem will solve itself or that no one will notice the mistake. This attitude towards life may work for a while and even produce results, but someday the day will come when you have to pay.
Proactivity is a behavior that employers value. If you can't achieve success in your career or fail interviews one after another, most likely the fact is that you do not know how to cope with difficulties. Modern companies are looking for people who seek answers themselves, become better people, solve problems, and do not wait for instructions.
Reactive people, in addition to the shortcomings listed above, also develop a victim complex. Instead of asking themselves, “How can I solve this problem?”, they exclaim, “Why did this happen to me!?” or “It’s not my fault, that’s all...”. The point is precisely in the initial reaction, in the first thought that arises in the head. And this reaction can be changed.
First, let's find out what other benefits proactive thinking has.
The Benefits of Proactive Thinking
Creative field: You can work in a bank, but still dream of becoming an artist. There is nothing wrong with this at first glance, but suppressed desires over time can cause stress, depression, and outbursts of anger. And all because you are in the wrong place. A person cannot do something for a long time without consequences that he is not passionate about.
Introspection
Look at yourself objectively and answer the following questions: What problems and challenges do I face regularly? How do I respond to a problem? What's my first thought? It's not just about work, think about every area of your life.
Recognize the importance of the gap in the stimulus-response chain
We are constantly forced to react: people demand something, the world makes its claims, the economy is unstable. There are so many of these requests that we begin to respond “automatically” and forget that we are able to choose an answer.
We are used to getting annoyed when a work colleague asks for help with work. We get angry if we are going for a picnic and it starts to rain. Whenever the world does not meet our expectations, we react with anger.
It should be remembered that with enough practice, you can feel the very gap between the stimulus and the unconscious negative reaction. This means that you will be happy if, instead of having a picnic, you stay at home and watch a movie. That you put aside your current work and calmly take on the one that needs to be done right now.
In this gap lies happiness and peace of mind. If you subjugate it to your will, then nothing can stop you.
Find out which tasks can wait
You've probably heard or read about. It is divided into four quadrants:
- Urgent and important matters.
- Urgent and unimportant matters.
- Not urgent or important matters.
- Not urgent and unimportant matters.
Everything is clear with the last quadrant: these things can be safely crossed out if we are too busy. We don’t need the second quadrant either (a friend who called in the middle of the workday can wait until the evening). Two remain:
- Urgent and important matters.
- Not urgent or important matters.
Many people believe that the most important quadrant is urgent and important matters. But is this true? Of course, these tasks must be completed, because the current situation depends on them. And yet the most important quadrant is not urgent and important matters. These are the tasks that you need to do in any free minute. And this is what distinguishes a proactive person from a reactive one.
If you try really hard, within a month you can change your life by removing a fair amount of stress. Remember that all important things sooner or later become urgent. And when this happens, we usually don't have enough time for them. As a result, we begin to get nervous, angry, and irritated. We scold the world, circumstances, other people. But the fact is that we simply did not address this issue earlier.
Non-urgent and important things are what you should do every day. Go to the dentist, otherwise you will lose time and money later. Write your coursework in advance so as not to ruin your health for a week without sleep and rest, when there is nothing left before delivery. Buy a gift for a loved one so you don’t feel embarrassed when you give away a meaningless trinket you bought an hour earlier on the move.
Constantly evaluate what works and what doesn't.
A proactive person can also make mistakes. But unlike the reactive one, he will constantly ask himself the question “What works and what doesn’t?” It will improve the problem-solving process and remove all unnecessary things.
To prepare for a problem, to anticipate it, you also need to ask yourself about trends. Are they seasonal? Do they happen at a certain time of the day, week, month, year, during a holiday? For example, someone is trying to quit drinking, but Friday comes and plans to change their life collapse.
Also try to anticipate what you need to know. Is it possible to find out information ahead of time? Acquire a skill? Can a current skill be applied in a new way? Proactive people are constantly looking for new things and also learn from the past.
Proactive Solution
Proactive decision making requires you to think about what future outcomes will arise from your actions. This also means that you are aware of the tools that can be used to do this.
Define the problem. Gather information about the problem that will help you make a decision. For example, if you fell, find out what the reason is: customer service, a drop in quality, or something else. This alone makes you proactive because you are making an effort to identify the problem rather than passively looking at the situation.
Brainstorm and develop multiple solutions to the problem. If you've discovered that sales are down due to poor service, now is the time to take action - from firing you to a one-on-one conversation to figure out the details.
Write down the pros and cons of each decision.. Closely monitoring employees can distract them from performing their duties, so this option has a big disadvantage. However, helping employees improve customer service is a benefit because it can improve customer satisfaction.
Select one or more best solutions. You can choose several solutions only if they do not contradict each other.
Adjust the solution or implementation as necessary. It is difficult to find the ideal solution the first time, because there are dozens of factors that change and influence each other.
Books
Here is a list of books that will help you understand the topic of proactivity in more detail.
- "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey.
- "Five Principles of Proactive Thinking" John Miller.
- "Proactive Thinking" John Miller.
- "Be the best version of yourself" Dan Waldschmidt.
- "Man's Search for Meaning" Viktor Frankl.
- A Whole Life by Les Hewitt and Jack Canfield.
These books will help you think about how you prevent and respond to problems. Remember that the most difficult, but most effective thing is to break the chain of accusations and self-pity. This is difficult and will not happen overnight, so be prepared for the fact that it will take a long time to eradicate this deficiency. But the result will amaze you.
One day you will realize that immediately after a problem arises, your first reaction will be to think: “So this happened. How can I solve this? This means that you have made great progress in acquiring a proactive mindset.
We wish you good luck!
Proactivity as a category describing a person's pattern of thinking and behavior was first used by Viktor Frankl. As a prisoner of the Nazi camps, for three years the Austrian psychiatrist not only survived, but also analyzed what exactly gave him and other prisoners strength, despite the inhumane conditions of existence.
Frankl’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning,” published in 1946, remains a bestseller to this day, and the term “proactivity” proposed by the scientist has easily taken root in modern psychology and management.
Who should be considered a proactive person?
According to Wikipedia, proactivity is one of the categories of humanistic psychology. It describes a type of thinking in which a person’s reaction to an external stimulus is based on his independent will. Viktor Frankl included in the group of proactive people responsible individuals who do not shift the blame for what happened to them to life circumstances and those around them.
Stephen Covey, a venerable consultant on organizational management, also insisted that a person’s success and efficiency directly depends on his strong-willed personal qualities. Successful author and lecturer Wayne Dyer calls individuals with proactive thinking patterns people without limits. David Allen, an expert in the field of individual productivity, emphasizes the readiness of such a person for anything. Personal development coach and entrepreneur Anthony Robbins describes proactivity as unlimited power.
Thus, all formulations of this concept come down to two components - responsibility and activity. The first component of proactive thinking assumes that a person independently considers them correct and is aware of the consequences. This means that most events in life are a pattern, the result of one’s own actions. At the same time, responsibility alone is not enough to achieve a goal: it is necessary to be active.
How does thinking affect behavior?
Psychologists distinguish two attitudes to life that influence behavior patterns: proactivity and its opposite – reactivity. How to determine belonging to a particular category?
According to Stephen Covey, all events in life can be roughly classified as a “circle of concern” and a “circle of influence.” Their essence is as follows. The first area involves phenomena that the average individual cannot influence: weather conditions, price jumps, currency exchange rate fluctuations. The “circle of influence” refers to events in life that can be changed. They usually relate to health, family, work, education, relationships. People with a reactive mindset focus on the “circle of concerns”, so they feel that nothing depends on them. A proactive person focuses on their “circle of influence,” trying to change what they can.
Features of the reactive behavior model:
- passivity, emotionality, search for excuses;
- the result of actions directly depends on the combination of circumstances;
- reluctance to make decisions;
- shifting responsibility to others;
- Typical expressions are “I can’t”, “I don’t have enough”, “I have to”, “if only”, “nobody needs it”.
Features of a proactive behavior model:
- initiative and activity;
- the conviction that there is a choice, the ability to change something;
- willingness to take responsibility;
- integrity, purposefulness;
- changing (or choosing) circumstances to suit your tasks;
- typical expressions are “I can”, “I will do”, “I choose”, “my decision”.
Thus, people of the first category are objects of action, representatives of the second group are subjects. If we paraphrase the famous phrase of Socrates, it turns out that the proactivist is looking for opportunities, and the reactivist is looking for reasons.
Thirty Day Test by Stephen Covey
There are no people with 100% reactive or proactive thinking. In some situations a person prefers to be a spectator, in others - a director. Success comes to those for whom proactivity is the norm rather than the exception. How do you know which behavior pattern is more common in you? Take Stephen Covey's 30-day test.
Within a month it is necessary to act in the “circle of influence”. To visualize it visually, you need to draw two circles on a piece of paper - a large one and a smaller one inside it. Now you need to mentally formulate a specific task. In the space formed between the circles, obstacles to success that cannot be influenced should be written.
The inner circle needs to be divided into four segments and in each one it is necessary to write briefly what will help solve the problem:
- “knowledge” – sources from which you can obtain the necessary information (books, magazines, seminars, meetings);
- “tools” – devices, technologies, skills, abilities that help achieve the desired goal;
- “helpers” - people who can help resolve the issue;
- “budget” – expense items and possible sources of financing.
The small circle is the zone of influence that you need to focus on. After analyzing the lists in it, you need to create a quick action plan.
For the next thirty days, it should be carried out step by step. If something does not work out, you cannot make excuses, criticize others and blame them for failures. It is better to admit your mistakes and correct them immediately. At the end of the month, summing up the results, it is necessary to analyze in what situations the behavior was reactive, and what should have been done from a position of proactivity.
How to become a proactive person?
It’s easy to adjust your behavior pattern and be proactive if you follow these recommendations:
- Any transformation begins with introspection. It is necessary to understand which areas of life come first, what can be developed in these areas, and who (what) will help with this.
- Proactivity is based on intense activity, so you should find the shortest paths to achieve your goal.
- Mistakes are not a reason for despondency, but an incentive to look for an alternative way out. Things will go faster if, in addition to the main plan of action, there is also a backup plan.
- Difficulties cannot be ignored in the hope that they will “resolve” on their own. Problems must be resolved in a timely manner.
- Proactivity is inextricably linked with self-improvement, so you need to master new technologies, read useful books, and communicate with interesting people.
- The ability to prioritize is a valuable quality for success. Current tasks can be presented in the form of a list, arranging them according to urgency.
For those who decide to develop proactivity, Stephen Covey advises paying attention not only to actions, but also to speech. When speaking, it is necessary to demonstrate in every possible way your strong-willed attitude to actions: “I can (understand, decide) ....” Remember: there is always a choice. Tired of work? You can build relationships with colleagues and bosses differently, open your own business, or, after receiving an education, try your hand at another field. The main thing is to be honest with yourself, take an active position, clearly see the goal and take steps towards it every day.
Proactivity is the first and most famous of the seven skills.
I do not intend to retell or make notes of the book - I can’t tell it better than Covey. But, my goal is to briefly, in simple words, try to highlight the basics. So that it is remembered and imprinted on the brain for a long time (preferably forever). I kindly ask you to carefully read what is written in theoretical articles, because this is a syrup/extract. Correct understanding of theory leads to correct implementation in practice.
So:
Point one: There are only two models of approach to your life - proactive and reactive.
Proactivity means that as humans, we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior depends on our decisions, not on our environment. We can subordinate our feelings to our values. We initiate what happens and are responsible for it. Highly effective people don't shy away from responsibility. They do not explain their behavior by circumstances and a difficult situation. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choices based on values, and not a product of environmental conditions based on feelings.
Reactivity. If our lives have become dependent on various circumstances, it is because we - consciously or not - made our choice and allowed external forces to control us. When we make these choices, we become reactive. Reactive people are often influenced by the physical conditions of their environment. If the weather is good, they feel good. If the weather is bad, it affects their mood and performance. Reactive people depend on the social environment, on the “social weather”. If others treat them well, everything is fine with them, but if they feel bad, then they become closed and take a defensive position.
Examples of thinking and speech:
Proactive model: Let's see what opportunities there are. I may take a different approach. I control my feelings. I can prepare an effective presentation. I will make the appropriate decision. I choose... I prefer... I will do...
Reactive Model: I can't help it. This is who I am. He annoys me so much. They won't agree to this. I'll have to do this. I can’t... I have to... If only...
Main conclusion: everything that is proactive is correct and leads to increased efficiency, everything that is reactive reduces efficiency and does not allow growth.
Point two- a fundamental principle of human nature: a person always has freedom of choice between stimulus and reaction. We have an independent will—the ability to act based on self-awareness, regardless of any outside influence.
In other words- no matter what life situation we find ourselves in:
- in any case, we have time to choose a reaction (think before you act)
- we must use this time to choose the most proactive scenario of action (I can change this situation)
Recommendation: never rush to react instantly in any critical, conflict, or simply life situation. Think first. Choose a proactive behavior model for these conditions and act on it.
And don’t worry that you might be called “slow” because you think for a long time in a seemingly simple situation.
We are carriers of template reactions to standard problems, for the most part – these reactions are reactive. If you want to increase efficiency, reactions must be changed to proactive ones.
Point three: there is a circle of concern and a circle of influence - the circle of influence must be constantly expanded.
We can determine the degree of our proactivity by looking at where we spend most of our time and energy. Each of us is concerned or concerned about a wide range of issues and phenomena; health, children, work problems, taxes, threat of nuclear war. We can separate all these things from those that do not have much emotional or intellectual impact on us, placing them in the circle of concerns. If we take a closer look at our circle of concerns, we will see that some of the things within it are beyond our control, while others are subject to our influence. We can consolidate this last group of concerns by placing them within a smaller circle of influence. Proactive people focus their efforts on their circle of influence. They expand and increase their circle of influence. Reactive people, on the contrary, waste their efforts in a circle of worries. Their circle of influence is shrinking.
The problems we face fall into one of three categories:
1) problems that are under our direct control (i.e. those whose solution depends on us);
2) problems that are under our indirect control (their final solution depends on other people);
3) problems that are beyond our control (which we cannot influence in any way: for example, our past or an already existing situation).
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Problems under our direct control can be solved by improving our efficiency skills. These problems are within our circle of influence.
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To solve problems that are under our indirect control, we can resort to changing our methods of influence. These are “public victories” that we will talk about in the second part of the training.
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Problems that are beyond our control only require us to accept responsibility and calmly accept these problems for what they are and learn to live with them. A distinctive feature of reactive people is the desire to avoid responsibility.
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One of the ways to determine which circle this or that problem of ours belongs to is to distinguish between the concepts of “to have” and “to be.” If the circle of concerns is filled with various things to have, for example: “If I had a boss without dictatorial habits...” - this is a manifestation of the reactive model.
Whenever we think that the problem is “out there,” that very thought is the problem. We allow what is outside of us - "out there" - to control us. This is the “outside-in” paradigm of change, according to which we can only change after what is outside of us changes.
Main conclusion: the overall increase in personal effectiveness directly depends on expanding the circle of influence. The wider your circle of influence, the more effective you become.
Proactivity – expanding the circle of influence.
1. We make a list of our problems/questions that concern us at the moment.
For example (my incomplete/approximate list) of what concerns:
a) The impenetrable idiocy of the housing and communal services system
b) Partner does not live up to expectations
c) There is not enough money to implement a new project
d) I want to constantly please my loved ones so that they feel good with me
e) The country has a stupid tax system
f) The programmer on one of the projects missed deadlines
The list is incomplete, I wrote six points for clarity.
2. Now let's break down the problems into groups:
First group- points a) and e):
I cannot influence housing and communal services and the tax system.
If I now go to forums and spend a day discussing their imperfections, it will not change anything.
If I constantly twitch and get upset about them (reports/incomprehensible accruals/incompetent employees), I will only harm my nervous system.
Therefore, I simply accept them as they are and play by their rules (no matter how imperfect they may be) - I pay utility bills once a month by the 10th and once a quarter I submit reports to the tax office by the 20th.
Second group:
I can quite effectively influence the actions of my partner (point b) and the work of the programmer (point f). But this is an indirect influence - now we will not dwell in detail on this group of problems/issues - the second part of our training will be for them.
Third group:
I can personally please my loved ones (d) and earn money (c), this is possible now and depends only on me.
More details:
Money. For a personal project until the end of September you need 20,000 rubles in excess of your estimated earnings.
To do this:
— expanded the advertising campaign in direct messages
— updated advertisements about writing selling texts on the forums
— carried out a campaign to develop websites for mailing lists
— arranged a sale of texts on a text exchange
— reminded old clients of myself
— tested a new scheme for attracting clients
The result of the actions is about 10 preliminary applications, 3 confirmed conversions, cash so far 5,800 rubles.
Please your family and friends. I love them - they are the coolest.
— I ordered my mother some bees to rub her knees. Today they brought it from the apiary - tomorrow I will give it to her (really cool stuff).
— I asked my beloved what to please her with. She asked that portraits, photographs and drawings be hung in the apartment and that the shelf in the kitchen be repaired. Our renovations were completed in May, but we still can’t get around to it (fuck me! :)). Now I’ll finish the article and go hang it up.
Proactivity – the moment of choosing a reaction
No one can offend me unless I allow it myself (c) Gandhi
The main point of proactivity is that we ourselves can choose our reaction to an external stimulus. Don’t act according to a template, don’t let the first emotion take over you, don’t cave in under the problem, but choose the most acceptable and effective course of action. The option that will be most effective in achieving the goal.
This allows you to feel great after (and during) any conflict/difficult life situation/stress and feel that in this situation you “were human” and acted correctly/effectively.
It’s not difficult to be proactive, but it’s more difficult to remember that you set out to be proactive. This has always been a problem for me - not to forget. The reminder on the computer, by the way, helps, and my beloved wife also helps a lot, who also read Covey and now reminds me in any difficult situation: “Be proactive!”
My personal example today:
17 hours 45 minutes. I opened the mail and read that the client suddenly sent money for the development instead of transferring it to a bank account - using the Golden Crown express transfer system.
Because for 7 minutes got dressed, went downstairs, and ran to the bank. When I entered the bank, the clock was 17:57 .
One person was being serviced issuing transfers and the girl operator said:
- You won’t make it in time, don’t get in line... the ticket office has already closed.
What to do? Turn around and leave? To get to another pick-up point, you need to start the car and drive, or run a couple of stops.
But - I want to be highly effective)). And I have a few seconds to choose the right reaction. And today I managed to choose the reaction really just right.
I leaned over the counter and said confidentially:
- Girl... and you know... if I am your last client, it will be fortunate. This means that you will definitely have a successful evening today.
She froze for several minutes - she also experienced a pattern break. Then she picked up the intercom and told the cashier.
- Please open the cash register - the last customer is here. Yes... I know it's already six o'clock. Well, for me personally...
So I received the translation today).
Proactivity is when...
...everything is falling out of hand...
...a problem has arisen...
...something is not working...
...but you still find the right reaction/solution.
A person is constantly influenced by a lot of different factors, and our reaction to them changes our lives. There are people who go with the flow, and there are those who choose their own path. Proactivity is not a skill or ability, it is not a natural talent. Proactivity is first and foremost our choice. This word is difficult to define and describe in one sentence, but it is a very important quality of a person.
What is proactivity
Proactivity is a person’s conscious desire to influence the events, phenomena, and processes occurring around him. Proactivity was described by Stephen Covey in his book "". It was after this that the word became widespread; previously they were used in psychology.
Stephen Covey identified proactivity as the first skill of highly effective people. All activities can be characterized as activity, but activity can be divided into: proactivity and reactivity. Reactivity is a passive reaction to external conditions; a person simply goes with the flow and does not show any effort to change the conditions of existence. A proactive person influences all events that are in his area of influence. This is a very important point; a proactive person focuses all his efforts on influencing the processes under his control. At the same time, he does not waste energy on changing something that he cannot influence in any way.
It is very important here to correctly place zones of influence; many people believe that they are not able to influence many things, but this turns out not to be the case. Conversely, many people think that they can influence what is happening, and they are mistaken. For understanding, I will give a small example from life. Probably, many have heard people complaining that they are not paid enough money at work. And they cannot influence this in any way. This is the judgment of a reactive person, because there are ways out of this situation: ask for a raise or raise, take on more responsibility, or change jobs. A reactive person will sit and wait for a miracle, which is why he is paid so little. In fact, there are a lot of processes in life that we can influence.
There is also the opposite situation: a person devotes too much time to things that he cannot influence and which will never bring him profit and pleasure. For example, there are individuals who are trying to change the government in the country or change the policy of the state or company.
Why is proactivity needed?
Proactivity in business and at work will seriously increase your results; proactivity in life will lead you to success. Going with the flow is much easier than fighting, but only in fighting can you achieve what you want and turn your dreams into reality. Proactivity is not the key to success; without this quality, many people who had talents and abilities remained unknown, simply because they waited for everything to happen by itself.
At work, a proactive employee is a great value and it is worth holding on to and developing them. As a rule, proactivity is laid down during upbringing, even in childhood, but there are people who changed their attitude towards the world in adulthood.
How to cultivate proactivity
It is extremely difficult to cultivate proactivity in yourself, and even more difficult in your subordinates. In addition, if you yourself are not a proactive person, then you will never be able to achieve this from your subordinates.
If you want to be surrounded by proactive people, start with yourself. Never become discouraged, teach your people to look for benefits in everything and opportunities to benefit from everything. In order to cultivate proactivity, start thinking about and weighing all your decisions. You must understand well what you want to achieve and make decisions based on this; you must avoid making impulsive decisions, which are typical for many people and which, as a rule, pursue current interests and are not aimed at the future.
Behavior involves acting in advance of a future situation rather than simply reacting. This means taking control and doing things, rather than simply adapting to a situation or waiting for something to happen. Proactive employees generally do not need to be asked to act, nor do they require detailed instructions.
Proactivity is (in simple words)
Proactive behavior can be contrasted with other work-related behaviors such as skills, e.g. meeting predictable job requirements or adaptability, successfully addressing and supporting changes initiated by others in the organization. Regarding the latter, while adaptability is a reaction to change, proactivity is the initiation of change.
Subtleties and features
Proactivity is not limited to additional role behaviors. Employees can be proactive in their assigned role (for example, by changing the way they perform a primary task to improve efficiency). Similarly, activities labeled organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) can be carried out proactively or passively. For example, an altruistic OCB may be proactive in the team (e.g., offering help to employees before they ask for help).
Story
The use of the word proactive (or pro-active) was limited to the field of experimental psychology in the 1930s and was used with a different meaning. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term "what is proactiveness" by authors Paul Whiteley and Gerald Blankfort, citing their 1933 article which discusses proactive inhibition as "the impairment or retardation of learning or remembering what is learned by effects that remain active from conditions to training."
In another related sense, the 1946 book Man's Search for Meaning brought the word into the wider public sphere. The author, Austrian existential neuropsychiatrist Dr. Viktor Frankl, used this word to describe a person who has taken responsibility for his life, rather than looking to external circumstances or blaming other people for reasons. Frankl emphasized the importance of courage, perseverance, individual responsibility, and awareness of the existence of choices, regardless of the situation or context.
Etymology
Etymologically, the word is "centaur" (as in "bi-cycle"), combining the Greek prefix ("pro-" meaning "before") with the Latin root, "active". The Latin prefix "pre-" ("before") could be used, but perhaps it would then be confused with "re-active" (reactive).
Proactive Communication
Proactive communication is a customer relationship lifecycle strategy used to increase customer loyalty. This is related to the proactive term "organizational psychology", which states that people should act based on anticipatory behavior rather than react to situations. The strategy is used to provide customer service and build trust through personalized customer management to predict common requests. It is used to reduce customer frustration and mitigate customer service problems before they have the chance.
Feedforward
Proactive communication includes social media responsiveness and multi-channel community outreach. Strategy is used at every stage of the customer life cycle. The goal of proactive customer communications is to anticipate and optimize all interactions to be effective and personalized for each one.
In corporate life
In most modern workplaces, it is not enough for employees to respond and adapt to changes in their environment; rather, they must plan ahead and prepare for potential threats and dangers in the future by taking the initiative today. Research has shown that, overall, active participation in prevention leads to positive outcomes. But sometimes employee proactivity can also lead to negative (side) effects, such as increased stress. Employees therefore need to consider the trade-offs between the rewards and potential costs of proactive behavior at work.
It is worth giving a clear example of proactivity. Imagine the following situation: your secretary knows that you have an important meeting and, without any prompting, prepares a file for you with all the necessary documentation, expecting that you may have forgotten something. Or think about the customer service representative at your firm who takes the initiative to suggest changing a standard administrative procedure so that it can be done more efficiently and will cost less. Or consider that employees have asked their manager for feedback on their performance because they want to improve the quality of their work. These scenarios share a common theme: employees are trying to anticipate future changes, opportunities or problems and want to prepare for these situations today. They don't just react to signals from the environment, but proactively try to change the situation. In the organizational psychological literature, such anticipatory (“acting in advance”), self-directed, and change-oriented (“change”) behaviors are indicators of proactivity. The skill of proactivity needs to be developed, as it is extremely useful in the modern world.
Promotion
Many organizations see proactive behavior on the part of their employees as critical to their survival in today's fast-paced business world with its increasingly complex work challenges. At the organizational level, adapting and responding to changes in one's environment is not enough; companies must be proactive to stay ahead of the competition and survive. As the excellent researcher in this field, Michael Frese, points out in his 2008 article: “The word is missing: we need a proactive concept of productivity for the modern workplace.” These modern workplaces require flexible and responsible employees who go beyond narrow tasks and who take a proactive approach to work. Additionally, individual careers have changed over the past decade. Employees change jobs faster and more often. This reduces the role of any given employer in managing employees' careers and increases the need for employees to take charge of their own careers. All of the above is the answer to the question of what proactivity is.
Research
Based on these developments in organizations, academic articles such as Grant and Ashford's (2008) review of proactivity at work highlight that a new type of employee is needed in times of flat hierarchies in organizations and uncertain, dynamic, highly competitive business environments. This “new employee” must engage in independent, future-oriented behavior without the need for constant supervision and instruction from others. These authors also argue that: “Employees don't just let them live. Rather, they try to influence, shape, collapse, expand and soften what happens in their lives.” Proactivity and reactivity are two opposites in human behavior.
From an individual point of view
Proactive behavior may be aimed at changing the self (e.g., learning new skills) or the environment (e.g., making suggestions on how to improve care), and can be contrasted with both passive and reactive behavior. There are a number of different task- and organization-specific tasks that can be seen as proactive, such as seeking feedback, making suggestions for improvement, or whistleblowing (reporting wrongdoing in your organization), as well as more self-directed activities, such as managing your career (for example, by taking the initiative to attend training that may be useful in your future job).
