At my last performance review at work, I was told that my main flaw is being more reactive than proactive. I've been working on it, but it's still a major weakness of mine.
Anyone have tips for how to be better about this? It comes naturally to some people, but short of scheduling absolutely everything many months/years in advance, I'm not sure how to systematize it in my daily worklife.
Thanks in advance!
Well, first of all
"proactive" isn't a real word. It's a made-up bit of business jargon. What you need to be, according to this manager, is more active, which is the real opposite of reactive. (Sorry - jargon like this is a pet peeve, so needed to indulge the soapbox, however briefly).
Sure, you can ask the manager who made the comment. That shows you are taking the feedback seriously and trying to improve. Waiting for someone to spell it out for you, though, is sort of reactive. We all know what reactive means, and therefore what its opposite must be. You don't wait for things to happen and then react/respond, you anticipate them and take action in advance.
How to do this? Take the long view; try to see the big picture. Consider anything that has happened around the office during your time there. It could be something regular and predictable, like a monthly report or an annual conference. Or something occasional, like the need to write a grant every so often. Or something unanticipated, like needing to cover for the bookkeeper who had to be out for 8 weeks having surgery.
How would you deal with these situations? What could be done ahead of time to make them easier? Is there a way to streamline writing those reports, or to start the grant-writing process earlier so there's no last-minute rush, or to cross-train office staff so there is always a backup should someone unexpectedly be out? Perhaps your office already does these things. If so, it is because others before you have anticipated and taken action. See what else you can come up with by looking at processes and activities, large and small, and asking: what would happen if . . . ?