Thursday, November 6, 2008

"Find Things To Do"

That's one of the best ways I've heard 'being proactive' defined. It's the ability to find helpful, productive and meaningful (and usually rewarding) things to do with one's time at work.

I can attest it's an art, having spent three years at a professional services firm, in which possibly only 20% of individuals are constantly seen initiating tasks they love i.e. finding cool things to do.

It takes more than merely asking the senior manager, "Is there anything I can help you with?" Nah, it takes a lot more than that.

It's transforming the most menial task allocated to you into something which makes other people go Wow.

It's marketing oneself, slide by slide, report by report, explanation by explanation, smile by smile.

It's thinking of instantly acceptable new ideas which get others excited and eager to see implemented (not necessarily by them, of course).

It's doing some very obvious things which no one else has taken the time to do because they feared stress or non-appreciation or both - and you couldn't care about these concerns either way (why not? because you were looking for things to do).

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