Proactive decisions happen before things catch fire. The leader sees a risk while several roads are still open and chooses one of them on purpose. Reactive decisions happen when only one road is left.
This page is the short version of the Forbes panel «12 Ways For Business Leaders To Make More Proactive Decisions» from December 2020, to which I contributed. The full version with all sources and my reading is in the article 12 ways business leaders make more proactive decisions.
Two things set them apart from reactive ones: Timing and the number of options. Decide early, and you still have a choice. Decide late, and usually only damage control is left.
As a business leader facing many choices every day, look ahead at the risks to your strategic goals before you decide. A risk you see today is an option. The same risk in six months is an emergency.
Leaders who decide early spot potential problems and solve them before they arise. That builds trust in the decision-making of the company's leadership, among employees and customers alike. A leadership team that is rarely surprised appears calmer, and calm spreads.
1. Target picture, then three projects: Describe the target, assess your position honestly, pick three projects that carry the target.
2. The pace outside: How fast market, technology and regulation change sets how often you adjust inside.
3. Scenarios: Describe three possible futures and define the first moves for each.
4. Big goal, quarterly priorities: From the long goal via milestones to a few priorities per quarter.
5. Tomorrow's needs: Talk with customers, suppliers and your second line about what will be missing in 18 months.
6. Small problems: Take disruptions seriously while they are still small and cheap.
7. Lift your head weekly: One fixed window a week for the bigger questions.
8. Tomorrow's agenda: At the start of every meeting, collect what belongs in the next one.
9. Think tanks in house: Bring division heads to one table, speak openly, develop options.
10. Include those with influence: My own contribution. People who can influence the decision are heard beforehand, and it is clear who decides in the end.
11. Protect planning time: One fixed block a week, same day, same time.
12. Agile with guardrails: A few hard limits on time, budget and safety, and freedom to experiment in between.
Almost all 12 ideas share one core: A fixed moment in which leaders look before something happens. Making proactive decisions is a calendar question first and a method question second.
Four questions, answered honestly:
1. Is there a fixed slot in your calendar every week for questions that are not urgent?
2. When did you last raise a risk that nobody had on their radar yet?
3. Does everyone in your leadership team know who makes which decision?
4. How many of your decisions last month were made under time pressure you could have avoided?
Two or more honest no answers to the first three questions mean: Daily business decides for you.
Proactive decisions are made while several options are open. Reactive decisions are made under pressure, once a problem has already occurred. The difference lies in the timing, and the quality follows from it.
With one fixed window a week for questions that are not urgent, and with clear rules on who decides what in the leadership team. Both can start next week.
Yes. Deciding before the key information is available confuses speed with foresight. Proactive means looking early and then deciding at the right moment. Scenarios help to recognise that moment.
A big one. Proactive decisions need information from all areas and people who are allowed to raise risks early. A leadership team with room for disagreement sees problems sooner.
Further reading on hofmann.coach: 12 ways business leaders make more proactive decisions · Difficult conversations: 15 ways leaders get the best outcome · Leadership communication: 16 tips on the power of language
Note: Short version of the Forbes Coaches Council expert panel “12 Ways For Business Leaders To Make More Proactive Decisions”, published 18 December 2020. Idea 10 is my own contribution; the other eleven are summarised in my words.
Cristian Hofmann is an executive coach in Zurich and Schaffhausen (MAS Coaching & Supervision BSO, Forbes contributor). Over more than 20 years he has coached more than 1,500 leaders: CEOs, executive boards and leadership teams in Switzerland, with measurably agreed goals and, on request, pay-for-results. More about Cristian Hofmann.
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