In my coaching role, when we’ve formed a view of the market, it’s always interesting to watch how the various players respond: are they proactively driving towards their objectives, albeit tuning for the conditions; are they more conservatively reacting in the way they make decisions; or are they frozen/inactive in the face of market conditions?
In my view, whilst it might be more comforting to think about market stability and the confidence that would give for decisions, in reality that is a mirage: the world is perpetually changing. Accordingly, aside from those few instances where a deliberate pause demonstrably enables a better outcome, waiting for the ‘perfect time’ is a fool’s errand.
So, we get left with how to balance our position between proactive and reactive.
Proactive – for strategic decisions with a longer decision window:
- Setting organisational direction and building the capacity to get there
- Talent and capability development (hiring, succession, learning)
- Aligning with core customers to build relationships and loyalty
- Risk management for early action on regulatory, operational or financial risks
- Understanding trends and driving innovation to gain a market edge
Reactive – for high stakes decisions with a constrained timeframe:
- Operational crises such as safety issues and tech outages
- Customer issues relating to product or service failures
- Market shocks including supply chain problems or geopolitical issues
- People problems such as key staff resignations or team conflict.
Whilst economic uncertainty is getting plenty of press and lots of leaders are defaulting to reactive or inactive, I’m pushing my clients to take advantage of the moment and lean much more into the proactive (i.e. we have a plan, let’s just work the plan) and its yielding positive results.
In your business, which of these stances are you observing in yourself and your team (and do they seem appropriate)? What are the implications of this approach over the next year or two (i.e. if you’re reacting to things where you should be proactive)? If the decision approach is not getting you where you need to be, what needs to be changed?