What is proactivity? Proactive behavior includes actions in front of a future situation, and not just a response. This means taking control and doing things, and not just adapting to the situation or waiting for something. Proactive employees, as a rule, do not need to be asked to act, and they do not require detailed instructions.
Proactivity is (in simple words)
Proactive behavior can be contrasted with other types of behavior related to work, for example, skills, i.e. Fulfillment of predictable requirements for their work or adaptability, successful solution and support of changes initiated by others in the organization. As for the latter, while adaptability is a reaction to changes, proactivity is the initiation of changes.
Subtleties and features
Proactivity is not limited to additional role-playing behavior. Employees can be active in their prescribed roles (for example, by changing the way they perform the main task to increase efficiency). Similarly, activity designated as organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) can be proactive or passive. For example, an altruistic BSC can be active in a team (for example, offering help to employees before they seek help).
History
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 proactivity” by Paul Whiteley and Gerald Blankfort, referring to their 1933 article, which discusses predictive inhibition as “impairing or slowing down learning or remembering what is learned from effects that remain active from training. "
In another related meaning, the 1946 book, “The Search for the Meaning of Man,” brought the word into the wider public sphere. The author, the Austrian existential neuropsychiatrist Dr. Victor Frankl, used this word to describe a person who took responsibility for his life, instead of looking for reasons in external circumstances or blaming other people. Frankl emphasized the importance of courage, perseverance, individual responsibility, and awareness of the existence of choice, regardless of situation or context.
Etymology
Etymologically, this word is a “centaur” (as, for example, “bi-cycle” - a bicycle), 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 due to the proactivity of the term "organizational psychology", which states that people should act on the basis of advancing behavior, and not respond to situations. The strategy is used to provide customer service and build trust through personalized customer management to forecast common requests. It is used to reduce customer frustration and mitigate customer service problems before they have the opportunity.
Proactive communication
Proactive communication includes responsiveness on social networks and multi-channel contact with society. The strategy is used at every stage of the client’s life cycle. The goal of proactive customer communications is to anticipate and optimize all interactions in order to be effective and personalized for each of them.
In corporate life
In most modern jobs, employees do not have enough responsiveness and adapt to changes in their environment; rather, they should plan ahead and prepare for potential threats and dangers in the future, taking the lead today. Studies have shown that overall active participation in prevention leads to positive results. But sometimes the proactivity of employees can also lead to negative (side) effects, such as increased stress. Therefore, workers need to consider the trade-offs between remuneration and the potential costs of active behavior at work.
It is worth giving a good example of proactivity. Imagine the following situation: your secretary knows that you have an important meeting, and without any hints prepares a file for you with all the necessary documentation, expecting that you may have forgotten something. Or think of a customer service officer in your company who takes the initiative by proposing to change the standard administrative procedure so that it can be done more efficiently and it will cost less. Or think that employees asked their supervisor for feedback on their effectiveness, as 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 not only respond to signals from the environment, but proactively try to change the situation. In organizational psychological literature, such anticipatory ("acting in advance"), independent and change-oriented ("changing") types of behavior are an indicator of proactivity. The proactivity skill 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 tasks. At the organizational level, adapting and responding to changes in your environment is not enough; companies must be active in order to stay ahead of the competition and survive. As noted by a remarkable researcher in this field, Michael Frese in his article in 2008: “There is no word: we need an active concept of productivity for modern workplaces.” Such modern workplaces need flexible and responsible employees who go beyond narrow tasks and who approach work proactively. In addition, individual careers have changed over the past decade. Employees change jobs faster and more often. This reduces the role of any particular employer in managing the career of employees and increases the need for employees to take care of their careers themselves. All of the above is the answer to the question of what is proactivity.
Research
Based on these developments, organizations' academic articles, such as a review of proactivity at work by Grant and Ashford (2008), emphasize 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 instructions from others. These authors also argue that: “Employees do not just let them live. Rather, they are trying to influence, shape, curtail, expand and soften what is happening in their life. ” Proactivity and reactivity are two opposites in human behavior.
From an individual point of view
Proactive behavior can be directed towards changing the self (for example, learning new skills) or the environment (for example, suggesting how to improve service), and can be opposed to both passive and reactive behavior. There are a number of different tasks focused on specific tasks and organizations that can be considered as active, such as seeking feedback, making suggestions for improvement or disclosing information (reporting violations in your organization), as well as more independent actions, such as managing his career (for example, taking the initiative to attend training that may be useful at work in the future).
Conclusion
All these actions can be characterized as independent, change-oriented and future-oriented. There are, of course, aspects unique to specific proactive actions; for example, a proactive search for feedback is due to the fact that the employee does not have information about efficiency, while proposals for improving his organization are based on the fact that the employee has an advantage in information and wants to share it. Nonetheless, proactivity researchers have also identified several factors, psychological mechanisms, and effects that generalize to several forms of active behavior. For example, employees who are highly committed to their organization try to solve problems, develop and implement ideas for improvements in their organization, take the initiative, share knowledge or help others, actively seek feedback, etc. Now you know what proactivity is and how it manifests itself in life.