React, respond or initiate?
That’s pretty much all that’s on offer.
What will you do next?
The first gives us visceral satisfaction and emotional release, and it almost always leads to bad outcomes.
Responding is smarter. It requires each of us to think hard about the action and emotion we seek to create after something is put on our desk.
And the third? Initiating is ever easier and leveraged than ever before, which, surprisingly, also makes it more difficult to move up on our agenda.
In normal times, it’s easy to get into a rhythm of simply responding. Someone else setting the agenda.
When things are uncertain, it’s easy to react.
But now, right now, is the single best time to initiate. We’re in for a slog, but there will be an end to it.
Make things better by making better things.