What Initiative Looks Like - When It's Missing, by Ginny Brien
In·i·ti·a·tive , noun the ability to assess and initiate things independently. the power or opportunity to act or take charge before others do. This week I got to distinguish initiative by observing its absence in myself. The strategy team had a retreat scheduled for Thursday, and I marked my calendar “be available,” because Nancy told me they might want to pull me in sometime during the day. On Tuesday, I had a call scheduled with Doug, but before and after, I was thinking mostly about the big dog client interviews I’d promised to summarize this week, and was starting to worry about how much (or little) of them I’d understand, and thinking that I should have started on them earlier. I had a few marketing and sales calls with people on the team, and between the reorganization of the supply closets and the email transition, working at home seemed like a smart choice. On Thursday morning, my phone rang at 9:00, just as I was settling in front of my computer to s...