Proactive vs. Reactive Behaviors

Each one of us has individual responsibility for our own lives. We are either proactive or reactive in our behaviors.

Highly proactive people recognize their own ability to choose a response. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own value based, conscious decision, rather than a feeling-based product of their conditions.

Proactive people focus on things they can do something about in a positive, enlarging, and magnifying way. A focus on fewer priorities makes us more productive. When multiple objectives exist, concentrate on one at a time. Strategic items, in contrast to day-to-day issues, require larger blocks of uninterrupted time (week, month, etc.).

Their physical and social environment largely affects reactive people. Reactive people build their emotional lives around the behavior of others, empowering the weaknesses of other people to control them.

Reactive people focus on other’s weaknesses, environmental problems, and circumstances outside their control. This results in blaming and accusing attitudes, reactive language, and increased feelings of victimization.

No one hurts us without our consent. The decision to be hurt by someone else or not is ours.

Avoid stating things in negative, reactive terms. The danger of such language is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Embedding negative thoughts into our subconscious mind separates us further from our positive goals. We may want certain things that are good, but if we direct our thoughts against them, we are in conflict. Obviously, we want our thoughts to be in direct alignment with our goals.

More than likely, most people fall somewhere between proactive and reactive. We realize some things are out of our control, but in other cases we have not. In these cases, only part of our energy is focused on what we really want. Some energy is being wasted on things that cannot be changed. In fact, in the larger spectrum of life they may not really matter at all. Imagine how much farther and faster you can get in the pursuit of your dreams if you used all this energy to your benefit.

Strong moral values expand your influence while immorality restricts. To read more about this book or purchase it now, click here for "Secret Techniques of the Successful Moral Manager."

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Create The You That You Want To Be

Even if you don't know what you want to be, you can establish the qualities you'll need to get there.

If you know what you want to accomplish, you are ready to start the process of preparing yourself to attain that goal.  You start from the inner reaches of your being, namely your character, paradigms, and motives.

 

If you want to be trusted, be trustworthy.  If you want to be happy, avoid negative thoughts.  Whatever you want to be, start first with your character.  Greatness comes from within.

Making and keeping promises to oneself, no matter how small, is key to keeping and making promises to others.  Bigger things come from smaller building blocks.

Deal with what is in your control and release your perceived hold of what isn’t.  Your energy is better spent on things within your power.  You are in charge of how you deal with or react to situations.  Exercise caution in reacting when you are angered or disappointed, because you may not be in control of your emotions.  It’s always better to withhold any comments or reaction until you’ve had adequate time to digest everything.

You become the person you want to be by developing successful habits.  A habit is defined as a behavior pattern acquired through frequent repetition.  Stephen Covey expands this definition as the intersection of knowledge, skill, and desire.  You cannot develop a habit without all three being in play at the same time.

Individuals behave according to their perception of reality, instead of true reality.

The Means Is Necessary To Be Effective And Efficient

Is there a football team without a weakness?  No.  However, the team with the most means (talent, health, good manager and assistants, and most complete team) has the best chance of the Superbowl.  The same is true of any company.

You must have the means available (employees, machinery, and time) to get the job done effectively and efficiently .  You can't accomplish more than the means allow.  If you made mistakes, make note of it and rectify the problem.  If there’s a problem you can fix, fix it as soon as you can.  If the circumstance or situation is outside of your control, notify your manager.  Report the pros and cons of your recommendations when letting your boss know what you think is required to make the operation more effective and productive.  Involve your employees and include them in your circle of decision-making.  If you’ve done everything possible to make things work and they don’t, realize it’s no longer in your control.

You must have the means available (employees, machinery, and time) to get the job done effectively and efficiently.

You have a set number of employees, machinery, and time to get things done and unless you can change one of these variables, it’s out of your control. An experienced supervisor generally knows what’s possible, especially when they have tried everything they’ve thought of. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep trying, just that you shouldn’t beat yourself up needlessly. Always try, but don’t allow yourself to feel that you’ve failed.

For example, I agreed to help a Plant that was having a slough of different problems, including delays, service issues, and labor problems.  It didn’t take long to see the many causes behind the problems.  They included:

• Serious lack of communication
• High overtime rates (17% +) that had become the norm. 
• High absenteeism rate (6% +)
• Workplace bullies
• Burned out supervisors
• Cases of harassment
• Shortage of employees – there weren’t enough to staff operations adequately
• Incompetent supervision
• Lack of labor knowledge
• No weekend staffing

Through time, all of these were getting much better except for the overtime rate and a shortage of employees. Continued efforts for hiring approval hit a dead end with the District and Area levels.

Despite the numerous problems, this office still carried the highest productivity in the District. Unfortunately, the high rate of overtime was leading to increased absenteeism, accidents, and morale problems. I requested additional modifications to existing machines to make them more efficient, but the District denied these requests. In the end, there was nothing to do except admit defeat. The means weren’t there to do things the right there, nor any assistance provided.

When It's Time To Hire

Too many employees leads to lower productivity, yet too few lead to problems as well, particularly over the long-term.

I worked for two Plants seeking higher levels of productivity.  The common thought was that cutting hours was the only way.  However, productivity levels remained constant even when there was a reduction in hours.  This occurs at some point, because there can be inefficiencies when too few people run an operation.  Machines take a certain number of people to run efficiently and safely.  Bouncing people from one spot to another, to extreme, is inefficient too.  If you’re running too lean, overtime may creep up.  In addition, if overtime creeps up too high, occurs too often, and lasts too long you risk lower morale levels.  Unfortunately, lower morale inevitably leads to higher sick leave percentages, higher accident rates, and greater employee turnover.

In my experience, employees that work overtime for an extended period, grow accustomed to the extra money, and grow dependent on it.  The problem occurs when the overtime is suddenly gone as is often the case when a new machine or new people are hired.  Suddenly, the employee that is dependent on the extra money in their check is struggling to pay his bills.  Some employees will drag their feet or do things to undermine operations in hopes of working overtime.  A supervisor should keep employees aware of any future changes that are expected.  Inform them how that may affect them.

On the other side, you have the employees that don’t want to work any overtime.  They prefer to work their required eight hours and go home.  These people might have someone they have to take care of, children, or a spouse.  Maybe they just want a better balance between work and their personal life.  When this type of person consistently faces overtime, they are more likely to call in sick when they really need a day off.  After all, they know if they go to work, they are probably going to work forced overtime, regardless of their other obligations. 

The best option is somewhere between too much overtime and too little.  The absence of any overtime, where employees are not exempt, generally suggests overstaffing in production lines.  Likewise, excessive overtime generally becomes costly in terms of additional pay premiums, morale, and accidents.  Each company must determine the overtime percentage that triggers additional hiring or a cut in hours.  This point is found by determining the point at which the cost of an additional employee is cheaper than overtime.  For the company I worked for, we figured that at a consistent overtime rate of seven percent or more it was cheaper to hire another employee. If we were consistently under three percent we did everything we could to cut hours, because we knew things were slower than normal.  We tried to operate between three and seven percent overtime, believing this was the ideal place to be financially.

Note:  these percentage rates were determined under the assumption that everything else remained roughly the same (productivity, attendance, machines, etc.).

Excellent Managers Excel At The Basics

Excellent leaders have a great awareness of the basics and make sure they are done exceptionally well.  Keep things as simple as possible.

“I emphasize the importance of details.  You must perfect every fundamental of your business if you expect it to perform well.”  Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonald’s

I’ve always been amazed at how many managers look for the magic switch that suddenly fixes every problem.  Success is a process of doing a lot of little things right.  The greatest inventions and achievements came after countless trials, errors, and failures.  From each step, a small nugget of knowledge was gained and forward progress was achieved.  Eventually these small nuggets begin to make a big pile of knowledge and the problems diminished.  The last piece of knowledge that we need to finish the job is usually discovered as a result of the accumulated knowledge we gained throughout the process. 

Check your Recording Practices

If your recording practices are flawed your true efficiency and productivity won’t be known.  If you are setting productivity goals, be sure the numbers you are basing them on are accurate.

The more variables involved, the more likely you’ll find problems.  Likewise, if the goals were set a while ago, it might be time to look at them again.  If technology or procedures have changed, the goals might be dramatically understated.  The ideal goal is one that requires some stretching, yet is achievable.  If you make it too easy, it won’t be effective in raising your efficiency.  Similarly, if the goal is set too high, it will do nothing but frustrate your employees.

There’s a lot more to the basic equation, Productivity = Hours / Pieces Worked, than first meets the eye.  These include: 

1. What hours are currently counted?
2. Whose hours are included?
3. Are there any other operations that should have their hours included?
4. Are there any operations that shouldn’t be included?
5. How do you measure productivity in areas where piece counts are unavailable?
6. Of the pieces worked, are reject and discarded pieces subtracted out?
7. What level of quality is required and how do you verify it?

The general process of evaluating procedures is to map every input into the operation, identify errors; and calculate the real throughput that is possible on machines.  When I say real throughput, I don’t mean the throughput that is possible if there are no mechanical or operator problems.  I’m talking about the throughput that is possible on most days, allowing for a certain amount of time for mechanical and operator problems.

For example, my company had machines that had listed throughputs of 40,000 pieces per hour.  However, in actual use they did about 32,000 pieces per hour.  If you were to base your budgeted hours and productivity goals on the higher figure, you would be gravely disappointed in the results.  The latter number is the more appropriate number to base any projections.

Re-evaluate any goals that may be outdated once new technology, modifications, or improved processes are put into place.  The worst thing you can do is have goals that aren’t in line with the capabilities of machines and people.

A Leader Must Establish Consistency To Achieve Expectations

If a leader doesn't show consistency in his or her decisions, employees will be confused as to the direction they are to take.

A leader should be consistent in his or her decisions, actions, and behavior.  Employees won’t know what to expect if your decisions constantly change.  Expectations must be known or they will remain expectations.  Excellent companies make their goals and expectations clearly and widely known.  They have a true focus of where they are, what they are capable of, and where they are going.  They know that the maximum effort of every person in their organization is ideal and unclear expectations undermine that effort.

Consistency means that you make the same decision when the factors at play are the same.  Vacation scheduling that has always been the same way each year shouldn’t be changed without prior notice.  The proposed changes should be thoroughly discussing with all affected parties first.  Consistency demands equal pay for equal work, equal punishment for equal acts, and equal treatment regardless of sex, race, belief, religion, etc.

Maintaining consistency doesn’t mean that you can’t change.  Change is inevitable and required for businesses to survive.  Consistency simply means that you clearly communicate changes, goals, and expectations.  Eliminating confusion and simplifying things to every extent possible make for a more productive, efficient organization.

The Leaders' Law Of Cause And Effect

Every action has a reaction nearly equal in intensity.  How do you tap it for the intended effect?

This natural law suggests that for every cause there will be a nearly equal effect in intensity.  If we make good use of our minds, skills, talents, and time, it will show in our outer lives.  Did you know that scarcely one in a thousand individuals put his or her time anywhere near its potential good use?  It’s true.

"When we see two facts accompanying one another for a long time, we are apt to suppose them related as cause and effect." --Thomas Jefferson to James Maury, 1815. ME 14:319

Imagine what you can accomplish if you were one of these one-in-a-thousand people.  Feed your body good food, get decent relaxation and good sleep, learn, develop, and maintain self-control (be responsible and accountable) and you can be everything you want to be.  Feed your mind only positive thoughts, clearly define your goals, take action every day, and view failures as mere learning experiences.  Dwell on your goals morning and night with pictures and emotions, as if you have already achieved it.  As my wife often reminds me, everything happens for a reason.  Life experiences, both good and bad, are necessary for growth.  What we make of each determines the life we will have.  

One important key to learning is learning to be a good listener and interviewer.  No one learns by talking, but by listening.  Learn to ask questions and build off those questions.  A lot can be learned very quickly from asking the right questions from the right person.