Do you want something to be better? A new tree on the top of the hill perhaps? Or safer health and finances? Or improved relationships? Wish to smarten up the way you work? Or pivot the direction of political action in your country? Anything you want to improve, change or create needs you to take the initiative. Why don’t people do so? Because they are scared.
Fear of failure is the biggest single drag on our launching an initiative.
For three years in the middle of my career I was in “The Doldrums”. The term first meant a region of the sea near the Equator known for its calm, windless conditions. Sailing ships got stuck there. I was stuck in my doldrums. I had been appointed Corporate Planner for a very big company in Britain employing 145,000 people. The business had grown by acquisition. Neither my boss nor I had the slightest idea what Corporate Planning meant.
All would have been well if I had taken the initiative and researched what it was about. Fear of failure in such a big organisation, that I had only just joined, stopped me from doing so. That meant three years not just down my career drain but down some other people’s too. Asking what you didn’t know used to betray unacceptable ignorance; now it is recognised as logical. Especially as AI is trained not to be rude to you. But you still need plenty of initiative if you are to prompt (the word should be ‘brief’) Chat or some other AI system you are using.
What are the times when initiative is most needed?
Obviously, emergencies come high on the list. You can think in advance what you will do if you have an accident while driving a car. But you can also think what you will do if you have a career upset, a serious illness or an opportunity to play a bigger role in shaping and growing an operation. You can also think about taking the initiative over issues that have not yet emerged. Initiative is not just thinking fast at the time. It is thinking ahead as far as you can.
Who are the people who get on in this world? Those who take the initiative, of course. What does someone hire you for? Unless it is a boring, repetitive, routine function, they hire you to take the initiative. What will get you promoted? Again, taking the initiative – but doing so can also get you fired. Businesses that don’t want initiative are destined to die. Even then, initiative can succeed. When asked to get rid of some small businesses in South East Asia I took the initiative, did the opposite and built them into a respectably sizeable pan-Asia company. Our shareholders made a good profit and my colleagues and I benefited from it, too.
Use your creative instinct to imagine greater business success. I asked Chat to produce the picture for this article. It took a bit of negotiating but I think you’ll agree it is novel. It makes you think “What is this boy doing?” Deciphering the answer involves taking the initiative.
Play with thinking about taking the initiative three times a day – at breakfast, after lunch and before your evening meal. And see which produces the best results. One thing is clear. Those who take the initiative will become the leaders.
They are already deciding the future of the world.
Good morning
John Bittleston
Do you have good examples of initiative-taking?
We’d love to hear them at [email protected].
31 Jul 2025
