When all else is lost, the future still remains.

Christian Nevell Bovee

I was privileged to share a platform this Monday morning with an entirely different kind of leader. I wish the heads of credit card operations in some of our major banks would take a look at this CEO, Aaron Feuerstein, in a 60 Minutes video. And to hear him on Monday describe in the simplest terms why good corporate citizenship must be rooted in a sense of personal values.

Not being illegal is nowhere near close enough.

Charles H.Green

We spend our lives on the run: we get up by the clock,
eat and sleep by the clock, get up again, go to work
and then we retire. And what do they give us on retirement?
A clock.
– Dave Allen

Just live the moment.
And whatever qualities and whatever talents you have, use them to the fullest.

Osho

The prevailing wisdom about leaders and successful people is that they are proactive and in control. I agree to the degree that proactivity is about initiating action and doing what one can to take responsibility.

It isn’t quite the same as being in control.

I read two newspapers a day, and I have yet to see an article on the front page that I directly affected or controlled (unfortunately I’m not a titan of industry who’s words and actions move markets or cultures). Many of the articles I read do, however, affect me. Sometimes their impact is small and sometimes significant.

So am I “in control?”

Being in control is most often about how one interacts with circumstances and events bigger than oneself. Anticipation and preparation help mitigate the outcomes of those forces beyond our power, but it doesn’t give us control over them.

I believe a better strategy than proactivity is interactivity. To understand this concept, consider a surfer. As you watch from the beach, you realize that the surfer didn’t create the wave, but he or she interacts with the wave to create the outcome desired. The more skilled the surfer, the more able they are to interact with different waves and create better outcomes. Skill is very important, but it doesn’t give the surfer control over the wave. Only Mother Nature can make a wave.

Neither you nor I control the movement of the stock market so we study and make informed decisions about how to best invest. We don’t control the weather but we choose the clothes to wear on a particular day. We can’t control how a prospect will react to our presentation, but we plan our responses to questions or objections. And when bad things happen–whether deserved or undeserved–we need to respond in the most appropriate way. We don’t control the event; we control our response.

Interactive is a more common and useful strategy than proactive. To the degree you can be proactive, by all means, be proactive. But understand that we are more often not in complete control and as such we need to be interactive to live and lead successfully.

Mark Sanborn