To level up, you have to make up your own mind to do it, to take an initiative. So, let’s talk about initiatives.

This ladder of initiatives show seven different types, from low to high. The initiatives I’ll talk about here happen outside your everyday tasks.

Imagine, for example, that you notice a problem in an area where we all share responsibility, such as the printer running out of ink. What can you do? We start at the low-initiative-end.

You can Complain. “Why does this always happen to me? Forget it, it’s not my job to fix it.” Negative energy, vaguely accusing others, no solution.

You can Wait – Discreetly turn back and decide to print later. There is less negative energy, no accusations, but…still no solution. (Still, sometimes, complaining is better – at least then others can become aware of the problem).

On these two rungs, the work won’t get done, but it seems to be someone else’s problem. 
Let’s move up; what can you do?

You can Ask somebody – “What should I do now?” Then you haven’t given up, but you expect others to provide a solution.

You can Suggest – “Someone should change the cartridge!” You haven’t given up, you provide a solution, but you expect others to make the decision and do the work.

So, on these two rungs, you take some responsibility by not giving up, but you hope the problem will be solved by other people.

Now we level-up to where work actually gets done:

You can Start acting but ask when possible – (To the manager) “You weren’t here, so I couldn’t ask, but I changed the cartridge. Was that OK?” You are unsure of the solution but did not lose time by waiting for an instruction.

You can Act — inform regularly – (To the manager) “Here’s what I did last week…”. You update now and then.

You can Just go ahead – No time spent on asking, waiting, or updating.

You may have more challenging things to do than changing cartridges, but the principles of initiative are the same. For example, if customers don’t respond well to your calls, you can complain about it, or suggest that customers change their attitude, but you won’t get results until you level-up and do something different.

I’m sure you can see how slowly things move at the lower end of the ladder, and how much quicker things get done on the higher levels.

Of course, there are times when asking or suggesting is the right thing to do. But it is different if someone asks or suggests in order to push responsibility to others or if you ask to learn, and suggest to discuss ideas. Also, ‘just go ahead’ is great sometimes and unacceptable at others. No place on the ladder is perfect for all situations.

But as a rule, most of us could spend more time higher up on the ladder; to go from noticing, to thinking,  to also doing – and the right time to go there is usually sooner than we think. And we learn more up here!