Initiative Workplace Interview Questions & Answers

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Here are some of the things effective people do when they taking initiatives:
☛ Right problems to solve
☛ Clear goals and measures of success
☛ Make sure you can produce results
☛ Build and maintain credibility

Here are a couple of other rules about initiative:
☛ Before you take on anything new, make sure that you are doing your assigned job well.
☛ Remember that social initiatives do not count for much. Organizing the company picnic or a blood drive will not get you the kind of recognition you want. They are fine things to do but do them because they bring you satisfaction.
☛ The kind of initiatives that matter to your career are those that relate to the company's critical path. Find out what promotes the company's core mission and tie your initiatives to it.

An initiative is a skill that you can develop. You can do this by following these steps:
☛ Develop a Career Plan
☛ Build Self-Confidence
☛ Spot Opportunities and Potential Improvements
☛ Sense-Check Your Ideas
☛ Develop Rational Persistence
☛ Find Balance

Consider the following ideas for lighting the fire of initiative in your daily work life:
☛ Always be alert for ways to make something work better. Make the suggestion. Volunteer to take ownership for getting it done.
☛ Take it upon yourself be the first to adopt and implement the newest company policy.
☛ Stay alert for ideas to simplify processes and find new and better ways of doing things. Proactively suggest those improvement ideas. Be the example for implementing those processes.
☛ Stay alert for ways to save money and reduce costs. Raise your hand to communicate those suggestions as quickly as possible.
☛ Reach out to colleagues and team members who need help.
☛ Be the first to volunteer for those tough projects and assignments.
☛ Always think ahead. Preempt likely obstacles with well-thought-out plans that take those obstacles into consideration.
☛ Provide, in advance, the answers to the questions you know are going to be asked. "Think like your boss/manager" and consider all deliverable from their perspective before you submit them. Always review your work from the elevation of "30,000 feet."
☛ Always do your homework, always be prepared. Read the material in advance, research the subject matter in advance, dig in and immerse yourself in the topic at hand.
☛ Deal with problems immediately, take action and be decisive. Get it done and get it behind you as quickly as possible.

Complement and support employee initiative. Implementing a company-wide change that one employee has made will encourage other workers to follow the lead of their colleague. You will also send the signal that employees need not be afraid to try new ideas and go the extra mile. Listening to employees and encouraging them to find solutions to problems they encounter gives them a sense of ownership of their jobs and a sense of accomplishment when their initiative results in real change.

When employees feel they have the latitude to try new endeavors, they probably will. Let employees know they can make changes to the workplace in a way that improves their ability to do their jobs well. Encourage big or small changes depending on what works for your company. You might discover that employees who are free to make their jobs easier will spend more time doing their job and will take the initiative to do it better.

Doing less might be the key to inspiring initiative. If you let employees come up with workplace solutions, their innovation might surprise you. Small businesses owners in particular can benefit from this dedication during the start-up phase and through periods of company growth.

Best way of building credibility is to make initiatives successful so that others feel good about the efforts they put in. Effective people make sure that the percentage of initiatives that succeed is very high. This is done by picking the right ones and then creating right environment and team to make it successful.

Effective people understand that since people go out of their regular work schedule to work on initiatives most of the time, they need positive reinforcement all the time. One of the best ways to do this is to give credit when it is due, rather than taking all the limelight when initiative succeeds. Also, it means taking the blame if things go wrong rather than letting others bear the brunt of someone's ire. This generates the respect and good faith that is needed for people to sign up for initiatives with effective people.

Effective people are transparent about why they pick initiatives and are always willing to explain the benefits of an initiative. Their actions support their reasoning and helps people see that the intention is to really solve a problem and not to take undue advantage of others.

Initiatives depend on others spending time on work that is not directly assigned to them and sometimes may not even benefit them directly. So the people who take initiatives rely a lot on their own credibility and leadership to get others to work on their initiatives. Building and maintaining credibility is absolute must for sustained initiative-taking. Effective people do so very deliberately, by doing these things:
☛ Being Transparent
☛ Give Credit and take blame
☛ Delivering Results

Most initiatives take additional time and effort from involved persons. If this is not available or can not be created, even important initiatives can fail. So effective people make sure that people who need to contribute have enough time and resources to do so (by talking to their managers, by inspiring them to work extra hours, by re-prioritizing regularly scheduled work, etc).

Once they pick a problem to solve, effective people define the goals and measure of success very clearly. This helps in scoping the problem and effort requirements. Without clear definitions, most initiatives will end up sucking lots of time with no results to show, causing failures.

The problem on surface is seldom the problem that requires solving. Effective people spend time in understanding the underlying cause of the problems they see and then resolve them. They also keep in mind their basic goals for solving a given problem and are willing to think holistically all the time.

Taking initiative to solve specific problems is still one of the best ways of being effective.
Example:
If your project has too many requirement changes coming in every week, one way to solve this problem might be to stay in close contact with the product managers and change as quickly as requirements come but effective people probe it further and may realize that things are changing because product manager has been meeting with customers without understanding our own capabilities and hence just passes on the requirements without understanding or validating. They then go one step further and help to the product manager by attending the customer meetings, explaining the product and current plan of record and how it solves all of their problems, provides one on one training to product manager and creating a set of slides for the product manager to understand and use for next time.

Taking initiative is hard:
☛ Since it is taking something beyond your regular work, it requires extra time investment which few people seem to have in today's busy organizations.
☛ It requires risk taking and results may not always be there, so an organization too focused on fixing problems and eradicating failure may actually penalize initiative-takers in many cases.

Improving your ability to show initiative in the workplace is as simple as looking at how you work and asking yourself a few key questions, according to job search online. Do you make suggestions at meetings? Have you asked for extra assignments? Have you tried to fix problems before taking them to your supervisor or have you started new assignments before you are told? Are you any good at communicating openly with your supervisor? Managers often notice employees who exhibit these traits. Executives are more likely to promote employees who ask for more responsibility.

Using initiative at work can make you stand out from your co-workers for the right reasons. Managers appreciate it when you are proactive, rather than reactive. In other words, thinking about an situation and foreseeing problems or ways to improve it is better than just reacting once the problem occurs. The career advancement firm Eat Your Career says that proactive employees cause change, instead of react when change happens.

Whether you use initiative to catch a problem in a product or think of a way to market something for better results, workplace initiative is important because it results in improvements in the product or service that your business delivers. The magazine website reports that one of the best ways you can show initiative in the workplace is to always be thinking about how to improve how the organization runs.

If you review a company dress code memo and catch an unclear sentence, clarifying the point before sending out the memo will prevent employees from being confused.

When you use initiative in the workplace, it can prevent obstacles from arising during certain projects, reports Career ealism. When you think ahead about a problem that might occur, you or your manager can address the problem before it becomes an obstacle.

There are 4 basic power point initiative at workplace which are as follows:
☛ Prevent Obstacles
☛ Improvements
☛ Proactive vs. Reactive
☛ Characteristics

Initiative has become increasingly important in today's workplace. You show initiative when you act without being told what to do, persist in the face of inertia and difficulty and see your idea through to a successful conclusion.

Using initiative in the workplace is not just a way to help your company be more successful, it is also a way to get your employer to recognize you as a key asset. Regardless of your industry or position, showing initiative will help you stand out from your co-workers who are more comfortable just taking orders. Proper initiative in the workplace can help employers see you as management material.

Supporting initiative can make working more effective, it helps both the manager and team to get results.