Many managers believe that their job is to resolve problems that arise. While that is true, it is only the lesser part of the job. More importantly, a manager's job is to prevent problems.
This is the difference between reactive management, which solves problems as they occur, and predictive management, which tries to prevent many problems from arising in the first place.
Reactive ManagementReactive management deals with problems as they come up.
It is a management style that is much admired for its ability to quickly get the resources back into production, whether those resources are machines or people.
If you are good at reactive management, you are:
-Decisive and able to act quickly,
-Able to find the root cause of events,
-Creative and able to develop many solutions,
-Innovative and able to find new ways to solve problems, and
-Calm and in control in the midst of a "crisis".
Predictive Management
Predictive management focuses on reducing the number of problems that require reactive management. The more problems that can be prevented through predictive management, the fewer problems will need to be solved through reactive management. If you are good at predictive management, you are:
-Thoughtful and analytic,
-Not likely to go chasing after the current panic,
-More aware of the important than the merely urgent issues,
-Able to identify patterns in data and patterns of failures,
-More focused on "why" did something go wrong, rather than "what" can be done to fix it, and
-Able to keep the big picture in mind when working through the details.
Good Management Is Predictive Management Not Reactive Management
