Starting a new job soon The tip that changed my life

Starting a new job soon The tip that changed my lifeStarting a new job soon The tip that changed my lifeHeres a tip that my mentor told me a few years ago before I started my most recent role and it CHANGED. MY. LIFE.I report to the CEO of the company I work at and he is incredibly busy and pretty hands-off of my work. So when I was starting my new role I decided to try this tip to impress him right off the bat.Here is what my mentor said Bosses are busy. Busy people like to react, notlage create.REACT. Not CREATE.What do MOST of us do when we see our boss is super busy and stressed?We ask How can I help?Thats mighty fine.But what SHOULD we do?Find ways to contribute and give them something to REACT to.The tip is to create a reaction document. Which is a fancy way of saying a rough draft of ideas for a person to react to.The crazy thing is, even if what you come up with is wrong, and they want the complete opposite of what you came up with, that is still excellent progress. Because m any busy leaders dont know exactly what they want until they have something to react to.Imagine if I told you to describe your perfect house.Youd have a lot going on in your, noggin may not know where to start. But then I put photos of 4 different houses in front of you and asked you which one you liked the best.Youd probably say, Well this one I like the best overall because of the windows and ceilings, but this other one has the best yard because I love trees and dont want a pool.And suddenly our conversation of designing the perfect house, made tremendous leaps and bounds forward because I gave you something to simply react to.Probably none of those 4 houses I presented to you in the reaction document are your dream house but it got us much closer.Warning DO NOT put lots of research and time into a project before your boss reacts. That is a huge waste of time because they may hate it. Im talking directly to you perfectionists out there. Get comfortable sharing documents before th ey are far from perfect.Now, youre probably asking, what does a real-world reaction document look like? Well, a reaction document can take many different forms, but it can feel daunting if youve never made one. Check out this video where I walk through an example of a reaction document.This has become a way of life for me all thanks to that mentor Wishing you the bestThis article originally appeared on Quora.