Taking initiative and getting something done without being told is what entrepreneurs are all about. They don’t have to wait, nor will they wait for someone to give them permission to make a move. They are often done before anybody else even begins to think about doing what they have done.
In the late 90’s I ran a small ISP and we came up with the concept of running fiber optic cable through the skywalk system in my hometown. We were able to build it out, asking our customers to pay for the build out and that would be their setup fee.
We would then provide high speed bandwidth to them for a minor fraction of what they were paying for a lower bandwidth connection. It worked out great and we had fiber to the entire downtown skywalk system.
About a year later, a super-regional telecom started to sell fiber services that they were going to offer to potential customers in the skywalk system. The only problem, we already had it covered and beat them to the customers.
Our system worked extremely well, and was one-tenth the price that the other company was trying to charge. They never ran the fiber because they couldn’t compete with us.
They were caught off guard and had no idea that we had done this with full permission of the city and building owners.
We took the initiative and showed that we were the leaders in the market well before our competition, which could have crushed us, even thought about doing what we had done.
When you take initiative as we did, you position yourself to establish power and create significant value in your company.