The beauty salon owner has a limited number of available appointments. Every day she encounters the same problem—zero availability and several last minute cancellations or no-shows. This situation is frustrating and it’s losing her money. She thinks she might solve the problem by implementing a cancellation fee, charging clients who cancel within 24 hours of their appointment, but she knows that this move could alienate her customers.

When you encounter a problem it’s natural to be reactive. That’s useful in some situations—if a bucket is leaking water the obvious solution is to plug the hole. The reactive solution comes from questioning how to stop something happening.

But the reactive approach doesn’t always serve us long term. Far better to adopt a responsive business mindset that prompts us to dig deeper and uncover what’s causing the problem. Questioning why something is happening and how we might change the situation will deliver far more creative solutions than shooting from the hip ever will.

The quick fix isn’t always the right one.

Image by Thomas Leuthard.