Reactionary vs. Visionary

There are two types of people in any given situation. The reactionary person and the visionary person.

Let's pretend you have a boat, you're in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. Your boat strikes an iceberg (think Titanic style). Now you have a hole in your boat. The reactionary person will determine the best way to plug the hole right now, in the moment. The visionary person will devise solutions to avoid future icebergs.

We need both people in a business. One cannot be both. Those that are reactionary only deal with the problems at hand and their exact solutions. The visionary person will find a solution to prevent the problem from happening in the future. Those that are reactionary tend to repeat situations over and over rather than finding a fix for the situation permanently. The visionary person will find a future solution but has trouble handling the solution now. Obviously, you can see why we need both of these people on our boat or in our business.

There are many day to day situations that happen in the business world that we need to both handle immediately and prevent in the future. It is certainly beneficial to determine the type of problem solver you are as well as those around you. We can all learn from each other on how to think more like those that are our opposites.