Simple is surprisingly good

And so we miss the simplest, cheapest, least-intrusive, most effective changes we can make.

And these “good enough” compromises are so-called for a reason. Duct tape and fast food are revered for a reason. They are good enough.

But here’s a brain teaser shared in Success Magazine a couple of years ago. It happened in a training with the LA Police Department bomb technicians. (the sort of folks that regard themselves as unflappable thinkers)

And here’s the scenario they were given: You run a fancy health club that in its shower stalls offers fancy shampoo, in big bottles that would retail for $50 at a salon. Unshockingly, these big bottles are taken home by members at a distressing rate, costing you. What solution can the bomb techs devise that will be unintrusive, cheap-to-free, and protect your inventory?

Sure you could switch to travel bottles, or force guests to check the shampoo out, but these will complicate operations at your otherwise immaculate and successful health club, So…think harder.

The employees (not the bomb techs) at the real-life club, figured out an unintrusive, simple solution that cost no money. It’s one a bright child could devise.

What would you have come up with?

In a health club where people are stashing a big bottle of your fancy shampoo in their gym bags on their way out, merely uncapping the bottles, it turns out, is one heck of a deterrent!

Sometimes life hands us a new normal. How can we make what seems complicated simple? Now that we’ve slowed down, let’s give it some thought and, perhaps, make some different choices!

Let’s give it some thought!