Are You Grabbing a Tent or a Mop?

While flying through an airport a couple of weeks ago on a layover, I happened to stop by the scene pictured in the photo.  Here, some traveler had spilled their Coke (no, it was not Pepsi - I was in Atlanta!), and some enterprising airport employee pitched a tent to warn others of the spill.

I would have considered such a scene as unique, but just a couple of gates away the exact same scene was replicated - spilled Coke, and pitched tent.

Those tents were pretty cool - they stood out well, and travelers weaved their way around them without any difficulty.  Likewise, the spill scene was rendered safe until the spill could be cleaned.  However, what would have happened if that employee who had pitched the tent had instead bothered to just grab a mop and completely address the problem?  The effort used to find and deploy the tent had to have been similar to the effort of finding a mop quickly cleaning up the spill (which still had to be done).  Problem resolved in one step, versus many.

Business is all about dealing with problems.  When they occur, are we gabbing a tent or a mop?