What You Don’t Know …
A Bench Jeweler’s Guide to Continual Learning
Without a doubt Shawn was one of the finest craftsman I have had the privilege to work with. One day, soon after Shawn came to work for me I asked him if he knew how to work on platinum. He said he did so, excitedly, I gave him a platinum ring to size.
Without giving it any thought I handed him my welding goggles and explained that these were the only ones I had, and the next time I was out I would get him a pair.
It wasn’t long before I heard; “Wow, this is great!”
“What’s so great, Shawn?” I asked.
“Wearing welding goggles while soldering platinum,” he responded.
“I thought you said you had worked on platinum before?” I asked.
“I have,” Shawn said.
“How could you work on platinum, if you never soldered with welding goggles?” I inquired.
He told me that he would get everything ready to solder and force a small paillon of solder into the joint. Then he would begin to heat the ring. When the ring got so hot that he could no longer stand to look at it, he would close his eyes and count to 10. When he got to 10, he would remove the torch, allow the ring to cool, and then look to see if the solder had flown. If not, he would repeat the process counting this time to 15, allow the ring to cool and see if the solder had flown. If not he would repeat the process again counting to 20. He would continue increasing his count by five until the solder had flown completely through the joint.
In just a couple of weeks Shawn was producing some of the most beautiful platinum work I had ever seen. If you learned how to solder with your eyes closed - just imagine what you could do with them open. Not only was he producing better work, he was also increasing productivity. Just imaging how much time Shawn was wasting closing his eyes trying to get the solder to flow.
We have all heard the statement: What you don't know won't hurt you. Nothing can be further from the truth! What you don't know can have a detrimental effect on your business, on your career, and definitely on your productivity.
How many times have we acted like Shawn? We try to accomplish a task, we set a goal for ourselves, or we try to do a job, but we fail because we did not know there was an easier, faster, or better way to accomplish our task. Many times we are not productive in the shop; we are not successful in our careers because we do not know what it is we need to in order to be successful or more productive.