Share Your Gifts, Apply Your Skill by Stephen Deas at DevelopU

Applying Your Skill

If you work in manufacturing,
you know that problem solving is a daily event.

The heart of any problem solving activity is the root cause.

You have not solved a problem until the root is eliminated.
Easier said than done for the root is often hard to find.
God bestows gifts on each of us. It is our job to apply these gifts in life.

If they sit stagnant no one will benefit from them.
By trying to use them every day, you will be a better person because your time will be spent on things that make you happy.

Some of the best problem solvers in the world are engineers.
In fact, if you could summarize what engineers do in a few sentences,
it would be that they solve problems. Whether you work for NASA or Nissan,
most of what you do (as an engineer) is solve problems.

You should never leave your skill at work. You are obligated to share your gift with others.
Use it to make society better. For example, the following was an insert in my church's bulletin: "What do you do if the jobs that feed your family are poisoning the water they drink?
For the women of Huanuni, Bolivia, the question is pointed.

Every morning when you look at your sleeping children,
you know that the toughest part of your job is not the cold air deep in the gold mines or the back-breaking work of gathering chunks of ore by hand. What makes it hard to leave them is knowing that what puts their beans and potatoes on the table-basically the only work to be found in your community-is also poisoning them."

The article continues to talk about how the Presbyterian church has joined with an organization called UMAVIDA to study root causes of hunger and poverty and strategize how to address them. Does this sound familiar? Finding root causes. Strategizing for solutions.

These people are not engineers but couldn't such an endeavor use a professional problem solver?Always try to find ways to apply your skill(s).For results of this project go to www.pcusa.org/hunger/jhah/lesothu.htm




Stephen Deas http://www.developu.com/
President of Quality Minds, Inc., Certified Six Sigma Black Belt with twenty plus years experience in production, engineering, purchasing, and quality.
Certified as a Quality Engineer with a Bachelors of Industrial Engineering (Georgia Tech) and a Masters of Industrial Statistics (University of South Carolina).