Aaron J. Crowley

Crowley’s Granite Concepts

For 17 years now, my stone shop has been a laboratory. It may not have beakers, Bunsen burners, or bottles of dangerous chemicals, but there have been scientific studies taking place since day one.  

Many bright ideas have been measured out, extreme heat has been applied, and chemical reactions have occurred.  

Yes, there have been many explosions!

After documenting the outcomes of hundreds of such experiments inside the universe of stone fabrication, I can conclusively report the following:  Order has never just evolved out of the chaos–  ever.  Not a single solitary case of clarity materializing out of the thin air of confusion and miscommunication has ever been observed.

Entropy and The Second Law of Thermodynamics are the scientific terms that explain this phenomenon.

Translated into Fabricator-ese these terms mean that things like communication, equipment, and the very people that make up the business are constantly breaking down and energy must be applied continually to get and keep things under control.  

If you have been in business, managed a department, or lead a small crew for more than 5 minutes, you know this to be true.  And you know that order can be elusive and a challenge to maintain.

Authority:  Every lab needs a scientist and every decision to impose order on a business, department, or job site source and a starting point.  Authority starts at the top naturally, but it must cascade throughout the organization as well.  At every level, the work of developing solutions to problems must be delegated.  Remember, it will not happen on its own.

Standards:  Solutions require the right ingredients at the right time in the right proportions.  These ingredients, if you will, are the timing and tolerances, the when and how well a task is to be preformed.  When communicated effectively in measurable terms, they are the magic-potion that will solve the problem.  Leaving them to the discretion of the operating level employee is like giving a lab assistant a beaker with no lines for volume to precisely mix highly volatile chemicals…Boom!

Will:  Edison tried thousands of experiments before the light-bulb glowed and stayed lit. Imposing and maintaining order in a business is no less an endeavor, and the scientist must decide that nothing less than success is acceptable, because it is a contest of wills.

You may have a shop with slurry on the floor and assistants wearing Bullet Proof Aprons instead of white lab coats, but you are no less a genius at work than Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, or Alexander Graham Bell. Your work is no less important.

So get back into that lab and remember this: hoping that order in your business will materialize out of thin air makes you the maddest scientist in your universe!

Aaron Crowley is a stone shop owner, author, speaker, and inventor of stone safety products. Contact Aaron by email at aaron@fabricatorsfriend.com .