Everybody Knows
We all start out life not knowing how to do things. If we’re lucky, when we need to do something, we can find someone to show us how.
But sometimes, we have to come up with a way to do it ourselves. This means thinking of ideas and then trying to decide whether they’re good or not. Figuring out why they would or wouldn’t work can be fun and informative and sometimes lead you to surprising places. Maybe an idea is bad, but figuring out exactly why it’s a bad idea can teach you a lot—and might help you think of a better approach.
Even if you already know the right way to do things, it can be helpful to try to look at the world through the eyes of someone who doesn’t. After all, for anything that “everyone knows” by the time they reach adulthood, every day over 10,000 people in the United States alone are learning it for the first time.
That’s why I don’t advise making fun of people for admitting they don’t know something or never learned how to do something. Because if you do that, all it does is teach them not to tell you when they’re learning something . . . and you miss out on the fun.
I hope you learn something from this website. If you do, you’re one of today’s lucky 10,000.
But sometimes, we have to come up with a way to do it ourselves. This means thinking of ideas and then trying to decide whether they’re good or not. Figuring out why they would or wouldn’t work can be fun and informative and sometimes lead you to surprising places. Maybe an idea is bad, but figuring out exactly why it’s a bad idea can teach you a lot—and might help you think of a better approach.
Even if you already know the right way to do things, it can be helpful to try to look at the world through the eyes of someone who doesn’t. After all, for anything that “everyone knows” by the time they reach adulthood, every day over 10,000 people in the United States alone are learning it for the first time.
That’s why I don’t advise making fun of people for admitting they don’t know something or never learned how to do something. Because if you do that, all it does is teach them not to tell you when they’re learning something . . . and you miss out on the fun.
I hope you learn something from this website. If you do, you’re one of today’s lucky 10,000.
What "everybody knows" may also be wrong. To learn and grow we must always question our assumptions no matter from where they originate. This is especially true regarding anything that a majority of people “know” or assume without questioning. This statement should always be suspect and needs to be examined much more closely.
"Every environment changes. Eventually that change is sufficiently severe that you cannot adapt, no matter what you do. Sometimes this change is technological, sometimes environmental. You must be prepared for major change in the future, and you must start now. If someone else’s revolutionary innovation catches you unawares, you must be willing to take an entirely different course immediately."--Peter Drucker
"Everybody Knows" and the Liberty Ships
A Liberty-class cargo ship, circa 1941/42. Library of Congress photo
By June 1942 the United States was well along in fulfilling President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s pledge of becoming an "Arsenal of Democracy." But the hundreds of thousands of men in uniform and mountains of materiel were useless for the Allied war effort if they remained within America’s borders. To get both to the battlefields and bases scattered around the world, America needed cargo and transport ships – yesterday.
Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser couldn’t turn back the clock. But he did the next best thing. He built Liberty ships – fast.
Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser couldn’t turn back the clock. But he did the next best thing. He built Liberty ships – fast.
Britain had shared a late 19th century cargo design with their American allies that they estimated could be built in nine months, possibly six months in modern shipyards. Henry Kaiser knew little about shipbuilding and was completely ignorant about cargo ships. However, he looked at the British design and proceeded not with British help and expertise, but out of his own ignorance.
The British used expert workers who had in-depth shipbuilding knowledge, many of whom had come from families with ship-building traditions that spanned generations. Since he didn’t have such workers, Kaiser asked himself how he could proceed without them.
He came up with a unique solution based on his ignorance of shipbuilding. Kaiser redesigned the assembly process using pre-fabricated parts so that no worker had to know more than a small part of the job and was much easier to train. Moreover, he introduced American assembly-line techniques.
The British used expert workers who had in-depth shipbuilding knowledge, many of whom had come from families with ship-building traditions that spanned generations. Since he didn’t have such workers, Kaiser asked himself how he could proceed without them.
He came up with a unique solution based on his ignorance of shipbuilding. Kaiser redesigned the assembly process using pre-fabricated parts so that no worker had to know more than a small part of the job and was much easier to train. Moreover, he introduced American assembly-line techniques.
Kaiser’s yard crews contained workers new to shipyard work, including women, because able-bodied men were being drafted to serve in uniform. In addition, Kaiser was in the vanguard of companies hiring African-Americans. Eastine Cowner, a former waitress, was one of the thousands of African-American women employed by the Kaiser shipyards in Richmond, California. Here she’s working as a scaler on the Liberty ship SS George Washington Carver. Library of Congress photo |
The British knew that for close tolerances in high quality ships, heavy machinery was necessary to cut metal accurately. Kaiser didn’t know this, and he didn’t have the heavy machinery required to build the cutters themselves. Again, he asked himself a question: ‘How do I cut the metal?’
Again he came up with a solution, but not the one the British had been using. In his ignorance he told his workers to cut the metal using oxyacetylene torches. This turned out to be cheaper and faster than the traditional British methods. In his ignorance, Kaiser replaced riveting with welding, also cheaper and faster.
Again he came up with a solution, but not the one the British had been using. In his ignorance he told his workers to cut the metal using oxyacetylene torches. This turned out to be cheaper and faster than the traditional British methods. In his ignorance, Kaiser replaced riveting with welding, also cheaper and faster.
The launching of the Liberty Ship SS William Clark from a Kaiser shipyard in Oregon during World War II. The steel plate aloft is the keel plate for the next ship to be built; the plate is poised to be lowered into place as the just launched Clark hits the water. Library of Congress photo |
Henry Kaiser called his ships "Liberty Ships." He started building them and it didn’t take him six months for each ship. He started building them from start to finish in about a month. Then they got production time down to a couple weeks and, for publicity purposes, they constructed one Liberty Ship in just four and a half days.
Interestingly, despite the fact that they were not built to last, a couple are still around and in use.