Engineering??Outside the Box

Many times during an engineer´s career, assignments will be given that don´t seem to fit the normal approaches or canned solutions. While looking at the problem, frequent comments will be heard, “Can´t be done,” “It´s never been done,” “Tried it. Didn´t work,” “A waste of time and money,” and the list goes on. The comments may come from other engineers or even management. Regardless of the source, the comments don´t build a lot of confidence in the engineer with the assignment. The people offering the comments may be, in their opinion and experience, offering their honest assessment. The solution simply does not fit into their paradigm. They have firmly entrenched themselves into a philosophical or theoretical framework that won´t allow them to think of a new approach. They can´t make that theoretical shift—they are not comfortable with a paradigm shift. The shift doesn´t have to be radical, it simply means that they have to change their beliefs or theory. They have to think outside the box.