Change Just One Piece
The ice maker portion of my mother in law’s refrigerator hasn’t been working for 2 years. The refrigerator itself works fine, but the ice maker quit making ice and then she developed a leak behind the fridge. After having an appliance repairman take a look she was told it would cost $200 to fix…so she cut off the water line and bought ice trays for her freezer.
While I was there this weekend for my niece’s birthday party she mentioned not having ice, and I said “let me look at it.” (I am no Bob Villa, but I’ve recently completed some projects around the house, my wife bragged about me to her friends, and I have a new found confidence) It appeared to my novice eye that a little rubber piece connecting the water supply line and the pipe that feeds the water into the ice maker had a tear in it. My little brain thought, “I bet if we replace that little piece with a new one, the water wouldn’t leak allowing it to get to the ice maker and make ice”. So I took it to Home Depot and bought a replacement and some silicon tape. I replaced the piece, turned on the water, and we waited. Today I received a text message from her that said “I have ice”. My total investment…$4.
The refrigerator was falling short of it’s full potential because of one bad piece. The bad piece wasn’t allowing water to flow correctly from point A to point B. Eventually it became more harmful to let it leak so that functionality was turned off altogether after getting some bad advice.
Now think of your organization, team or ministry. Is there a problem that might seem like a $200 problem that could be fixed with $4 worth of investment? Could it just take a fresh set of eyes to look at the problem? Maybe someone to start working on it, instead of talking about it?
Look for areas where things aren’t flowing as smoothly as they should, or where functionality has been turned off completely. Get creative. Imagine what might happen if you change just one piece.
