My wife is a photographer. Quite a good one, in fact. One sure way to annoy her is to ask what kind of camera she uses after admiring one of her photos.. It’s her eye, not the camera, that recognizes the perfect shot. The tool may well be the least important element in the mix.
My own photography has gotten better courtesy of time spent in apprentice mode by her side. Photography is also an example of a knowledge work capability that can shed light on performance improvement in a knowledge context. The primary performance metric is whether you can capture the image you envision. Secondary metrics might include meeting time, budget, and other constraints on the image. In some settings, you may also need to be able to articulate the logic for why the image you eventually capture meets the criteria set.
If your goal, for example, is to capture a simple selfie to demonstrate that you were there at Mt. Rushmore, anything with both you and the mountain in frame and in focus will suffice. As you goals evolve, you also acquire new concepts and vocabulary; composition, depth of field, light conditions, focal length. exposure.
Meeting those goals may lead you to exploring and adopting new tools. A better camera might well enable you to capture images that weren’t possible with starter tools. But the functions and features of more sophisticated tools might just as well not exist if you don’t have the corresponding concepts to work with.
These concepts and the tools all need to be in service to creating the images you imagine. You don’t learn them in theory or in isolation. You learn them by doing the work and getting feedback. Over time, you also learn to give yourself better feedback.
Ira Glass has an excellent series of short videos on storytelling that fit here and fit knowledge work in general. The whole series is worth your time and attention–Ira Glass on Storytelling – This American Life. The nut graf, however, is something to keep close at hand as you work at your craft:
Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.
There is craft behind all knowledge work. You get better at craft work by being intentional about getting better. And by accepting that craft lies in the mix of tools, techniques, practices, mentors, and peers. It’s a mistake to remain wed to the first tool you pick up, It’s equally a mistake to confuse changing tools with improving your craft.