#roger kneebone

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The drive to become expert – to become as good as we can be, at whatever we’ve chosen to do – is something we all share. It is not about external markers of success, such as moving up the career ladder or becoming more marketable (though that may happen too). It’s an internal, ontological process; a shift in the nature of who you are, not just what you can do. It’s a commitment to developing your own potential as a person, to pushing your limits. It transcends short-term goals and waypoints. Running counter to contemporary pressures to show quick results, it requires decades of commitment and effort – perhaps a lifetime – and there are no shortcuts. It’s a slow-burning fuse, especially when you don’t seem to be getting anywhere and you feel like giving up. Being expert means you can achieve excellent results almost every time and in any situation – not just pull off the occasional success.

Roger Kneebone, How to become an expert

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At the Royal College of Music, they say that when you go out on stage as a student, you must have practised so much that your best performance is good enough. But when you go out there as a professional, your worst performance must be good enough. That involves going far beyond the point at which you think you have perfected what you’re going to play. You must be able to rely on your skills whatever happens, even if you’re terrified or insecure, or things go unexpectedly wrong. The textbooks refer to this as ‘over-learning’. You have to be able to perform under all circumstances, but especially when you have additional challenges. You must be able to carve, cut or sew not only when your materials and tools are compliant and of high quality, but also when there are flaws in the stone or wood, or your instruments are blunt or missing. You must be able to perform when your body is below par; when you’re tired, unwell, stressed or anxious. You have to know what it feels like to be at or beyond the edge of what you are used to – or what you, your materials and the situation will tolerate without falling apart. You have to satisfy the audience, regardless of how you are feeling.

Roger Kneebone, Expert

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I’ll finish with some thoughts about what it means to become a true expert, and how you can tell if someone really is expert or is just pretending. One yardstick is how long they’ve been on their path. Unless you’ve spent years learning your craft, you’ll almost certainly not be expert, though just because you’ve been doing something for decades doesn’t mean you will be. So anyone who professes to be expert in something after a couple of months is unlikely to be the real thing. Another is how people describe themselves. Hardly any of the experts I’ve worked with would describe themselves in that way. Although they are justly proud of the quality of their work, they are much more aware of how far they have to go than how far they’ve come. So it’s worth reserving judgment about self-professed experts and making up your own mind. Becoming expert is an inexhaustible process. It’s a journey, not a destination. Andrew Davidson, one of the UK’s leading wood engravers, has more than four decades of experience. ‘I know there’s no such thing as a perfect print,’ he told me, ‘but I’ll never stop trying to make one.’ To me, that sums up what it means to be expert.

Roger Kneebone, How to become an expert

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The role of experts in our society is often controversial. People (including at least one high-profile British politician) sometimes question the value of experts – for example, claiming that they are out of touch. I radically disagree, for several reasons. One seems obvious – we need people who can treat us when we’re sick, fly us in planes when we travel, fix our cars when they go wrong, plaster our walls when we’re renovating our home, style our hair when we need it, and delight us with plays, concerts and television series. We also need people who can develop vaccines when there’s a pandemic and help us address existential threats such as climate change. We dismiss such experts at our peril. Earlier, I mentioned toxins and nutrients. If we don’t provide the nutrients and combat the toxins, such experts won’t be there when we need them. Already we’re seeing that in every part of society. There are threats to experts all around, and devaluing their importance is highly dangerous. But that’s not the whole story. We also need experts to inspire us in our own journey to becoming expert – to fulfil the human need in each of us to work towards something greater than ourselves. That’s the real point about becoming expert. It requires commitment to persevere on a lifelong journey that will be challenging, frustrating – and deeply satisfying. Doing something whose aim is your own fulfilment is different from doing something that makes you money, gains you promotion, or moves your career ahead. Of course those things may happen too. But becoming expert is a process whose rewards are directly related to how difficult it is and how long it takes. It’s not about immediate results or short-term rewards. It can be dispiriting at times, but ultimately it’s one of the most fulfilling things we can do.

Roger Kneebone, How to become an expert

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We can all become expert at something, though we probably can’t become really expert in more than one or two areas. To become an expert you have to concentrate on your selected field, pushing distractions aside and focusing intently for year after year. It’s a long, demanding process that takes great effort, and there’s a lot of frustration along the way. This sounds obvious, but it’s something people often overlook. We live in a world that demands immediate results. We are also taught to believe that talent is innate, and that if you don’t show flair for something, it isn’t worth pursuing. I don’t think either of those things is true. Moving along the path towards becoming expert brings its own rewards: the slow march towards mastery is deeply satisfying – and, as we’ll discover, it meets a fundamental human need. Besides which, you won’t find out how talented you are until you try.

Roger Kneebone, Expert

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Traditionally there are three phases – Apprentice, Journeyman and Master. Of course, social conditions nowadays are radically different from those of medieval Europe. Apprentices no longer sleep behind the stove in their master’s house or work for years without pay. But these stages provide a road map for anyone who wants to become expert. 1. Apprentice. You start by knowing nothing. You watch and copy others, learning to do things as they are already done in your master’s workshop. Responsibility for your work and any mistakes you make lies with your master, and so does any credit for the work you do. 2. Journeyman. You launch your career as an independent expert. You leave your master’s workshop and move around the country. Now you take responsibility for your own work, and you have to deal with the consequences of error. You continue to gain experience, refining and extending your skills and developing your individuality. 3. Master. Finally you set up a workshop of your own and teach others. You pass on your knowledge and expertise to future generations. You do what you can to look after the individuals who are learning from you; you have a sense of stewardship towards your field more widely; sometimes you even take the field itself in new directions. These three phases are a useful way to think about the acquisition of skill. But they are descriptive, not explanatory. They identify points on a path, but they don’t show you how to reach those points or how to know when you’ve got there. They divide the process into segments and treat these as if they were static. They measure what can be measured. But much that is important can’t be measured. There are changes in who you are, not just what you can do. This process may be invisible from the outside. It’s difficult to quantify, and may even go unnoticed from within.

Roger Kneebone, Expert

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Improvisation and performance are inseparable. Yet the word ‘performance’ makes many people uneasy. To them, it sounds like doing something that isn’t real, that is somehow inauthentic – even faking it. I disagree radically. After all, nobody criticises a pianist for giving a performance of a Beethoven concerto, something they have spent years studying and practising for. […] Improvising is how you apply what you have learned, creating solutions in the moment and responding to what is happening around you. Yet the idea of improvisation, like the idea of performance, often unsettles people. It sounds unprofessional, a solution knocked up on the spur of the moment, like an improvised bookshelf made with a plank and some bricks or an improvised shelter in the rain. But I think it’s a priceless skill. That shelter in the rain may have been jury-rigged, but it keeps you dry. In medicine, improvisation is actually the norm. As a clinician, you’re never not having to improvise. You’re always applying existing knowledge in new contexts – because you’re working with people, every situation is different. There’s no such thing as a ‘standard’ case of pneumonia or a ‘regular’ stabbed neck. Each time, you’re dealing with a unique human being. Even when you treat the same person for the same complaint on different occasions, it’s a different situation each time. You can never step into the same river twice. You and the river have both changed.

Roger Kneebone, Expert

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The opportunity to become expert should be one of our inalienable rights. It’s how we fulfil our potential as human beings. Yet the slow process required is at odds with demands for instant gratification. There’s a growing sense that anyone can learn to do anything – and quickly. But that’s not the case. Becoming expert involves sticking at something for much longer than you normally would. Of course, just persevering doesn’t automatically turn you into an expert, and there are plenty of people who keep doing the same thing and don’t get much better – like me with my juggling. Like any organic process, becoming expert needs nutrients. These include guidance and encouragement, exposure to mistakes, opportunities for spending time with your materials and the people you work with, and allowing your personality to unfold. […] Throughout our childhood we are immersed in a world of the senses, experiencing the world and the people around us. At home and at school, we stock our internal library of sensations, knowledge and skills which we build on later. We need to experience what it is to look, hear, touch, sniff and taste; to work with other people; to share space and to negotiate our wishes around theirs. Becoming expert is part of a story which begins when we are born.

Roger Kneebone, Expert