I just can't get away from it. Every day, I hear my neighbor (saxophonist Jim Grantham, www.nightbirdmusic.com/jim_grantham/index.shtml) and his students, practicing, practicing, practicing. The other day, one of my older students at SFSU tells me about the "Craft of Science Fiction" writing class she has been teaching at Stanford.

What is a "craft," exactly? Well, popping "definition of craft" into Google produced dozens of links. Here's what I took away from my (virtual) wandering around.

Craft: The hard work of acquiring and utilizing a set of skills to do something that's not too simple. A lot of learning and tacit knowledge in order to become good at it. Something to take pride in and treat with respect and dedication. A labor of love, requiring large parts of both.

What is not said explicitly, but is clear if you think a minute, is that developing one's craft is often an anonymous and lonely activity that largely goes unrecognized by anyone else. On most days, you alone will know what you have done (or not done) to learn, improve and grow.

For most of my life, I've cheerfully and consistently flitted from one thing to the next, and thus not had a true craft of my own — something I've only recently come to regret a little. But I've recently become both a father and a professor — things I plan to do for a long, long time. Thus, to paraphrase Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night," I have had my crafts thrust upon me. Here's a little of what I've learned so far:

Repetition. Whether it's teaching introductory statistics to undergraduates or packing for an airplane trip with an infant, preparing a new lecture or fixing my daughter's lunch, in most crafts I do many things over and over. In my pre-craft days, I'd see each less-than-glamorous task (including my dissertation) as something to endure until I was released to move on. In contrast, knowing that I've got many reps ahead motivates me to get better and smarter as time goes on. And things do indeed get easier the second, third and fourth time around...

Failure is Actually Your Friend. Failures shouldn't be surprising; you have taken on something that is new to you, it's acknowledged as complex and challenging, and you're committed to doing it right. You will fail on occasion. Guaranteed.

Whether it's a disheartening referee's report or the horror of finding that you didn't put that last diaper on quite tight enough, failure is difficult to deal with. In my pre-craft days, my knee-jerk response to negative feedback was to want to take it as a personal indictment and flee, carrying a strong self-imposed sense of shame.

But the cold reality of failure and criticism teaches us far more than the warm bathe of success and praise — but only if we can disconnect the emotion from the lesson and correct/improve the next time around (see Repetition, above). For example, I taught one class last year that gave me far worse teaching evaluations than I ever imagined receiving. When I got over the shock and pain, I studied the specific comments and trends. Finding much of it valid, I made significant changes to the course for the next semester. Not perfect yet, but far better as a result my initial "failure."

Patience and Persistence. I recently sat down to read a new paper that was relevant to my research. It was late in the semester, I hadn't slept much the night before, and I had a million other things on my mind. Struggled through it, but barely. I was disheartened with my lack of comprehension, and all of my impatience, frustration, and self-doubt began to shout at me. The inner voices can make you crazy. Feeling defeated, I finally just quit for the day.

I picked it up again the next day (see Repetition, above), fought through the negative self-talk, took some more time, and eventually figured out what was going on and how exactly this paper related to my work. A small victory, made possible only by a willingness to persist and noted only by me. Hard and lonely work. Ya gotta want it.

Get Outside Yourself. Another great paradox — though your relationship with your craft is intensely personal, there is great joy, relief and growth that comes from communing with others in the domain and exchanging thoughts, ideas and experiences about something that matters to you. This is mainly why researchers go to conferences — and why this dad takes his daughter to the park where other parents can be found. We can also learn a great deal when we admit openly that we don't have all the answers already.

And with that, I'll sign off. I'm on my way to the INFORMS Teaching Management Science workshop. Next time, I'll tell you what I learned.



Vijay Mehrotra (vjm@sfsu.edu) is a faculty member in the Decisions Sciences Group in the College of Business at San Francisco State University and an operations management consultant.

References

1. Kaufman, P.D. (editor), "Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger," PCA Publications, 2005.

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