When professional skills become our nature…

At the start of their career, young professionals conscientiously set about applying what they have learnt, reproducing the same methods. Then they realise that some of these methods do not suit them, and they adapt them. They tailor their craft to their working environment and, above all, to themselves.

Little by little, they develop their own tools and methods, at the risk of being criticised for taking risks, stepping outside imposed boundaries and taking initiatives that are not always appreciated.

The fact is that a process is at work: the novice of yesteryear is finding his way into the work even as he appears to be moving away from it.

If he perseveres, he will surprise others with the fluidity of his movements in manual work, his ease, his analytical acumen and his keen observation of situations, which he sometimes becomes able to anticipate with precision.

One day, at last, they will realise that, paradoxically, their relationship with the craft has been deeply transformed. Whilst they have become, in the eyes of others, ‘the expert’, ‘the veteran’, the embodiment of the craft and its principles, they have transformed the craft itself.

The craft is there, present, embodied. But the craft is no longer as it was once taught. The individual has absorbed the craft, whereas in the early days, it was the craft that tended to absorb the individual by shaping his/her professional identity.

It is within this reversal that creativity operates, for it requires independence from what was presented as the norm.  Yves Clot (Travail et pouvoir d’agir, 2011) explains it as follows: ‘They will have to put up with having to invent.’ ‘It is no longer just about the profession. They have the profession. They practise the profession. They have taken charge of their own development.’ ‘It is at the end of this cycle that the profession becomes personal.’