ABSTRACT
Figure 15.1 below is one of the ways I have summarised the ideas in this book. Expert performance in engineering practice, in its essence, requires a combination of technical and financial foresight and planning aswell as the technical collaboration performances required to convert plans into reality. These layers in turn are supported by three foundations: engineering and business science, tacit ingenuity, and accurate perception skills. Unfortunately, our current education systems focus on only the first of these three foundations, as represented in the diagram by shading to indicate the extent to which each underpinning aspect is addressed. While tacit ingenuity can accumulate through education, it is not encouraged by appropriate incentives. Mass education has attenuated the possibilities for students to develop effective interpersonal skills. As Chapter 6 explained, expert performances are not possible without the three fundamental perception skills of listening, reading, and visual perception, which are hardly addressed at all in formal education today.1
