Is Your Setting Work TOO Good?

Is your work good enough? Is your work too good?

Yes, it's possible for your work to be too good! Sure, your customer won't complain - but they usually won't notice either. 

A common issue with social media is that most people only post images of their best work, not their average work. This creates an impression that everything they do is perfect, even at high magnification. 

Yes, stonesetting teachers are guilty of this too.

Nobody is perfect, and while it's important to aim high, it's also essential you can afford to pay your bills. I believe teachers need to be helping their students to succeed in both areas, not setting an impossibly high standard that their students will go bankrupt trying to meet! It's all about finding the right balance, and learning the right skills for the speed and quality you want to deliver.

This chart is something I've been using informally for a number of years, and have finally drawn up to hang on the wall in the studio. It shows the "sweet spot" for good quality setting work.

Stonesetting Quality Scale. Aim for green in both columns.

The coloured column on the right represents the quality of the finished work, with a score of perfect 10 at the top and mediocre 5 near the bottom (there's no point showing any lower than that). The green area shows the acceptable quality for professional work.

The column on the left represents the time spent on the same work. You can see how sharply the amount of time increases towards the top, as the work approaches a perfect 10. This time, the green area represents the acceptable time spent to achieve the result.

We don't want our work to be outside the green zone for quality or time, which only leaves a certain range where the two overlap. This is the Profit Zone - you need to be green in both columns!

If you find yourself just outside the profit zone, you may be able to wriggle back in by dropping your prices to attract more work (if your quality is closer to 6), or by increasing your prices to cover your time (if your quality is around 9). I've been able to work profitably for clients who demand higher quality by increasing my prices, but that also puts me out of contention for a lot of mainstream work. It's a choice I've made.

But how does this work in the classroom?

When a student completes a task - it could be as simple as cutting a straight line with a graver - they may ask me for feedback. For them to improve as quickly as possible, I need to be able to very clearly tell them:

1. What their score is, compared to professional work (7 or 8 on the scale above)
2. What, if anything, could be improved to meet that standard
3. How they can adjust their technique to make that improvement

This scoring system can also be applied to any completed work, not just a single technique. I'll often say "Overall this practice plate is a 6.5, but as you improve the levelness of the stones you'll be scoring an 8. Then you'll only need to focus on getting the same result a bit faster."

Naturally, beginners won't be achieving a tidy result or a quick result at first, which is why learning new skills feels so challenging. But with a consistent benchmarking system showing exactly how far they are from their goals, and the right directions to get there, they're able to get the most out of every hour of practice.

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