Like most people in IT, I deal with a lot of people in this industry on a day to day basis.  I see people that are really good at this, and people that are really bad.  What interests me is that of those that are bad at this, the reasons for being so are often vastly different.  I’ll use this example in the context of two people performing at similar admin/support levels in an IT department, with the assumption that they are both amply smart and capable of learning.

In this corner we have Jody, with a good handle on the fundamentals and a history of poor logical thinking.  In that corner we have Dianne, with a good sense of logic and troubleshooting skills but very little knowledge of the fundamentals.  Jody:  Poor logic, in my opinion, is a career-limiting characteristic to have if you work in IT.  I don’t think you can effectively teach logic, you’re either good at it or you’re not.  Dianne: Lacking fundamental knowledge is relatively easy to overcome.  With the internet and all the training programs available, there’s almost no limit to what Dianne can learn.  » Read more: Be careful! “Out of touch” isn’t as far out as you might think!