Rickover warned that management can’t be learned from glossy frameworks and that no procedural tweak will 'fix' complex systems. High performance in dangerous technologies comes from selecting motivated operators and drilling practical skills through apprenticeship‑like training.
— It challenges government and corporate reliance on consulting templates, arguing capacity comes from building operator cultures rather than drafting new processes.
Matthew B. Crawford
2025.09.09
70% relevant
Polanyi’s model of learning by apprenticeship and tacit imitation mirrors Rickover’s emphasis on selecting and drilling operators over procedural 'best practices,' arguing that real mastery depends on embodied, mentor‑guided knowledge rather than codified checklists.
2025.08.25
100% relevant
Rickover’s 1978 OPM Management essay and his Congressional testimony after Three Mile Island emphasizing personal interviews and continual practical training.
Ethan Mollick
2025.07.28
55% relevant
The article’s process‑map anecdote shows leaders’ control is often illusory and procedures are improvised, echoing Rickover’s claim that glossy frameworks don’t run complex systems—operator judgment and practical methods do. It extends this to AI: instead of painstaking process engineering, general AI may work around organizational messiness.
Jane Psmith
2025.03.24
56% relevant
Langlands’s 'cræft'—embodied mastery that unites know‑how and character—parallels Rickover’s emphasis on selecting and drilling elite operators over abstract process fixes; both argue real capability comes from practiced human skill rather than managerial formalism.