Knowledge and the Chief's Mess

There's way too many threads to chase (and far too little time to chase them) in a fascinating discussion of how the Chief's Mess has evolved in the U.S Navy. Here's at least a few of the issues that came to mind when I read this:

• The perhaps hidden risks associated with "rationalizing" work (roles, training, rotation frequency, etc.)
• How much in-depth knowledge needs to be available to deal with capabilities that are large tightly-coupled chunks of knowledge (often requiring deep technical knowledge to perform more than routine maintenance).
• The challenge of providing leadership that requires both robust people skills and robust technical expertise...one common solution being splitting the job between two people since individuals who have both types of skills are rare.
• Whether the mechanical (vs. IT) "tinkering" culture that was common a couple of generations ago has faded (again, see "The Puritan Gift"), and if so, why?, what are the implications?, etc.
• The risks associated with the loss of transparency that comes with building capabilities up from layers of interoperable components (e.g., cloud computing, multi-layered derivatives, etc.)

The author also explicitly addresses related issues (e.g., generalist vs. specialist).

Anyway, if organizational behavior/knowledge is something you're interested in, you might find this worth reading.