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At Work, Expertise Is Falling Out of Favor
- randcraw 7y agoCurious article. Even before its publication, the US Navy has discovered the reverse of what the article claims -- that a tiny crew of generalists like the crew of the USS Gabrielle Giffords DOESN'T work and probably never will. In peace time, these minimalist crew complements are fragile to injury and breakdown making them exceedingly vulnerable. But in war, when support from base or repair craft will often not be forthcoming, the crew's lack of knowledge about ship systems will make them unable to do even basic repairs, much less quickly jury rig a fix, as is often essential in war for survival. In peace, this staffing model has not only failed, but in war will, will exacerbate to catastrophe. Yet this article not only suggests the promise of such an approach as a new model for war (and the tale definitely is interesting), but it disregards the serious problems with its implementation to date and then takes the next step, claiming that the value of expertise outside this narrow (failed) example domain is also moribund. Whhhaaaaaaat? In anything, the lessons in the article imply the opposite -- that expertise is alive and well, and given the rising levels of sophistication in the world of technology, will almost certainly require ever more specialization and expertise -- especially in a US Navy that doesn't want to scuttle its ships every time an on-board system blows a fuse.