This title will need a little explaining and I will do it in this blog.
I was asking about one of my friend's grandsons who graduated from the Naval Academy a few years ago , and he told me an interesting story. His grandson is in some kind of advanced management training program for one of the Navy's top secret systems. He said that they were doing some strange things in their training program that required the candidates to memorize all kinds of facts and figures that appeared to be unrelated. Things like the value of the Sine of 15 degrees to four decimal places. I listened and I think that I have figured out why they were doing this.
Do any of you remember the crash of the Airbus that flew out of Rio on its way to Europe a few years ago? It crashed out in the middle of the Atlantic with no survivors. The cause was some kind of malfunction of the air speed system. The pilots thought their instruments were correct when they were wrong and flew the plane into the ocean. The pilots were "algorithm" pilots, who had more faith in their instruments than in their own knowledge. This type of thing happens all the time with "algorithm thinkers" in all areas.
I just heard a candidate for the governorship of one of our states make the statement, "If he were elected he would surround himself with the best experts he could find and solve the problems facing the state". For most people, this would be a very convincing statement. How could you be against a governor or a President surrounding himself with the "best experts"?
The problem is exactly how does that governor or President know if these are the "best experts" or not? In the case of our current President, Biden, I am sure that he is incompetent as to determining if someone on his staff is a real expert or not. What is his track record? What preparation has he had to test candidates to determine their "quality". In the case of the Navy, it appears to me that they were training their top people so that they would know if some "expert" or "algorithm follower" was giving them good info or not. It should be clear to all that those at the top of the food chain need to be more than just "managers" of "experts", but should know their subjects well enough to know if they are getting good info or bull shit from a "yes man". I am sorry to report that as technology has advanced, our top managers have not!
I have blogged in the past that most of the top management of European businesses are technical graduates, where as, in the USA they tend to be business school graduates. Harvard being at the bottom of my list for producing the kind of top management that the modern economy needs. It is very good to hear that the Navy understands the trends in technology and the need to develop top management who are not simply "Algorithm followers".
