By Brent Voelker
June 5, 2026
Principles in Tension – But Leaders can chart a path
In this installment on High Reliability Organization (HRO) theory in practice, we’ll explore the dynamic interplay between technical design, user needs, and organizational execution. And we’ll grapple with a considerable tension between two important principles: Sensitivity to Operations and the Cultivation of Expertise. Let’s take them one at a time before we explore the pressure each exerts on the other.
Operational Sensitivity
In the product development context, sensitivity to operations functions at two levels: 1) frontline technical teams remain deeply attuned to the way their product will operate, be maintained, and generate value in real-world environments, while 2) leadership maintains constant awareness of how the work of product development teams is actually performed in real-time. Operational sensitivity requires leadership to maintain a close connection to frontline realities, ensuring that design decisions remain continuously aligned with the company’s commercial objectives.
From an engineering perspective, sensitivity to operations begins by recognizing that technical excellence alone does not guarantee success. Engineers developing a new product must understand the commercial and market requirements – such as cost (both CAPEX and OPEX), performance, and reliability (often specified as availability) – that define value for customers. Operational and commercial requirements establish economic constraints that limit design decisions, ensuring that the final product is not only functional but also competitive and desirable. In short, designers need to understand how the product will be used and how it will generate value.
Without such sensitivity to operations expressed in clear design requirements, engineers risk developing a product that works marginally well at best, delivered at a cost no customer can afford. The team will often find themselves parked in a cul de sac with no way out, where every cost reduction idea leads to an intolerable collapse of performance and reliability. By understanding and accepting commercial requirements as technical requirements from the very beginning of development, engineers avoid this trap and maintain focus on how their design choices translate into return on investment in the real-world. Ultimately, sensitivity to operations transforms engineering from a purely technical activity into a strategically informed process that generates products with genuine market impact.
On an organizational level, sensitivity to operations demands active engagement by leadership in the product development process. Leaders must go beyond high-level oversight and maintain visibility into how work is progressing, using meaningful metrics to assess organizational performance. These metrics should reflect not only output, but also quality, cycle time, risk, and alignment with strategic objectives. By staying connected to operational realities, leaders can identify emerging issues early and take timely action to remove obstacles that hinder progress. This proactive involvement is essential for maintaining momentum and for ensuring that teams remain focused on delivering value to customers.
Expertise
In Managing the Unexpected, Weick and Sutcliffe identify deference to expertise as a core practice of high reliability organizations, where decision-making authority shifts to the person with the most relevant knowledge rather than the highest rank. In complex or rapidly changing situations, hierarchical structures can slow down response or obscure critical insights. By contrast, organizations that defer to expertise allow those closest to the problem – often frontline workers or technical specialists – to take the lead when their knowledge is most needed.
This approach relies on flexibility and trust. Leaders must be willing to step back when others have better situational understanding, and team members must be encouraged to speak up and act. Deference to expertise also requires strong communication and shared awareness, so that expertise can be recognized quickly and authority can shift smoothly without confusion or conflict.
Weick and Sutcliffe conclude that deferring to expertise improves reliability by enabling faster, more informed decisions and reducing the risk of error. It reflects a broader organizational mindset that values learning, vigilance, and adaptability over rigid control, especially in high-risk or uncertain environments.
Principles in Tension
At first glance, it may seem hard to argue with this emphasis on expertise. Don’t we want to empower the most qualified people to drive toward solutions? Yes, but…
A common pitfall arises when leaders mistake deference to expertise for a license to disengage. While expertise is critical, leadership cannot avoid responsibility by leaving all key decisions to specialists. Leaders who believe that experts neither require nor desire informed guidance grossly underestimate the power of culture. It is the leader’s job to shape and foster culture. But this mandate doesn’t just take the form of platitudes and core values. Culture emerges and results flow from what leaders demonstrably expect, measure, and act upon and from what their teams repeatedly do. Culture is built through practice.
A culture of some kind forms in every human group. When culture is not thoughtfully nurtured and supported by practice, impediments to collective success can easily form – poor communication, ambiguity about who has authority, difficulty reaching agreement, siloing, and even self-defensiveness or secret-keeping.
Where such a hands-off culture has formed, we sometimes find “hiring as problem-solving.” In this mode, leaders who aren’t getting the results they need hope that, by hiring a few more smart people, they will achieve a critical mass of intelligence and experience that will generate solutions. But culture eats intelligence and experience for breakfast. New team members, however seasoned, rarely bring prior culture or practices with them. The result is often a conversation like this:
“I already know all about these good practices you’re talking about. We used them all at my last company.”
“That’s great. Why haven’t you put them into practice here?”
“Because that’s not how they do it here.”
Humans are cultural beings: most of us want to belong. Change agents are exceedingly rare. Even the most experienced mid-level managers will very often prioritize the approval of colleagues over almost everything else, despite their better rational judgment. In leaving teams to their own devices, leaders are neither cultivating expertise at the organizational level nor really capitalizing on the expertise of individuals. Without a referee, collectives often arrive at decisions that no individual would make on their own.
Resolving the Tension
This is why, at Novellum Partners, we frame expertise differently. We emphasize the cultivation of expertise rather than deference to expertise. Leaders must cultivate not only the expertise of frontline teams but their own expertise as well. Their daily challenge is to keep up, to accumulate the knowledge necessary to critically evaluate the arguments their experts are making through a strategic lens their frontline teams have yet to develop. Understanding how design decisions bear on company strategy requires a deep understanding of the technical details. Decision-makers must command a firm grasp of how work gets done and of the product that flows from it. Everyone, at every level, must know their business and the business of everyone who reports to them.
Hiding behind expert judgment allows problems to escalate unchecked and tempts weaker leaders to shift blame onto subordinates when outcomes fall short. True sensitivity to operations requires balance: leaders respect expertise but remain actively involved, asking probing questions, validating assumptions, and making informed decisions. In doing so, they demonstrate accountability and create an environment where both technical excellence and operational awareness thrive, ultimately strengthening the reliability and success of the organization.
At Novellum Partners, we have the processes and tools you need to build and strengthen a culture steeped in expertise and operationally aware. Success depends on both. Call us today.