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Managing the Water, Not the Ship “The submarine, with its extreme safety constraints and closed operational environment, exemplifies a domain where intensive intra-protocol management remains necessary and effective. Yet the same leadership techniques falter when extended to open, networked, and planetary systems shaped by overlapping protocols and accelerating automation. This contrast reveals a critical distinction between optimizing behavior within a protocol and stewarding the conditions under which protocols themselves take form. Building from this insight, the essay develops a taxonomy of managerial action relative to protocols. It identifies distinct modes of intervention, including execution management, interpretive stabilization, environmental shaping, structural protocol change, inter-protocol coordination, lifecycle stewardship, regulation of protocolization rates, and intentional non-intervention. Each mode carries its own legitimacy, mechanisms, and characteristic failure patterns when misapplied. The taxonomy is presented as a diagnostic framework rather than a prescriptive tool, designed to help practitioners recognize category errors that arise when the wrong mode of management is applied to a given situation.” https://npcmemo.substack.com/p/managing-the-water-not-the-ship

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