In tech, we throw around words like “empowerment” and “agency,” but they’re framed primarily in terms of individual autonomy within a theoretically meritocratic system, not in terms of shared doctrine, operating mechanisms, or collective discipline. The implicit promise is that if you hire smart people and apply just enough management to let the nerds do their work, good outcomes will naturally follow. It’s a decidedly anti-process, anti-mechanism stance. It assumes judgment is hired for or “earned” through experience, rather than trained, reinforced, and protected over time.