Mastering the craft

Recently, I had the opportunity to see and listen to Malcolm Gladwell. As the noted author, journalist and historian answered a question from the audience about the “10,000-hour rule”—the theory he popularized in his best-selling book “Outliers” —I couldn’t help but correlate what I heard onstage with what I’d just heard as I conducted interviews for this month’s cover story highlighting this year’s inductees to Control’s 2026 Process Automation Hall of Fame.  

Though not scientific law by any means, the theory states it takes a great deal of deliberate practice to achieve mastery in any complex field. It emphasizes that expertise is built through consistent, focused and persistent effort rather than talent alone.

I think we can agree that control engineering is a complex field that requires a great deal of comprehensive learning and experience to master. To be clear, no one works on a skill for a more than a year straight through, so in practical terms, it’s more like three or four hours a day for 10 years. When one reads about the longevity of the three inductees—Manfred Morari, S. Joe Qin and Peter Morgan—you realize they averaged about four times that amount of time working on control theory and practice. And they aren’t done yet.

The opening line of our cover story states, “Perhaps the surest sign of a true engineer is someone who recognizes their work is never quite done.” Learning is included. One of the most impressive common denominators of each inductee is that, even after decades working with control systems, they chose to keep learning and evolving. Perhaps most important, they chose to help others on their own journeys toward mastering this complex world of process control and automation.

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For his part, Morari waved off mandatory retirement to move across an ocean, and continue teaching the next generation of great control engineers. Qin took decades of field experience back to Hong Kong to lead one of the top universities for engineering in Asia. Morgan exchanged his field work for passing along what he’s learned through writing. 

It’s a noble and vital path, particularly considering the ongoing dilemma industry faces to cultivate a future engineering workforce, and figure out emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. This trio has been through massive shifts in available technology before, and knows how to identify good uses. In fact, they’ve even helped drive some of those technologies into standard practices.

They’re also quick to point out that their years of work to master their craft was significantly helped along the way by other people. Now it’s their turn to help the next generation.

As Gladwell points out with his theory, if you could master these complex tasks in, say, one summer, you probably wouldn’t need anyone’s help, but if it takes 10 years or more, you need all the help you can get along the way.