IT operations must shift from "monitoring everything" to "controlling what matters," a lesson clearly demonstrated by manufacturing's approach to reliability. Using a dairy plant as an example, the article shows how automated control mechanisms prevent failures rather than just tracking them. The key isn't more monitoring tools, but strategic control points that automatically maintain system health.

"The Lost Art of Control" challenges tech's obsession with observability tools while missing what truly matters - control. Through parallels with nuclear plants and manufacturing, it shows how focusing on monitoring everything instead of controlling what matters has created a reliability crisis in modern IT operations.