No-one knows what they are doing

I don't think running a business is anything like kicking penalties. So many more variables and unknowns.

Not to defend Johnson, but DC has an axe to grind.

What people know is just practical knowledge of their immediate surrounding and a bit of theoretical models of what is outside. If by "knowing what they are doing" you mean deep understanding of everything from the big picture then it's impossible. Doing your own local stuff as good as possible is the best we can get and it usually works reasonably well. Until we get a dictator in an information bubble, but well that's just life.

If the goal is clear, and the rules are clear, the knowing-what-to-do-level can be relatively high. As an example, a typical game can be won with executing on the set rules with skill. You can measure the success of your actions by looking at the outcome. This seems so obvious that I don't think the author would argue against it.

I think what the author is talking about is the space where things become so complex that it's hard to attribute any action to the outcome or, even worse, you can't even realistically measure the outcome.

Applying this to your penalty kicker: Sure, you practice, you get better. But so does everyone else. The question then is: How and what to get better than the other guys? Why does one guy succeed and the other doesn't? Yeah sure, because they hit the ball in such a way that it enters the designated space – but how do they set themselves up to accomplish that? How many of the 24 hours you have in a day do you spend kicking the ball from the penalty point? How much of it is recovery? When do you get up? Planing and theory? Mental strength exercises? Food intake? Massages, strength or balance workouts?

The failure is simply defined: You did not hit the ball in such a way that it entered the goal. Sure – but why? How do you adjust your routine in such a way that next time it's going to be better, relative to everyone else, who is also trying to improve?

In reality it's obviously more complex even still, because there is no "penalty kicker" in football. So to become the best possible soccer player, how much of your time should be allocated to penalty kicking at all? And then how does your penaltykickability scale while working on the other stuff that you are also looking at?

And then, when we are exiting game space, it gets really complicated, because all of a sudden it's not even clear what winning even means. In soccer a win is neatly defined. It's usually not the case in the real world. Is it a win to provide health care to all? Is Bitcoin a win for humanity? Is it a good goal to get people out of poverty or is the goal something else and we trust that this will be a side effect of that goal? You and I might agree on an answer, and then there is millions or billions of people who don't, in theory or at least in practice.

It's messy stuff.

>>> when you're held accountable by an entire country...

This is blatantly untrue.

Heck, the infamous trifecta Bush-Blair-Aznar led their countries on a war that destroyed a country and costed many human lifes, based on what we know were lies and invented data. What consecuences did they face?

And that's just an example. I can show you as many corruption cases as you want, and see how the subjects go on with their careers untouched.