The Adventure CEO begins curious. She explores, and what she has to work with is an operation — one real working thing she can put her hands on. Curiosity without an operation is only wondering.
The Architect CEO goes from curious to clever. She experiments — she runs the thing on purpose to see what it does — and she becomes an operator: of the business, of the word, of whatever is in her hands. This is the deepening from wondering about a thing to working a thing.
The Sovereign CEO lands on canny. She is not merely curious, nor merely clever; she uses her cleverness until it becomes knowing. And she explains. That is the turn of this whole law: learner, then teacher, then learner again — because you cannot explain a thing without discovering what you still do not know. What she increases is operations. Not one process, but many, running.
Curious becomes clever becomes canny. Explore becomes experiment becomes explain. Operation becomes operator becomes operations.