From Essays After Montaigne
But omitting what the event thereof witnessed, he that shall without passion debate the matter shall easily (in my conceit) confesse that the ayme and drift, not only of a captaine, but of every particular souldier, ought chiefly to respect a victory in great: and that no particular occurrences, of what consequence soever, or what interest may depend on them, should ever divert him from that point.
I'm terrible at chess. The size and complexity of the solution set to be considered are an order of magnitude too large for me to hold in my head. I can effectively mount concerted efforts to take or defend a single piece, but such efforts prove laughably ineffective against an opponent with even the slightest strategic ability. I'm better at card games like hearts, euchre, or poker, where the solution set is more constrained, though I've never quite been able to manage bridge. I've been struggling with this same limitation recently as I've been learning software design. I'm still not comfortable enough with development to assimilate that additional layer of abstraction. But though I may never excel at chess or bridge, I will master software design. As Eric points out, we need developers, not programmers. At the risk of sounding like the management consultant that I once tried to be, to be truly valuable, I must be able to conceive and implement my code as part of some business solution.
I'm hardly alone in my need to overcome strategic short-sightedness. Despite his uncanny political instincts, when faced with a growing investigation into his sexual activities, President Clinton chose to issue a flat (if oddly worded) denial of any sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky. It may have seemed the only reasonable course of action to him and his handlers at the time, but that (along with an ill-considered foray into ontology) is what continues to haunt his legacy more than anything else. A decision made in the context of a particular occurence failed to serve the greater cause. And the current administration is likely to face several such blemishes on its legacy, from the question of its evidence to justify the invasion of Iraq to its failure to adequately prepare for the continuing administration of Afghanistan and Iraq to its mishandling of the current economic crisis. All of these situations share the appearance of decisions made in an attempt to pursue short-term goals without sufficient consideration of long-term consequences.
Presidential history is littered with such mishaps--including the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Watergate cover-up, and the Iran-Contra affair--but blunders of this sort are hardly limited to politics. Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia, and many other corporations have made similar mistakes. And each time I hear about one of these scandals, I wonder what the the participants could have been thinking, how they imagined that their activities could remain undetected. The most persistent offender (with no contender of any note) is Microsoft. In just the last decade, it has spawned a consent decree, an anti-trust conviction, all manner of public relations misdemeanors, internal documents describing a variety of nefarious efforts, and countless spectacular product and security failures. And all of these disasters seem to stem from the same expedient decision-making. Yet what I find most shocking isn't the sheer number of indiscretions, but the fact that they keep happening long after it should be obvious to everyone involved that they won't pass unnoticed. Macintosh and Linux advocates love to worry about whether or not Microsoft will achieve global domination of the software industry, but I can't imagine that a company that so consistently fails to connect short-term decisions with long-term consequences can remain viable. That said, I don't think I'd like to challenge Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates to a game of chess. Thus far, their ruthlessness and tenacity have more than compensated for their lack of vision.
8:06:25 AM 
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