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September 14, 2004
When To Stay The Course
The description of the Way of Go lists several examples of where strategies of Go could be applied. One, "Which initiatives to continue and which to abandon" needs a bit more explanation.
In the book, you'll find the most references to this critical decision in the chapter Expand Focus. This chapter covers the dilemma between the rules "not putting all your eggs in one basket" (Expand) and Vince Lombardi's "Success demands singleness of purpose" (Focus). In this chapter, you'll read about USG's decision to stay in a number of products or exit out of them.
You play Go on a big board. Virtually six chess boards worth of places to play - 361 intersections of places to play. In that spirit, if you're going to win, you have to have at least a presence over 181 of those intersections. But, at the beginning of the game, you don't know which parts of the board will be more critical to winning than any other.
Some of the keys to staying the course or not are to pay attention to the stage of the game you're in and then to pay attention to the spectrum of rules between focus and expand. At the beginning of the game, it is generally better to expand, keep diversified, don't ditch any positions utterly. In the middle, you have to start sacrificing because uncertainty is less and you have to make tradeoffs with the opponent. In the end game, it is rare to see big exchanges in territory or to have any investments around the board that you still have the option to renew.
So it is with most anything else; for instance, college. If you're not a strict pre-med or some other vocationally-motivated college program, you're likely to not know what you want to be when you grow up, much less what topic you want to major in. So, you take a variety of classes to see what sticks. This is Expand at its best. As you leave your freshman and start your sophomore year, you get more pressure to pick a major, but with still two more years, you don't have to ditch your favorite options, but if you want to graduate in four years, you'd best have some favorites and not be in between all options, like you could be freshman year. By your junior year (again, if you want to finish or if your parents require you to finish in four), you need to have narrowed things down considerably. Moreover, your options best be close topically. By your senior year, you can dual major and maybe even triple, if you've given up on the things most college students value most - social life, other activities - but most likely, you have to focus to have kept your options open till the end. This is college majoring options ruled by stages.
Aside from stage realities, you do want to pay attention to the Expand Focus advice from the book:
- Focus when you're clear what you want to do
- Keep your options open when uncertainty is prevalent
- A move with two or more meanings is better than a similar value move with only one
- Don't be like the chicken that partly crossed the road, once you've decided to cross the road, keep going; otherwise, foul fowl
See the Expand Focus chapter for more...
Posted by wayofgo at September 14, 2004 02:01 PM
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