"The only winning move is not to play"

 Last night, my wife and I sat down with our adult son to watch the 1983 movie "War Games" starring Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy, and John Wood.  It was probably long overdue, given that our son is in the computer industry.  There were a couple of important insights, at least for me, that deserve mention.  

Most importantly, apparently 1983 was a really long time ago!  Wow!  The cars and clothes in the movie looked much older than I remembered.  I don't think I can remember the last time that I saw an old-fashioned telephone modem (the kind where you put the headset on the modem itself - here's the scene).  For that matter, it's been a while since I've seen an arcade, a dot matrix printer, or even a telephone booth.  Okay, maybe that last one is a bit of an exagerration.  How about all of the actors that played bit parts in the movie and would go on to be Hollywood superstars, or at least more memorable roles than this one (see for example, Dabney Coleman, Barry Corbin, James Tolkan, Michael Madsen, and John Spencer among several others).  I also learned (or should I say "re-learned") a different way to butter my corn on the cob (see a brief video clip here).  Incidentally, the corn on the cob wasn't cooked, as Matthew Broderick's character's father found out when he bites into it.  The mother responds with one of my all-time most frequently used movie quotes, "Can't you just taste all of the vitamins?"

Two particular quotes stuck out, at least for those of us who grew up during the Cold War.  The first, when Matthew Broderick's character asks the computer, "Is this real or is it a game?" (referring to the war game simulation, "Global Thermonuclear War" that the computer is running in real life).  The computer responds, "What's the difference?"  The second, after the computer figures out that, like the game Tic-Tac-Toe, nuclear war has no winners, "A strange game.  The only winning move is not to play."

The lesson here is probably worth repeating, given the state of world affairs today.  Earlier on in the movie, Professor Stephen Falken, the character who apparently was modeled after the real-life physicist Stephen Hawking and was played by the Shakespearean and Tony award-winning actor, John Wood asks Ally Sheedy's character, "Did you ever play tic-tac-toe?"  Here are the rest of the lines from the movie script during this scene:

Falken: Did you ever play tic-tac-toe?

Jennifer: Yeah, of course.

Falken: But you don't anymore.

Jennifer: No.

Falken: Why?

Jennifer: Because it's a boring game. It's always a tie.

Falken: Exactly. There's no way to win. The game itself is pointless! But back at the war room, they believe you can win a nuclear war. That there can be "acceptable losses."

It's a great lesson for all of us.  Tic-tac-toe is a game with a relatively simple strategy.  If you follow that strategy, there is never going to be a winner or a loser.  You will always play to a tie.  The same could be said for a global nuclear war - there's never going to be a winner or a loser.

The same lesson can be applied to organizations.  How many times do we get stuck in a metaphorical game of tic-tac-toe, one in which there are no winners or losers?  Or worse - there are no winners and everyone loses!  Maybe, as the computer suggests in the movie, we should just stick with chess.