Why do we even do things?
Strategy, Tactics, and Reasons
Last Saturday afternoon I sat across a table from a girl who had to be about ten years old. She made sure I knew how to spell her name. She didn’t seem to pay much attention to me. We were in a hotel ballroom with about 300 other people, but it was quiet enough to hear pencils scratching on notepads.
For just over two hours, this girl and I sat across from each other exchanging ideas, testing each other, but never saying a word. It was the 60th Baltimore Open, and we were playing chess. My pieces were a little cramped, and she was pushing on the kingside. My heart rate was up and I had to steady myself so my hand wouldn’t shake as I reached for my knight. Would she see my plan?
Strategy, tactics, and reasons
I spent over nine hours at the board during the tournament, and although I was focused on the task at hand, it was impossible not to notice some parallels to the way I spend most of my days. Here I’ll sketch out the ones that I think are relevant to those of us who write and publish the kind of books that have a chance to be important.
Many people have misconceptions about chess players, mostly along the idea that you have to be smart to play chess, or at least to be good at it, and that therefore chess players are smart. If you ask people to elaborate on the idea, they’ll usually say something about strategic thinking.
But many people who know chess will tell you that chess is 90% tactics.
Tactics
Understanding some basic chess ideas can help us in a lot of ways, even in the real world. Tactics in chess are the concrete interactions on the board in which you can either come out having captured more of your opponent’s pieces than they have of yours, or the opposite could happen. You try to plan them carefully, calculate the possible variations, and then execute the plan. I take, you take, I take.
Although winning these kinds of exchanges can give a player major advantages, it’s easy to see how being myopically fixated on them wouldn’t serve you. I can’t tell you the number of games that I’ve lost abruptly while engaged in what I thought was a deadly attack. I was so lost in my little plan that I failed to notice my opponent’s attack coming until it was too late.
Strategy
But there’s a bigger picture: strategy. If you’re anything like me, you’re probably a little tired of hearing about “strategic visions” or being invited to “strategic planning” sessions. And it’s probably not because you don’t think strategy is important, but rather because you always sense that there’s something missing. I grind my teeth when strategy meetings devolve into discussions about tactics.
On the chess board, while a tactic might be something as simple as a two-move sequence, forking two pieces to win one while the other runs away, strategy requires a bigger vision. Is the plan to aim your pieces directly at your opponent’s king in a straight line? Or to aim along the straight and the diagonal, your lines of attack intersecting on just the right square? Maybe you plan to infiltrate up the opposite side of the board and sneak in behind their defenses. You’ll need a view of the whole board to decide what strategy to use, and then you’ll organize your pieces accordingly.
To win chess games, you need to have a big-picture strategy, and you will look for tactics that can bring you closer to carrying it out. And as conditions change on the board, so might your strategy, but that’s a very big decision.
Reasons
Even a good strategy, however, will fall short if it isn’t in purpose of the right goal. In chess, that’s simple: checkmate. Trap your opponent’s king so it can’t be saved when you check it, and the game’s over. But what about in your profession, or in your life?
Believe it or not, this whole thing has been about publishing, writing, and serving a purpose.
So many days can pass with our heads buried in tactics-level stuff. The paperwork we have to do to move a project forward, meetings, trying and failing to catch up on email. And if chess is 90% tactics, maybe it’s okay if our work life is as well. Even writing your book can feel like this at times, especially as you get into the weeds of your outline–you might spend a whole day trying to describe a single moment. That means how we use the remaining 10% is going to be really important. How do you choose the things to include in your outline, or on your list of projects in the first place? What purpose do you want to serve?
My reasons
I want the world to be more fair for all the people living in it and more sustainable for those yet to come. That’s why when I was asked to come to Johns Hopkins University Press to edit the list in public health and health policy, it felt like the right fit. To be able to serve my purpose through my day job is a privilege and a luxury. And over the years I have learned an enormous amount from my authors and their manuscripts that inspires me to do more of it, and to do better. I’ve learned about the many dangers of incarceration, food systems, medical education, public health education, and insurance regulation. I’ve learned about stigma, harm reduction, and substance use disorder, about the social and political determinants of health, and about health equity.
As I build my list, I keep my reasons in mind: increasing fairness, making the world more sustainable. My strategy for achieving that goal is to publish books that can inform and persuade. My tactics include connecting with authors who have great ideas that could move the needle in the right direction, and helping them get their books approved, developed, and published.
Your reasons
It’s worth thinking about why you do what you do, and why you’re invested in writing a book. I’ve written before about how your book can be an enormous lever—I encourage you to think about that and its role in your own strategy. What are the tactics that you’ll surround your book with so that it can serve you and your goals?
After all that (you didn’t think I’d leave you hanging, did you?)
She saw my plan and I saw hers. My knight retreated, she advanced a pawn. Nearly an hour later, the littlest of pieces finished its journey and became a queen. It was over. I shook her hand—she’d beaten me.