Admitting Mistakes Semi - OT

[Adam Clayman]

Back in the Halcyon days, prior to gca.coms first mention in a national sports magazine, (Archives unavailable as far as I know) one of the ethos was discovering where developers, architects and even people's opinions, were mis-imformed, leading to many mistakes made in the arena of golf course development and architecture.

The following link has zero to do with golf, but, has everything to do with hindsight and the honest intellectual admission of wrong doing.

Warning; The following piece is extremely long in viewing, but is equally thought provoking on many levels and subjects.

My hope is we all become better informed and eventually look within ourselves and our knowledge to see how easy it is to be wrong.



http://networkawesome.com/show/doc-the-fog-of-war/

[Tim Martin]

Adam-I did not find the piece overly long and on the contrary was mesmerized by it`s content. McNamara says that war and international diplomacy are certainly not an exact science and was very candid in some of his comments regarding very real mistakes he felt he had made during his tenure as Secretary of Defense. There is an awful lot that goes on behind the scenes in golf course architecture and development that does not always reveal itself to the armchair quarterback. Decisions are made due to impasses between the client and archie, unforeseen agronomic issues, financing,environmental constraints etc. Honest and reasoned criticism which occasionally results in the words "I made a mistake" only leads us in a positive direction in all pursuits. Golf course architecture is certainly not a science and mistakes admitted to will only be a positive.  

[Evan Fleisher]

Link to said article in national sports magazine...

http://s40.photobucket.com/albums/e201/evanjill/Sports%20Illustrated%20GCA%20Article/

[Patrick_Mucci]

Evan,

Can you believe the man pictured on the cover story was once a hell of a surfer ?

[Dan Herrmann]

Heck - I make mistakes all the time - we all do.  The secret is to learn from them.

[Anthony Gray]

  I'm not getting married again.I think.

  Anthony

[Ian Andrew]

Adam,

I'll openly point them out to friends, even if they don't always agree wiith my assesment.
I generally find my regrets were borne of either inexperience (I began in my very early 20's) or past compromise.

I joke with friends that there was pre St. George's (2002) and post St. George's in my career.
That project gave me the confidence and the track record to be much more firm with my decisions.

I still can find fault with my work (it's in my nature so I always will), but its now in the smaller details and not in the decisions.
Much of that stems from the ability to look back and admit mistakes along the way.

[Tim Martin]

Adam,

I'll openly point them out to friends, even if they don't always agree wiith my assesment.
I generally find my regrets were borne of either inexperience (I began in my very early 20's) or past compromise.

I joke with friends that there was pre St. George's (2002) and post St. George's in my career.
That project gave me the confidence and the track record to be much more firm with my decisions.

I still can find fault with my work (it's in my nature so I always will), but its now in the smaller details and not in the decisions.
Much of that stems from the ability to look back and admit mistakes along the way.

Ian-Very refreshing commentary that would bode well for those in a variety of professions.

[Adam Clayman]

I would think most mistakes are made by committee decision, even if it's a one man show. So to speak. Also, because GCA is such a subjective beast. Getting someone to change an opinion is doubly difficult. Thanks Ian for the candor.

[Sean_A]

The documentary cut off when McN became President of Ford.  Does it continue?

Ciao

[Adam Clayman]

Sean, My link just kept on going onto new segments. Yes, there's more. The Viet Nam War comments were remarkable.

They held a conference years after the war ended. McNamara, relayed something to the affect that he was so ignorant of the history of the people he was fighting. That for us to be there to fight some form of  Chinese/Russian communism showed a total lack of understanding that these people had been fighting the chinese for a milenium.