It is true that some still dream of a science that will be able to translate these qualities into exact quantities. But it is also true that we are not even remotely close to achieving this. Many of us doubt that we ever will. To return to our discussion of organizational hierarchies, we can see that computers are now making it possible to replace not only those low-level workers who perform simple filing and sorting tasks, but also those who make more complex decisions based on numbers. In the business world, these are typically thought of as the 'intangibles' that can make the numbers lie.
Intuition is based on intangibles.
And long-term thinking requires the flexibility of intuition. When an organization discourages all but the highest-level employees from using intangibles to make decisions, it treats the rest of them like computers. The path to computerization has already been paved by corporate policy. In this sort of organization, replacing employees with computers appears perfectly rational. In fact, so long as an organization bases most of its decision on numbers alone, the majority of its employees become expendable.