Checkmate Your Opponents!

Chess is a vicious, mercilessly brutal sport sans the bloodshed. Not unlike the cut-throat corporate world. The resemblances between the two are plenty and thought-provoking. Sixty four squares, thirty two pieces and two minds at battle open up a combination of thousands of moves (literally). Extending this to the hundreds of corporations (players) doing business, one will be able to appreciate the millions of endless choices, and hence, decisions (moves) that have to be made in the business world day after day.

Business success is determined, to a large extent, by a company’s ability to play to its competitor’s strength and survive long enough to make them to play to their own strength. For instance, Company A may be a great innovator. However, we all understand that new product life cycles are highly unpredictable and risky. Company A cannot just look at innovation for its daily existence. They have to have a “stable” product established in the market, revenues from which will fund the daily operations and the cost of innovation. If this “stable” product does not meet the quality and/or price point of a similar product from Company B, then, it is doomsday! In other words, Company A has to have some skill in staying in the ring with Company B till the “innovative” product kicks in and catches Company B off-balance. At this point, Company A has successfully transformed the playing field to match its strength.

According to Garry Kasparov, this is true in Chess too. There are two major types of chess players. Player A, who concerns himself with the next few moves and maximizes the advantage or Player B who looks at the big picture and tries to attain the goal through risks and exploration. If you see, Player A characterizes a great “Manager” in business and Player B, a great “CEO”! Undoubtedly, both are indispensable for the success of the company. What’s more, if Player A and Player B are engaged in a game of chess, they have to be able to play the other’s game, at least until they can get their opponent to play the way they do! Not too dissimilar to the business situation described in the paragraph above.

According to Kasparov, Chess is not just a game of logic. In fact, logic doesn’t play as big a role as one would imagine. After all, even Vishy Anand could only think 10 moves ahead. Intuition is the key. This is definitely true in business too. If logic were the panacea for all business challenges, then the best scientist or mathematician would be the CEO (obviously, that is not the case). A decisive individual who is willing to take risks and explore uncharted waters (with a logical bent of mind, of course) will make a good CEO.

I thought these were very interesting parallels between two seemingly unrelated worlds. So, the next time you are at work yawning in your cube, just imagine that you are in front of checkered board and you will feel better! I know, to some, that’s not sweetening the deal!! But, it is what it is!

Courtesy: Some ideas were borrowed from an interview that Garry Kasparov gave to Harvard Business Review in 2004