Galicia in mourning

  I know this is not neither Chess nor Business, I know that deviates from the theme of the blog and I apologize if you ever find inappropriate ..... but that's what I need to say

    Both in Chess as the world of business everything loses all meaning if we forget that above all there are always people and feelings.

Negra Sombra 

(Rosalía / Carlos Núñez / Luz Casal)

Where are we?

"Good positions do not win games, good moves itself" (G-Abrahams)

   Continuing with the previous entries we will try to implement marketing imagination and spirit in order to get sponsorship for the chess world. When we play a game and we face the decision of the moves, first of all, we need to evaluate the position remaining after the play of the opponent.

   Very briefly the steps would be:

•  We see what has moved.
•  Detecting which are direct threats.
•  See how to change the situation of the pieces as a result of this movement.
•  Check how it affects the plan we had planned and if we have to change.

   In the second part we compare the structure looking for strengths and weaknesses of both  own and rival, and value the gameplay possibilities that have the pieces on the board (which pieces are most active, which ones to improve or what pieces of hand can make worsen their situation and what they give us the most problems)

   If we do this previous analysis, the odds of finding the best plan increase significantly, the move to make would be the consequence of the plan we decided to follow (remember the SWOT analysis mentioned in the previous post).

   That said, we have to evaluate the position in which we find:

   Currently, chess has good reputation ... is always good to say that you play chess, nobody looks like a crazy thing, and it is normal that you consider in the category "the smart". Likewise, nearly all are seeing it as a game and not a sport, it still has the aura of some smart people, but rather "Geeks".

   Some time ago, in a talk on Twitter on this topic, the other person closed the conversation by saying that chess is like poetry, very nice, very cool, which is quite good, but at the time to spend money... how many people buy poetry? Chess is something that  is considered minority, even though almost everyone has been in front of a chess board sometime in their life, even if in the same way that has been before the Parcheesi board, so they do not find anything strange .

   At this point we have some strengths and some weaknesses? We play this game.. are we smarter than others or simply are some geeks? Surely any of those things, but I do have to be aware that we are perceived as well, and if anything teaches advertising or marketing in general is that it is more important how you perceive something that it really is.

   In the mass media (sports or general) there is little room for chess news, although in almost all them exists the typical problem in  hobbies section. The recent Tal Memorial Super Tournament, with several of the best current players How many news or reviews in  "not  specialized" newspapers / websites are you read? I do not talk of covers, but I think we could aspire to any room regularly, at least comparable to that seen for other sports "minority"

  On the other hand, if today questions down the street or in the office to "not chess people" about chess players names... what do you think would be the most mentioned?

   I took the test and, in this order were, Kasparov, Karpov and Fischer

   Coincidence? What do these players have in common to be in the collective memory?, Any current player may occupy a similar status, What would be required? Unfortunately now I'm just thinking international players, the same people (not chess) asked if they could tell me some Spanish player: one happened to mention Paco Vallejo and other (curious case his youth) quoted me Arturito Pomar, and the other use a "poker face" like answer.

   Yes, I know that I have a pair of post just throwing questions, but to achieve a difficult goal wer have to understand that there are difficult questions raised (and sure I have left many), and give answers before complacency of our strengths: When you resolve threats and weaknesses, our strengths we should give "decisive advantage". 

The original post was published in Spanish in my collaboration with the website Chesslive.com 

Think & Do

"The laws of Chess do not allow a free choice: you have to move like it or not" (Lasker)

   I firmly believe that chess is an effective and useful tool  in the preparation of a professional who aspires to be useful in their daily work. As commented in my presentation, i'm going to alternate posts with analysis and discussion , with other concepts in which try to relate both worlds (chess and businesses).

  In all lectures / courses that I have done on marketing or project management began in one way or another telling what a SWOT analysis (Strengths-Weaknesses-Threats-Opportunities), presenting it as a key element for the development of the we wanted to do. I can only agree ... if done right.

   In almost every analysis I have seen throughout my professional life, you tend to overestimate their own strengths, minimize competition, underestimate our weaknesses increasing competition one: the Business Case "have to go" because this is good and can not be stopped because the figures do not say it in Excel.

  Here we forget the objective assessments, we get carried away by our subjective and because we are pre-convinced of the result not wanting to see that we could be wrong, or at least is necessary to revise the approach.

  The analysis of a chess position not unlike virtually nothing of a SWOT analysis: see what's from the point of view of what our strengths and the weaknesses of the opponent to see where we have to attack, review the threats that we rival and tried to cover our weaknesses, and as the weight of each factor will make a move or another.

  Every player has fallen many times in the mistake of overestimating or underestimating the strengths of the opponent, and we have all lost a lot of games for this. The development of a player, among other things, is based on the ability to achieve the objective assessments in the playing positions

   Let's consider the chess board as our training camp to make SWOT analysis: working objectivity, the correct reading of the conditions and those of others, we can develop a "sixth" sense to find hidden threats and can fail to see where our seemingly good position. Finally, working our ability to search for opportunities, even in complicated situations where there seems to be nothing.

  All these points are important in itself, but I'm focusing on the last one personally think it's an important nuance.

  Chess forces you to think, but also to act, we can not "in pass" the move just because it doesn't ring the bell ... and on top you have limited time.

  Many times both in professional situations and in the derivatives of the game we were out of options, we were blocked with no ability to react to the situations. Like all,  imaginative capacity to find solutions and answers to complicated situations can be trained, you can work from the standpoint of constructive forces you to find "something".

  The problem is that in the office is playing "live fire" and be answered faster than we would like or need to find an answer yes or yes and if not used, often we do not know how to start looking.

  The best professionals that I've met are precisely those who could manage in these situations without blocking. There are many ways to prepare for this, and I think one of the best is just chess.

The original post was published in Spanish in my collaboration with the website Chesslive.com