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 

Practical lesson of Managment

It's not a move, even the best move, that you must seek, but a realizable plan  (Eugene Znosko-Borovsky)

   For a little over a year and a half I worked as adjutant to the network Director in a important international mobile phone company. It was the peak of deployment, where the objectives of installation and commissioning of the air base stations (basic elements to provide mobile coverage) were very aggressive both in quantity and in compliance with the necessary speed, as this deployment could assume a great advantage from the standpoint competitive.

    I remember a particular day in which we were to meet separately with the leaders of each of the deploy areas for reviewing its objectives and resource management both financial and workload of each of the different companies working with us.

    Before the entry of each of them was the manager told me:

"He is so, has a concept of how it should work this way and therefore we must expose and reach this conclusion  this way"

   That day I learned a lesson managment practice hard to match in any MBA: communication skills combined with a strong knowledge of the people he worked with, and a very clear idea of ​​what he had to get to each of them: No there are only different ways of achieving the same goal, but the communication of the same objective should be different.

   That day I was clear about the difference between "ordering" and "managment" also helped me to see the difference in giving the message aseptic, realistic and to adapt it to convey the message to really get to each partner.

   The aim of the "game" he was playing with each was the same, but the approach was totally different.

   The World champion Emanunel Lasker (1868-1941) said he had to find the best play against a specific opponent, considering its features and style of play, which the best move objectively speaking (the truth "pure" )  is not always  the best practical option (the message conveyed and really assimilated by the receiver).

    In chess we consider these things every time you start a game from the first move we consider both our own style of play as the opponent, trying to find an opening and an approach that suits play our game and the same time you make your opponent to play uncomfortable

On the other hand, sometimes it is the case that in a certain position can find several options objectively valid and you have to choose ... there is usually no one that is clearly better than the other, then choose the option that think leads to play favorable positions or, if we know our opponent  we can look for options that are objectively worse for us, but letting to a game that suits worse to the style  of play of our opponents.

    The preparation of competitive chess (even at the amateur level) leads us to get used to the analysis not only of matter itself (message to convey, aim "aseptic"),  also to adapt that matter the opponent or, speaking in the business environment, to suit the different partners that we have in the project or specific meeting, reviewing how to modulate the messages to be transmitted and how to achieve the goal.