"From chess to business" If we are able to study our enemy, his ability, his strength, his weaknesses, we will be in a better position to face him. If we stop to deepen the qualities and conditions of a chess player, we discover unsuspected psychological aspects for other individuals who do not professionally practice the science game, and it is that dedication to it forces you to condition your mind in a higher way, by developing concentration, attention, creativity, logical reasoning and memory, in a natural way within the field of chess, but supernatural for anyone else.
One of the fundamental elements in the psychological preparation of a chess player is the knowledge of his opponent, and it is precisely this point that I am most interested in highlighting to try to explain how the new concept of competition that I have called: Competition arises. Business Directive (CDE)
The precursor of the theories of the psychological preparation of a chess player is the great E. Lasker, for being the first to recognize that behind the pieces and the board is the individual who leads them, his style, his personality, his character, which many Sometimes it influences your style.
It is known that in some games Lasker did not make the best plays, but those that really hurt his opponent, as a sign of his knowledge, in short, he said, the most important thing is the result.
If we are able to study our enemy, his ability, his strength, his weaknesses, we will be in a better position to face him.
In the evolutionary development of Lasker's ideas appear those of another world champion, Alexander Alekhine, who was worth considerably in his title match with Capablanca. Alekhine contributed new elements by foreseeing psychological preparation in both its direct and inverse relationships, submitting to analysis the psychological processes of thinking and character and the influence and connection of one on another.
Analysis of the relationship between the preparation, training and education of a chess player and an entrepreneur
There are two key and necessary elements to keep in mind, for a chess player, prior to a competition. Are they:
1. Factors other than chess and that negatively influence the player's behavior.
2. Factors directly linked to chess and that can also negatively influence the results.
The psychological preparation of a professional chess player is closely related to that used by a manager or executive of a company.
If we analyze the entrepreneur from the economic point of view, we say that he is the person who organizes and runs the company, exercising an authority function over the workers who work in it and assumes the risks that his activity implies.
As Sánchez Calero states in his work "Institutions of commercial law", The entrepreneur is the driving force of the company and, ultimately, of the economic system, because it has a power of economic initiative and, ultimately, an evident economic power.
Analyzing these definitions, we will agree to point out that the emergence, development, success or failure of a company depends to a great extent on its management, on the executive staff, on the ability of these individuals to carry out their functions, so their preparation Psychological must be arduous, and like their training and formation, they must constitute prioritized objectives if they are to succeed in their endeavor and above all be prepared to face the Competition.
If we consider that the company is nothing more than a machine driven by the human being, who leads it to reach the goal or stay on the road, it is necessary to focus on the individual as an entrepreneur, who like the chess player, who moves the pieces to beat his opponent and achieve more and more status among his colleagues, he moves his resources for similar purposes although in different areas.
However, neither of them can defeat their opponent without knowing him, studying him, identifying his virtues, defects, ways of driving, moods, styles, etc.
Generally, when we prepare a strategic plan and make an analysis of the competitive environment, we basically focus on the characteristics of our competitor or competitors, such as a company, its resources, market positioning, products or services it possesses, experience in the sector and other factors. that directly intervene in the result of the analysis that we carry out, technically translated as “Market study”, however, we rarely stop to think that who really is our true competitor is the man, the manager or executive capable of leading the company that we face, the one who is necessarily capable, as Jack Welch, president of General Electric, would say, of defining the right tasks,the appropriate personnel in charge of these tasks and the necessary and fair remuneration for these personnel to carry out their mission correctly.
- So why not really prepare ourselves to get to know our true competitor better? Are we talking about a new concept of competition?
Indeed, through the techniques used in the “chess in business” method, a new concept of competition emerges, the CDE.
It is necessary to work in order to obtain the necessary information to carry out the optimal preparation, in order to face and defeat our true competitor, the entrepreneur who directs, organizes and administers the company that manufactures, markets or offers services and products similar to those of our organization.
This is precisely what the CDE is about, which arises through the postulates and legacies of the greatest science game masters who, definitively, defended and defend the importance of psychological preparation and deep knowledge of the adversary, as key elements for victory.
If the success of a chess player, in addition to other factors, lies to a large extent in the knowledge of his opponent, whether or not he has previously faced him, the success of an entrepreneur, manager or executive lies fundamentally in the knowledge he possesses about methods, forms, styles and personal characteristics, which are inherent to the personnel who run the company against which you compete in the market.
Surely the managers of the most successful companies have ever, without intending to, applied the techniques of the CDE, when preparing their strategic plan, relying not only on the information they obtain from the market study they carry out, but also knowing the way, methods, styles, way of thinking, conduct and personal characteristics in general that those who direct the company against which they compete in the market.
Example: There are many examples in the business field that demonstrate the use of CDE, but there is one that I always use and it is the classic duel between the managers of Harley-Davidson and its Japanese competitors in the 1960s. The most interesting thing is how Asian managers, owners of motorcycle brands such as Onda and Kawasaki, knowing the traditional character of Harley-Davidson managers, both in technology and in the design of their equipment, responsibility of Willie G. Davidson at the time, penetrated the North American market with lighter motorcycles, easy to use for young people and even women, who until now could not use the HD's heavy vehicles and even with much lower prices than those offered to purchase a North American flagship. In the late 1960s,With the rise of the automobile industry, the motorcycle market dropped considerably in the US and although HD continued to have a presence, the Japanese push with its differentiating strategy led HD to almost total bankruptcy and thanks to the acquisition of this company by American Machine & Foundry Company and the strategic solutions of HD's later managers boosted HD to become a market leader again.Foundry Company and the strategic solutions of HD's later managers boosted HD to become a market leader again.Foundry Company and the strategic solutions of HD's later managers boosted HD to become a market leader again.
What actually enabled the Japanese to design their winning strategy in the 1960s against HD?
Undoubtedly, independently of other factors that influenced Japanese success, the key was the knowledge that the managers of the Asian nation had of the way of acting, thinking, directing and operating of the HD managers. They knew that these were not going to change their image, their design or even create a new product that would compete with their motorcycles.
At least they were not going to do it in the short term, because it would be like transforming a business mentality of almost 60 years, (HD was founded in 1903) in a very short time, which was not possible. This is an example of how CDE is successful as a strategy, as long as it is used properly.
Information based on the development of the strategy to follow for the implementation of the CDE
Although business trends vary in terms of what the modern entrepreneur should be like and there is much talk nowadays about the education and training of the individual for their professional development based on the activity they carry out, the majority of entrepreneurs today they use information technology to carry out their work and find in it a tireless search tool for information, to start new businesses, make investments, buy, sell and make decisions.
The proper use of these technologies can be a competitive weapon for the company that uses it, and it has or has an impact on three fundamental levels, as established by Gregory L. Parson, the industry level, the firm level and the level of strategy, the latter being the one that interests me the most.
We already know that with information we also learn to develop better strategies, since we identify parameters of competition, the environment, social and political changes, which helps us to prepare our plans and make the best decisions. For example, explicit market knowledge, which makes it easier for us to make better decisions as all information is available at the organizational level.
When the chess master A. Alekhine faced his counterpart José Raúl Capablanca, in the match for the world championship in 1927, it is said that he had learned by heart and analyzed, most of the games that up to that moment had been played the great Cuban chess player in official events. Undoubtedly Alekhine's preparation was focused on searching and identifying through the information obtained, the weaknesses of his opponent, his style, main lines of play and everything necessary to defeat him. Definitely his effort was rewarded by winning the match and becoming a new world champion despite not having been the pre-competition favorite.
Remember that Alekhine is a continuator of Lasker's ideas about the psychological preparation of the chess player through the knowledge of the opponent and therefore the application of his postulates had its maximum expression when defeating Capablanca in the aforementioned match.
What is the formula that teachers of the science game use to make appropriate use of information?
A chess master, in his daily preparation or the one he develops for a tournament, works hard in the incessant search for chess information, and then makes a selection of it, according to his style, potential, laborious attitude, type of tournament who will face or faces, and especially characteristics of the adversary or adversaries he faces.
Now then, let's move on stage and leave the world of 64 boxes for a few minutes to enter the business world. Starting from the theories and methods of information selection, let us focus specifically on the appropriate use of the information obtained by the manager of a company and its application for decision-making and the design of the strategies to follow.
George S. Day in his excellent book "Understand, capture and retain the best customers" talks about making sense of the information obtained, proposing that it is necessary to classify, order and simplify it into coherent models. He also says that "the key to deciphering information effectively is to develop mutually informed mental models throughout the organization, which have a filter function."
When analyzing Mr. Day's criteria, which I share, I suddenly felt the analogous feeling between chess and business, when comparing the classifications he deals with, with those made by the master Lasker of the players of his time. The German genius from the information he obtained, both from a chess and personal point of view, classified his adversaries. Returning to Day's approaches and referring to mental models, it occurs to me to think that the best mental models that exist are chess players, who are capable, like no other being, of filtering information, both visual and from any other source, discarding the less useful or secondary information, from the useful and primary.
It is not enough to obtain information to achieve success, but it is necessary to know how to use it through an appropriate selection process.
When analyzing the sources of information for a business organization, we find that the main one is The Market, however, we rarely find that a study has been carried out on the information related to the people or person who leads, organizes and directs the company We face in that market, we deal with identifying our competitor from its tangible assets or perfectly decipherable intangible values, such as the Brand for example, however, the true value of that company is its human capital, capacity and management methods. who are employees, the possible movements made by their managers, among other aspects intrinsic to the person, not to the company itself. In order to obtain this information, classify it, study it and use it appropriately,it is important to improve the perception of what is obtained, through a learning process, which helps to develop more important capacities for this perception and then learn to transform the information obtained through perception into knowledge, which can be reached when it's requested.
The methodology applicable to the CDE deals with these questions.
The company Shell Oil considers institutional learning as "the process by which management teams change their shared mental models of their company, their markets, and their competitors." They use planners to carry out learning through different scenarios, in which they perform the role of facilitator, catalyst and accelerator of the learning process. These people are responsible for interviewing the management team and writing down on paper the mental model of their strategies.
The results can lead to the identification of the conflicts and contradictions existing between the team members. Then the different strategies are studied and the most suitable one to be chosen is chosen according to the evaluation carried out by the planner.
Our method is responsible for doing exercises similar to this, which can be applied internally in any business organization and then measure the results.
However, it is my personal opinion that this planner can help create better shared mental models within the steering group, if it is a person with some chess background and uses his logical reasoning and knowledge to help define the strategies of the learning group that trains, depending on the competitive approach.
In my work as a Business Consulting professional, I have had to help my clients, directly or indirectly, to properly use the information they obtain from their competitor, to design new strategies in which the most important element is to identify this competitor. as an adversary we know and therefore we must overcome.
In later works I will show you how the Business Directive Competition (CDE) can be used, as a new model of competitive strategy, applicable to any sector and market through the monitoring of a structure and methodological base that complies with the principles of the “chess in” method. business ”.
