Three lessons from the game of chess that apply to the practice of management.
You don't need to have played chess to understand this post
Chess is a brutal sport, and contains mathematical objectivity of the kind one cannot find in any other sport or professional practice. Your Elo rating provides you with a mathematically substantiated measure of how good you are, and how likely you are to win against someone rated above/below you. Your in-game performance (measured against supercomputer objectivity) provides you an accurate measurement of how well you fared in a single game, and computers can be used to analyze your playing style, specific strengths and weaknesses, and help generate personalized training programmes and practices to make you better in optimal fashion. With a top-level coach and a modern training routine, you can go from an absolute beginner, to being in the top 5th percentile (or above) of the millions who’ve ever even touched the game, in the course of two years1, given a consistent training routine of just a few hours each week.
Chess.com demo: An in-depth analysis of Grandmaster (GM) Hikaru Nakamura’s games. Hikaru is consistently among the three top rated GMs on the website.
If you are able to bring this unprecedented level of scientific objectivity to your business, involving performance standards, ethics standards, workplace learning, key performance indicators (KPIs), quality standards, standards of practice, workplace well-being, work design, leadership development, employee satisfaction, career development, and so on, then by all means, you should strive to do so (and my newsletter “the manual” might help you cover areas you might not have thought of considering from a policy perspective like the quagmire of workplace romances2) but management, unlike chess, is not a clear-cut, rule-bound sport. It’s much more difficult and open-ended. However, the immensely scientific process of a century of chess improvement, and innumerable lessons from chess history can lead us to various analogous insights that equally well apply to the practices of management and leadership.
While studying and exploring chess, there are quite a few practices and social norms that I’ve come to understand that are broadly applicable to management practice. For instance, top chess players like (recent 5-time world champion) GM Magnus Carlsen are very open to learning from classic games, but are management professionals as open to learning from scientific classics in the management sciences? The proliferation of best-selling business books suggests that some serious-minded professionals might hold an analogous interest. But there will still be several organizational leaders who go “this sounds great, but it would never work in practice.”
In games of chess and in problems of management, certain motifs recur. Whether it is the difficult supplier negotiation, or the isolated queen pawn; the overloaded queen or the overloaded senior manager, it would be wise to devote some time to learning about these motifs, and strategies to handle them; it might save you time and boost your fluency when such circumstances inevitably occur. The situation you face will never be the exact same as the textbook example (and the perceptive chess player never expects this to be the case either), but you are more likely to recognize the resources and strategies that you can use if you’ve done some prep work beforehand.
Now I’m going to stop eulogizing in general terms, and be more concrete. Here are three maxims from chess that apply to the practice of management.
Maxim (1) Concrete situations outweigh general principles
You might like a certain routine, possess a preferred communication style, a certain set of habits3 and these might even have been learned from academic articles or books! However, your specific circumstances at work will often demand you to change things around. You might have to be more assertive than you expect, lead your team more authoritatively/democratically than you are used to4, and so on. Chess players often have styles that they prefer (like quiet, calm positions, or aggressive frenzied positions). But they have to learn to read the situation for what it is, and not fall in love with what they would prefer it to be. This applies even if they’ve read from a great chess book that the pieces “ought to be placed differently”. Differences in circumstances can necessitate drastic changes in chess, work, and in life, without rendering the insights from the books themselves redundant.
A few concrete examples to bring home the point:
(1) General Manager Peyton: “I read from a famous negotiation book that the Ackerman Bargaining System is the gold-standard for haggling prices, and now that is my organization’s default approach. However, the new supplier I am negotiating with is now angry with me because they think I’ve driven them down too hard in the latest round. Now they refuse to respond to my team’s emails. My choice of alternative supplier might take too much time to deliver the product and may also be more costly. What should I do?”
(2) Senior Research Team Leader Riley: “I prefer to lead small teams and like to be given carte-blanche to develop my designs. I generally use a democratic approach with my team. I read about it in an HBR article; it worked for so long and it fostered for me a rather cordial work environment. But my new team is full of “star” newcomers who might not respect me? Or will they? How will I manage this change? Will I be able to persuade them in the design direction that I prefer?”
In both examples, the general prescription was not wrong as such, but simply insufficient to meet the nuances of the changed circumstance. In case (1), extensive (and empathic) communication is needed to even get work back on track. In case (2) the prescription might be to ask Riley to use a more directive leadership style (or coach them on how they might be able to do so) to gain the respect of their new team5.
New ways are needed when the old ones don’t work. Your manual of strategies, tactics, and resources has to expand and grow in nuance as circumstances change. That’s how experience comes to become so valuable over time - in sport, business, and in life.
Maxim (2) There are many paths and styles to success
These are a few quotes about the styles of two chess players: GM Tigran Petrosian (World Champion from 1963-1969), and GM Mikhail Tal (World Champion from 1960-1961). Both of them, at different points of time, won the ultimate prize in the sport of chess (the World Championship of Chess) whilst they were active and were active top-level players until they passed away.
"In those years, it was easier to win the Soviet Championship than a game against 'Iron Tigran (Petrosian)'." – Lev Polugaevsky
"He has an incredible tactical view, and a wonderful sense of the danger... No matter how much you think deep... He will 'smell' any kind of danger 20 moves before!" – Bobby Fischer
Known to be an extremely conservative and defensive chess player, Tigran Petrosian seemed more concerned with “not losing” than he was concerned with winning. Although this style was criticized for being “boring”, it was highly suited for match play, where he could let games drag on and on ad infinitum until his opponent made a mistake; this signature style led to his initial world championship title victory against Mikhail Botvinnik (5-2 and 15 draws).
When criticized for being “boring”, this is what Tigran remarked about his style of play:
“They say my chess games should be more interesting. I could be more interesting -
and also lose!”
On the other extreme in terms of playing styles, is “the Magician from Riga”, Mikhail Tal. This is how Tal’s peers described his maverick imaginative attacking style.
"How does Tal win? - He develops all his pieces in the center and then sacrifices them somewhere" - David Bronstein
"Whereas Botvinnik, in the first instance, tried to find the most expedient plan, the most rational arrangement of his forces, the Rigan looked instead for the most aggressive plan, leading to sharp play, rich with combinational possibilities. Whereas Botvinnik sought the rule, Tal sought the exception. " - Yuri Averbakh
This style was not without its flaws and critics. It was often considered a showy, unsound brand of play, which led to his loss of the world championship which he handed back to Mikhail Botvinnik. In Botvinnik’s own words: "If Tal had really studied Chess in the late fifties and early sixties he would have been impossible to play against".
However, with the unique wit which one might expect of such an imaginative virtuoso, Tal had only this to admit about his style of play:
“There are two types of sacrifices: correct ones, and mine.”
What do the styles of these two contrasting chess champions say about the theory and practice of management?
In management thought leadership, there are often debates about the pros and cons of different leadership styles, negotiation scripts6, whether to create, or not create teams in your organization, and so on.
As cliched as it sounds, these simplified approaches may work.
They also may not.
My suggestion is that, like top-level chess players, when it comes to the practice of management, let’s “learn from theory”7, observe the concrete considerations of our own circumstances, calculate, and design solutions accordingly.
The solutions that eventually emerge from such considerations can look vastly different, for different leaders, teams, and/or organizations.
Maxim (3) You have to start playing and analyzing your own games
You can know all the “theory” you want. But at some point, you have to start playing. To improve, you have to start analyzing your own games, with an engine and/or a coach (if you are serious). What went right, what went wrong, what can be improved, what needs to be avoided. The secrets to your unique development trajectory lie in analyzing from your own circumstances, and looking ahead to what they necessitate from you in the future. If you don’t analyze your own games of chess, you may not improve. Although I don’t wish to generalize too severely, the same often holds true in professional life — in the practice of management and leadership in organizations.
There is no end-state of perfection, whether in chess, work, or in life. You have to get started someday, make mistakes, maintain a spirit of continuous improvement, and keep playing all the way through.
May your position be ever be in your favor!
I choose to close this essay with a few quotes on chess and life that I personally found to be poetic and inspiring.
“You sit at the board and suddenly your heart leaps. Your hand trembles to pick up the piece and move it. But what chess teaches you is that you must sit there calmly and think about whether it’s really a good idea and whether there are other, better ideas.”
- Stanley Kubrick (American film director and screenwriter; 1928-1999)
“If a ruler does not understand chess, how can he rule over a kingdom?”
- Sassanian King of Kings, Khusros II (Ruler from 590-628; birth year unknown)
“Daring ideas are like chessmen moving forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.”
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Author, philosopher, and dramatist; 1749-1832)
“I think of myself as playing against the board, and not against my opponent.”
- GM Daniel Naroditsky (1995-present)
“Life is like a game of chess, in which there are an infinite number of complex moves possible. The choice is open, but the move made contains within it all future moves. One is free to choose, but what follows is the result of one’s choice. From the consequences of one’s action there is never any escape.”
- Shelley Smith (attr. unknown)
****
Several people have done this. But it can mean you professionalize the game to quite an extent. I prefer to have more fun with exploring chess, its history, and its aesthetic and stylistic nuances. But fun is rarely the “optimal” way to go if you want to reach your goal quickly. And a similar coaching and insights-driven approach might be the way to go at work.
I’ll be honest, this article is a bit outdated, but the point still stands. “Love contracts” and clear(er) guidelines around this issue can cover for a range of (un)desirable circumstances for your company.
In my case, my writing has been labelled (by well-wishers) too formal and academic in nature in my newsletter posts. I admit that this is the case.
Thompson, G., & Glasø, L. (2015). Situational leadership theory: A test from three perspectives. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 36(5), 527-544.
Sauer, S. J. (2011). Taking the reins: the effects of new leader status and leadership style on team performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(3), 574.
Fisher, R., Ury, W. L., & Patton, B. (2011) (Original: 1981). Getting to yes: Negotiating agreement without giving in. Penguin. VS. Voss, C., & Raz, T. (2016). Never split the difference: Negotiating as if your life depended on it. Random House. (Author and negotiation expert Chris Voss has often publicly discussed in critical terms the concepts espoused in “Getting to Yes…”; these criticisms are discussed within his book as well)
A folk saying in chess culture; “theory” in chess refers to the vast compendium of chess openings, opening guidelines, variations, and sometimes to position-handling procedures, endgame axioms, and tactical motifs as well.
Thumbnail Image by Michal Jarmoluk. Pixabay.