Business is NOT a Game of Chess

Although hundreds of business books have been written about chess as a metaphor for running a successful business, this is just not true. Instead, the Chinese game of Go is a closer approximation of how to run a successful, sustainable and profitable business in today’s market conditions.

Funny that a 2,500 year-old Chinese strategic board game could prove a far more accurate business model than the almost cliché game of Chess, but it’s true. Chess is a game of strategic attrition. The goal of which is to achieve a single and specific objective—force the king to surrender.

Time and time again we see this mind-set played out in business—with dire consequences. Businesses set single and specific objectives. They use their human capital as well as their investment capital like pawns to mount a campaign.

It doesn’t matter how large your organization or how much market share you might currently have. What matters is that you’re playing a game of attrition against a single objective which cannot be conclusively determined to be correct until you’ve either achieved it or failed to achieve it. By then it’s too late anyway.

Rather, business is like the Chinese game of Go. Go has a generalized objective (surround your opponent) and a strategy based on controlling the most amount of territory using the fewest pieces possible. The addition of a single new piece has a negative consequence and therefore you are forced to alter your strategy in the direction of efficiency over brute-strength.

Each department are like stones on a Go board. Marketing, Sales, Operations, Human Resources, Production, Distribution, etc. should work together toward a generalized objective and with as much overlap as possible.

So, forget Chess. These days no business is too big to fail and none are too small to succeed.

Check out “Learning the Most from the Worst” to learn a few lessons I’ve learned about how NOT to run a business. It’s an oldie, but a goodie.