Is Chess Good for Management?

The game of chess has been applauded and taught in business school as a game that gingers creative intelligence.

Chess is a game involving kings, queens, bishops, knights, castles, and pawns like a real life. The pawns (also called soldiers) advance first, lead or supported by officers all to fight and protect the king. It is like fighting a real war similar indeed to fighting or capturing business competitors, employees, or customers. The only difference is that at the end it is only a game.

Chess like every other game is intellectually stimulating. Anything that has calculation, no matter how trivial, is good for management. That is why the Russian grandmaster Mickail Botvinnik declared, "The greatest pleasure is when one feels he is thinking and this is best accomplished with chess."

With all due respect to the grandmaster, good thinking (or the feeling) is not accomplished with chess. Good thinking is accomplished by an exchange of intellect not by circulating existing know how. Chess, like video games, are basically circulating know how-you learn the rules, then, try to arrange them into a winning pattern. People who play games like football, tennis, chess, and video games are among the dullest professionals. They are dull, mind you, not dumb. You don't become brilliant or intellectual sound for playing a game-it will not improve your speaking skills, or writing skills, or personal skills, or administrative skills, it only engages the mind and leaves it as it found it.

Many chess players have failed in business, in their jobs, in school, in personal relationships because they spent 5 to 7 hours daily playing chess. Alexander Kotov in his book Think like a Grandmaster rightly warned that if you are a student, don't play chess at the expense of your studies, if you work, don't play chess at the expense of your job, if you run a business, you cannot move people the way you move chess piece. But if you play as a profession then invest into it.

Playing chess will not make you a creative manager. What will? You have to be a student for life.

Visit http://superriches.com/linkdw.htm and download Secrets of billionaires-how to be super rich free and learn how to develop yourself.

Bright Johnson, a money writer and researcher, is the publisher of http://www.superriches.com

---

What 80% of Businesses Don?t Know: Tips for Improving Your Working Capital Management

What is the number one way to prevent failure in... Read More

Passion for Profits

Business owners and managers are busier than ever. As their... Read More

People Literacy

Every Manager has experienced the frustration of not understanding why... Read More

Beyond Management Coaching: When Things Are Getting Out of Control

Leaders and Managers often ask us, 'What do you do... Read More

Getting to Consensus

The need to get people in an organization to pull... Read More

The Role of the Machine Metaphor in Mixed-initiative Organizational Leadership

"Can This Marriage be Saved?" So reads the title of... Read More

Its All In The Systems

Have you ever noticed french fries taste the same at... Read More

Top 10 Things Every Business Should Provide for Every Worker - Including the Boss!

Doing business and meeting the needs of workers is increasingly... Read More

Paretos Law- Your Formula For Success

A 'dirt-world' retail business I used to manage had a... Read More

Attract and Retain Positively Great Employees - An Action Plan for Employee Training

Everyday a business owner, CEO, or manager somewhere is complaining... Read More

Dont Sweat the Small Stuff with Your Credit Policy

Do you know how many customers you have that are... Read More

Training and ROI (Return On Investment)

Statistics consistently reinforce that the biggest challenge in today's contact... Read More

The Permissive Environment is the Suspect

The permissive and participatory conduct which most employees take for... Read More

Creativity and Innovation Management ? Money Doesnt Do It

Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation... Read More

Ten Steps to Take the Work out of Work ? Replicate Yourself!

They say that management can be a lonely place. A... Read More

Time Management Tips for Managers

Late last year I was presenting a workshop for the... Read More

Turning a Negative Employee Into a Positive Asset

Several years ago, I took over the supervision of a... Read More

Critical Success Factors - Next

The Critical Success Factors Focusing on the... Read More

Understanding How Change Has Changed

There seems to be an assumption that change is a... Read More

Project Management - Are You Done Yet

What happens when a Project Manager asks one of his... Read More

Performance Expectations - 5 Tips and 5 Questions

People want to understand their role - they want to... Read More

Avoid These Seven Deadly Dangers Of Outsourcing

Here are seven dangers of outsourcing your software development. They... Read More

3 Ingredients of Highly Profitable Organizational Change

As waves of organizational change sweep across the business landscape,... Read More

Creative Writing - business principles produce more quality work, faster

Maximization methodologies have long been used in business to produce... Read More

Executive Humor at Meetings

I don't encourage managers to wear funny hats, appear in... Read More

Commercial Collections Billing Practices Advice

Swiftness is the key to collecting past due commercial accounts... Read More

Innovation Management and Brainstorming Management ? why people hate to brainstorm!

Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation... Read More

The Key to Successful Performance Objectives

Have you ever tried to drive somewhere without proper directions?... Read More

How to Keep a Good Employee: Look, Listen, Learn

Recently a client told me a wonderful story about how... Read More

Firing Someone Without Resentment

Firing, sacking, letting go or terminating people is unpleasant. There... Read More

6 Simple Steps to Dealing with Difficult Managers

The challenge of managing difficult managers can be rather daunting,... Read More

Solve Problems Permanently - Ask WHY

As Albert Einstein said:-"The significant problems we face today, cannot... Read More

Let the Intern Do It - Affordable Help for Your Business

Do you have more projects than time? Help might be... Read More