The Queen, the Time Clock, En Passant, and what this means for your business

The Queen, the Time Clock, En Passant, and what this means for your business

What the heck am I talking about and what does this have to do with anything? Maybe it doesn't. At least you will be entertained for a few minutes and look smart at a friend's this weekend.

But there are marketing lessons in here…

I had the privilege of spending some time with a Chess Master this week. Name is Tak. Brilliant mind. He just got back from a tournament in Hungary. He told me he plays up to 2 matches a day and each match takes about 5-6 hours. That's 12 hours of intense mental activity each day. Now I've done 10, 12 hour endurance events, but this is completely foreign to me. When you are doing an Ironman, you can turn your brain off and just move your body for 12 hours. That is tiring. I can't imagine having to be intensely focused mentally for that long. To me that is purely amazing.

I was intrigued by the competitiveness of these tournaments. I love competition. I played competitive hockey and in high school played competitive chess too. (got on the chess team as a result of a detention I had, but that's another story). We also got into the history of chess.

King Arthur's Chess Set:

Chess is a game of kings. It has been around for approximately 2000 years. It was used by the military to teach war tactics and strategy. A lot of the movement of chess pieces as we know them now didn't really happen until the game first spread in the Middle Ages from India to the Arab world, and then from there across the Mediterranean (Turkey, Italy, Spain) and further into Medieval Europe. Chess is a heavily-stylized version of Dark Ages warfare at its heart.

A game of chess could take days to play. There have even been documented matches where one player would take ONE DAY to make a move. To speed up the game, a couple of hundred years ago, the time clock came into play. For example, International rules call for the clock to be programmed to allow 40 moves to be made within the span of 2 hours. This dramatically increased the speed of the game. … do you have a time clock you can implement to speed up the game in your business? You will be amazed at how much more you can accomplish when you do.

There were other changes made prior to this around 1475. One of them increased the power of the Bishop allowing him unlimited diagonal movement. Prior to this, he could only move 2 squares diagonal.

Another big change was increasing the power of the Queen. I've always wondered "how come the Queen is more powerful than the King?". The Queen was inferior to the King and could ONLY move one square diagonally. Modern day rules allow the Queen to move as far as she wants in whatever direction she wants.

Why was this change put into place? Nobody seems to know. I have my own theory… remember the quote from the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, "the man is the head of the household but the woman is the neck. She can turn the head anyway she wants".

I'm guessing that one of the Queens around that time turned the head to influence the rule change. Thus the Queen in chess has greater power and range than the King. I've been married for 11 years and that theory sits fine with me! :)  … lesson here … if you're married, listen to your Queen, she can help you be a better King! She can see things you can't and has skills and intuition that you don't. Remember these 4 words… "happy wife, happy life!"

The last rule change is a little known rule called "En Passant". If you look it up, it means "in passing". This little known rule can change the shape of a match. It gives you the ability to strike and defeat a pawn that is trying to sneak around you. (If you're interested in it, here is a short video on my blog that explains the move. You can fast forward to the 1:33 mark of this 3 minute video)

The lesson from En Passant… are there little known tactics that you can employ in your business that can completely change the playing field and give you the competitive advantage you are looking for? (Hint… answer is YES!)

Hope you enjoyed this.

Blessings