Highlights From medium.com

There is not one but two questions of why in chess. I have the why of purpose such as the desire to win the game but I also have the why of movement as in “why this move over that?”

Gurus will write books on the “Secrets of the Queen” and people will copy the moves of successful players. People will convince themselves that they know what they’d doing and the importance of action — you can’t win without pressing a character! All sorts of superstition will develop.

I set out to fix this and the first thing I needed was a map.

The first, and most obvious thing, is that they are visual. If I was going to move a piece on a map then I could point to where it was and where it needed to go. Navigation was visual but that was normal. Except, I realised it wasn’t. When people stopped me in their cars to find their way to the nearest petrol station — this was 2004 and GPS was st... See more

Now, it’s worth remembering where I was back in 2004. I had a purpose which wasn’t static despite my belief it was. I was jumping to strategy whilst ignoring landscape, climate and doctrine. I was using storytelling to communicate with the entire group. I had no mechanism of learning. I was simply copying secrets of success from others combined wit... See more

This last point struck a chord with me. When playing a game of chess there was usually multiple moves that I could make and I would determine and adjust my strategy from this. A mistake by the opponent could allow me to switch from a defensive to an attacking play or to consolidate control over part of the board. I would determine one course of act... See more

[In chess], how did I learn, how did I get better at the game? I would see the board, I would move a piece and I would learn that sometimes a particular move was more beneficial than another. I would refine my craft based upon my gameplay on the board.

The best way I’ve found to cope with this cycle is through the work of the exceptional John Boyd. In order to understand the process of air combat, John Boyd developed the OODA loop. This is a cycle of observe the environment, orient around it, decide and then act. In figure 7 below, I’ve married together both Sun Tzu and John Boyd to create a stra... See more

Hence I turned to next factor which was doctrine or the standard ways of operating. This I thought would be easy as it’s just the good practice of business. I started looking into operational strategy and it was during that time another one of those blindingly obvious questions hit me. I was reading up on the great and good of business, those wise ... See more

A game of chess