Seeing The Entire Board

Have you ever experienced this?

“Check and mate,” your opponent says after moving a piece on the chess board. “Gosh! I didn’t see it coming”, you say aloud!  If you have played a little chess, you would have undoubtedly experienced something like this. It happens because you didn’t keep an eye on the entire chess board.

Just as seeing the entire board is critical in a chess game, it is vital in business management. A good business leader learns how to use this overarching view of the whole board to win every battle.

Why is it critical to see the whole board?

The above example shows that you can miss an incoming threat if you do not see the entire board. However, even the best managers sometimes lose sight of the board and miss critical threats. Steve Jobs was a legendary innovator and an astute strategist who unleashed the power of mobile on the world. Even Jobs lost track of the boards once and was surprised to see Google enter mobile phones with its  Android platform. He didn’t perceive the fact that the arena of mobile telephony was shifting in a  way that Apple and Google became natural rivals. 

There are other reasons why seeing the entire board helps you too:

You will not get overwhelmed

A lack of a big picture view of the board can quickly overwhelm you. Recall the time when you entered a new job or role where you had significant gaps in mental models of your new world. Try remembering how you discovered the board on a daily basis.  Was it overwhelming at times?

Now extrapolate that experience to the reality of running a business without seeing the board. You would be like a rudderless boat, pushed in a  new direction with every fresh gale. You will lose sight of the big picture and end up making poor decisions.

When the internet domain began exploding, Yahoo! was no longer the only kid on the block. New technologies and applications began emerging on a regular basis. The board started to expand exponentially.  Yahoo! was overwhelmed and could no longer keep an eye on the entire board. It started making poor business decisions.  Back then, Garlinghouse, a senior Yahoo! executive, wrote a scathing memo chiding the leadership for this significant miss. I sometimes use that memo in my strategy programs. 

You will Leverage The Right Tools

As a business leader, you have many tools at your disposal. You can choose which segments of the market to focus on, which competitors to be wary of, where to aim for share gain and when to cede ground. You can choose technology, product innovation, pricing, advertising, contracting many other tools. 

If you do not see the entire board, you will miss out on the most critical parts of the board. You may end up expending your resources in the wrong battles. Incorrect resource utilization is what Polaroid did when faced with the threat of digital cameras: it began creating small printers on top of digital cameras! Polaroid filed for bankruptcy soon after, in 2001.

What exactly is seeing the board?

Your ability to see the entire board comes from a well-developed perspective. This perspective has a deep linkage with the art of strategy. The word ‘strategy’ comes from the Greek word Strategos which roughly translates to the general’s view: an all-encompassing view. 

A private in the trenches can see very little of the battlefield because she is too close to the ground to see much else. However, the general high up on the mountain can see a lot. He can see the battlefield, the weather, the oncoming storms, the battle formations, the enemy’s resources, and a lot more. He perceives the entire board.

If you want to learn how to see the entire board, you also need to develop a General’s view – an all-encompassing 360-degree view of the board.  Then you will not only see the obvious but also the less obvious. Then you will see the individual trees and the entire forest. You will not only understand what your competitor did today but also what it will do next. You will not only see the tectonic plates of your industry but also how they are shifting. 

The Art of Seeing the Board

The art of seeing the board involves developing three distinct skills. Although each of these components helps you understand the board a little better, you need all three of them to see the entire board.

1. Perspective

The reason why a general sees so much more is that he has a better view than the private does. Due to the altitude, he can see far and more broadly. The private, on the other hand, is too close to the ground to see much.  

In the business world, you gain a general’s perspective through conceptual altitude. A business leader rarely has the luxury of directly seeing most aspects of the board. She uses mental models to see the board.  A mental model is a conceptual abstraction of the real world. Just as a model of an airplane shows you the most critical parts of the plane, a mental model shows you the most critical parts of your business world. Once you build an accurate mental model, you gain valuable conceptual altitude – a 50,000 ft view of the business. Then you will understand the pieces on the board, the landscape, how parts interact with each other, the rules they follow and how the entire system works together.

You can read more on mental models in my article on thin-slicing: making business decisions with very little information.

2. Pattern Repertoire

A chess master understands the board and the pieces on it but needs a lot more to win the game. He needs to understand what threats and opportunities will arise from the opponent’s current move. To recognize these opportunities and threats, human chess players use pattern matching to identify future options. They do not calculate all possible counter moves like a computer does. Instead, they recall patterns they have seen to anticipate possible counter moves. Therefore, the repertoire of board patterns is a deciding factor in how well one can play the game. 

Similarly, in business, your knowledge of business history provides you a repertoire of patterns of the board. Although history rarely repeats itself, the trends in industries do repeat themselves. For example, in my research on profit destroying innovations, I found that company after company behaved in similar ways when faced with ‘The Dark Side of Innovation.’ Through my research, I uncovered a vital pattern of behavior and its triggers. However, you don’t have to conduct original research to build pattern repertoire. You can accumulate well-established models in your industry and others industries. 

You can build pattern repertoire in two meaningful ways. First, by being aware of significant past events in your business, industry, and context. Second, by becoming aware of emerging patterns in play in your and other markets. 

3. Information processing 

The crucial third piece in seeing the board comes from superior methods of information processing. By learning strategic thinking, you can learn the art of discovering the board without turning over every rock. You can learn how to identify the most critical battles each time.  It will enable you to ignore more substantial parts of the board without missing anything. 

You can learn strategic thinking with some training and much practice. I have taught this thinking method to thousands across the world with consistent results. You can listen to an overview of this in my podcast on strategic thinking. 

I am often amazed by how little organizations do to develop thinking styles through training. A key lesson here is that you can learn to think and process information in ways that allow you to see hidden layers of any board. Without this essential skill, you will not be able to see the whole board. You can learn more about strategic thinking methods here. 

Take away

When you put together an ability to develops conceptual perspective, build a repertoire of patterns, and develop strategic thinking you create the ability to see the entire board. By observing the whole board each time, you will win more battles and lose the ones you really shouldn’t try to win. This ability will set you apart from others who cannot see the board.