CHESS AND UNDERSTANDING HUMAN RESOURCES& TALENT MANAGEMENT
There are similarities between the Game of Chess & Talent Management and hence an understanding of Chess helps in evolving,nurturing,growing and fine tuning a good Executive Search,Talent Acquisition and Talent management strategy as part of overall HR strategy
1)In the
game of Chess,each soldiers has a designated space, path etc while each Talent
has designated location,Responsibility & KRA
2)The objective in Chess is to protect your King ,Check-Mate your opponent
King, in Talent Management you try to Retain your Star Performer&at the
same time Check-Mate your competition by getting their Star Performers
3)As in the Case of Chess you have a “SUPER STAR” in your
QUEEN,which is the King Pin of your strategies in the Game of Chess, Your
“SUPER STAR” performer is the focus of most of your Strategies in
Business
4)Just as
in the game of Chess,You are still a loser if you exceeded your Time-Limit(Even
if
you have a distinctly better position),Your Talent is good only to the extent
of their Proper Time Management,as best of decisions not taken by them in time,
results in your losing the battle.
5)As in the Game of Chess,it is very important to be “GOOD IN YOUR
END-GAME'(even after the Queens are of the board),in the game of business it is
very important to have a good back-up team,when your SUPER STAR is not
available for you.Otherwise as in the game of Chess,if your opponent knows your
dependence on heavy pieces will deliberately try to swap the heavy pieces,Your
competition knowing your Weakness of depending on your Star performer,will try
to snatch him away at any cost.
6)Just
as Chess is a virtual Psychological warfare,it is very important to understand
the Psyche of your talent.Hence more&more resorting to Scientific
Psychological tools like Psychometric assessment.
7)In the game of chess you have soldiers with different strengths, similarly it
is very important to have a talent management strategy in place,which will help
identify&form teams with different skill sets.
8)Just as in Chess, a pawn.which is a soldier with limited potent when alone,but
can be a terror when they are “COMBINED PAWNS”, it is important to
structure your talent management strategy in such a way that your even average
performers when working as a well oiled team can create a havoc in the market
place.
9)In Chess, one of the key focus of the opening strategy will be control of
the board,by controlling central squares,Your talent management strategy should
focus on getting&retaining talent through whom your Market space can be
dominated.
10)In Chess,you continuously update yourself on Opening/Middle/End-Game
Strategies,so you are well prepared for any type of onslaught &also help in
efficient time management,the talent management strategy should provide for
ongoing and state of the art learning&development to prepare your talent
for any type of competition&situations.
While it will be possible to highlight many more of such similarities and learning between Chess&talent Management(We will try to look at it definitely in more detail at a later date),trust this has been an interesting and useful study and will help in fine tuning your Talent management strategy