CHESS&THE GAME OF TALENT MANAGEMENT
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
