I still remember a small chat I’ve had with one bright young man on my team a while back, we were discussing the impact of data and change on the course of business, it was more about decisions than it was about the science of data and the example I’ve share with him at that time was simple:

• When you go to have a shower, (and if you’re like most people 🙂 ) you will need to balance the hot & cold water to find the perfect relaxing fit so you would enjoy your shower, however most tend to work on EXTREMES… they go from Extremely Hot, to Extremely Cool and so on… If it’s Hot… you automatically move the water to cool, then it’s too cool then you go back to less hot and then back… until you succeed.

That example was to simplify the importance of small decisions and testing and doing the corrective measures as you go until you find your match; That bright young man then, became a renown data scientists and one of the world’s Big Data Influencers. (Always proud of you Ali Rebaie )

Fast forwarding to today, and our tip for the week; pretty simple… let’s start by the DON’Ts… it’s actually just One:

Don’t Take Too many decisions at the same time

You see in real life, battles between armies, happen when a lot of soldiers are fighting at the same time, and the side who makes the most damage to the opponent normally wins that battle. In Chess, and on the other hand, it’s different!

In chess, you do have a lot of soldiers, with another set of different ranks etc, and you have to move them one step at a time… It’s still one army deployed on the board fighting the other, but the reality, it’s 2 people only playing. and Yes, you can win the game without causing enormous damage to your opponent, in fact all you need is to have ONE MOVE, The Right One…

The board contains 64 squares of alternating colors. Each player has 16 pieces: 1 king, 1 queen, 2 rooks, 2 bishops, 2 knights, and 8 pawns. and if you think that is easy… There are over 9 million different possible positions after three moves each. There are over 288 billion different possible positions after four moves each. The number of distinct 40-move games is far greater than the number of electrons in the observable universe.

THAT’S HOW COMPLICATED THIS GAME IS!! But still it is Won… ONE STEP AT A TIME.

Life is a game board. Time is your opponent. If you procrastinate, you will lose the game. You must make a move to be victorious.

~ Napoleon Hill

Have a nice week,
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(This post is dedicated to UAE’s Chess Champion 2015, Saeed Ishaq)

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project