Management as chess

Metaphors are interesting. In the realm of organization and management theory they abound. Still, there's always room for another. Now, it seems, chess grandmaster Gerry Kasparov has added management is chess to the list.

I haven't read the book and most likely will not. But the Financial Times review is interesting. The main flaw of Kasparov's metaphor, it says, is this:

'It is a stretch for Kasparov to draw parallels between chess and running a business because they are different. A business confronts the open world in a way that chess does not begin to mimic. A business leader must deal with employees, customers, suppliers and competitors, not just one opponent, however wily.'

The metaphor is thus flawed since business is not like chess. But, wait a minute: Wasn't this what a metaphor was all about? Swedish social psychologist Johan Asplund has noted (in his brilliant book Om undran inför samhället, roughly 'Pondering society') that this is a common and heavily misdirected critique against metaphors in social science. Paraphrasing Asplund, the formula 'business = business' tells us exactly nothing. The strength in any metaphor lies in tension, in the difference between tenor and vehicle. 'Business is war' (as in the common reference to Sun Tzu) is a somewhat telling metaphor. And the metaphor 'business is chess' while surely not including everything (which would render it pointless) does seem to have an interesting potential in my view: The equal starting situation, the turn-taking response pattern, the use of new versions of traditional problem solving strategies, the assumption of total managerial control; all these are potientially quite revealing, at least when it comes to assumptions of how business work.

The critique against the metaphor itself seems misdirected. Kasparov's use, on the other hand, may not be perfect. But that's something quite different.