#2 Think like a chess mastermind♟
Garry Kasparov maintained the title of world chess champion for 15 years, a world record. What made him different?
All great chess players review their games to analyze their performance. The secret lies in how he did it.
Photo: Reuters
Most players attempt to learn from individual decisions. For example, "Moved x there but it was a bad move, should do less of that. Moved y, it worked, should do more of that."
This approach focuses solely on the result of decisions, an outcome mindset. The problem is, many outcomes are determined by luck or external factors that have little to do with our capabilities and flaws.
Focusing only on outcomes will not improve your game.
Kasparov took a higher and more strategic approach, a system mindset. He focused on how he approached certain decisions and would reflect on questions like:
What was my decision-making process?
What triggered that move?
What did I consider and in what order?
What was my emotional state while making the move?
An outcome mindset can help you improve in limited and similar situations. But if you adopt a system mindset to identify flaws or good practices in your decision-making process, it can significantly improve your performance in hundreds of varying scenarios.
The Takeaway:
Carefully examine the quality of your decisions, not just the quality of the outcomes.
When thinking about projects at work or in your personal life, analyze the decision process behind the moves you make to improve for long-term success.
What was the context?
How and why did you decide on that move?
What were your incentives? What were your triggers?
Who advised you?
What do you need to avoid or replicate?
Let me know what you think by replying to this email.
You can find previous Takeaways here.
All the best!
María Albert
Sources and additional inputs: