Tuesday, July 6, 2010

A popular misconception

When I first joined chess, I was urged by many people to learn more about the game so I can teach my son. That idea never made much sense to me but I can understand where it comes from.

My experience on the internet and in construction disproves this assumption. Consider this. I became the Corporate director of a multi national company not because I knew everything about construction. Prior to that my biggest contract from my own construction company was only about 1/2 million. But you need to know something about construction so that people cant get away with rubbish but you dont need to know all. That is dumb. More important is to know how to form a team according to different strengths and knowledge base, and to recognise a dysfunctional team.

And very honestly, I am not internet savy. I only know how to get the contracts. But I know how to farm it out to the right experts to get the job done. I know how to evaluate and make judgement calls. And I know when the team is not working.

We need to learn to see the bigger picture. See the culture that is best to nurture our players and keep that end in sight as we are navigating. As I said before, seeing purely from the trainers perspective, the parents perspective is too limiting.

Seeing only from the technical perspective is too limited.

3 comments:

  1. I'm amazed by your analogy.

    In business, u can buy expertise to get project done. In chess, u can't do that to get someone to play the moves until the game ends.

    Just imagine ur analogy to be applied in a person pursuing to be a brain surgeon aka GM in chess world. R u implying that he need not focus too much on technical to get the job done.

    If u think so, then I better check with a surgeon who r going to perform his surgery on me. I would not want to give my life away just like that. Btw, this is a very sick culture breeds among trainee doctor nowadays. They think their professor doctors will solve their mishandling on live operation since professor doctors r supervisingtheir live operation. What abt after they graduate, may be that explain why so many cases having op. scissor left inside one stomach.


    hv to

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  2. I kind of dont think the surgeon analogy applies in chess. From Raymond's perspective, the would-be GM needs the technical skills. That goes without saying. The coach/trainer does not need the same level of technical skills though. Coach/trainer has to consider aspects outside of the chess board.

    I think that is Raymond's POV.

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  3. Yes. I do also make the distiction of Coach which is "0n site" and trainer which is "off site". And as the picture gets bigger and bigger, the primary role becomes the conductor. Which in chess is supposed to be MCF. The person who helms there does not be strong technically but need to understand how things work.

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