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Of Chess and the Octopus

By Peter Lloyd

Having worked as a freelance word-wrangler for some time, it’s been a long, long while since I’ve taken a job interview. So tell me, do they still ask, “Were do you see yourself in five years?” Never could answer that one.

I don’t see myself anywhere but now. And I don’t see the value of seeing myself tomorrow, much less five years from now. In fact if I look back five years and consider what I knew then, I tremble to think what kind of decisions I might have made for today, had I made them then.

I know, potential employers want some idea about the goals of the candidates they interview. Do their goals align with those of the organization? In my case, that could be, if I had goals. The question also aims to reveal whether candidates make plans to reach those goals. I don’t. On good advice from my chess teacher and a biologist.

Chess
My chess teacher demonstrated to me the power of not planning. “After each of your opponent’s moves, for all practical purposes, it’s a new game.” He taught me to make the best possible move rather than attempt to execute a plan. Every move—not just those you don’t expect—changes the game. “Change trumps the plan,” he’d say. “Checkmate!”

Life is so much more unpredictable than chess. All the more reason to develop adaptability over planning skills in real life—the way our animal cousins do. We humans live on this planet among countless animal species. In the long run, many seem to be doing a much better job of surviving. It’s way to early, of course, to evaluate the success of Homo sapiens versus Teliqua scincoides intermedia, for example. It ain’t over till the sun fizzles.

But I’d have to say that animals do very well. And they don’t plan. Not much anyway. They certainly don’t take self-improvement courses, try to predict the weather, or worry about their breath. They don’t have to, because they’re more adaptable, very adept at dealing with the chaos of this unpredictable world.

The Octopus
In his book, Learning from the Octopus: the Secrets from Nature that Can Help Us Fight Terrorism, Natural Disasters, and Disease, Marine Ecologist Rafe Sagarindescription dissects adaptability the way only a biologist can, then shows how adaptability can be incorporated into organizations.

And in a fascinating and thought-provoking slide show called 10 Lessons You Can Learn From Nature, Sagarin illustrates lessons like:

  • Be a beetle—how to apply creative redundancy
  • Don’t plan your fish—the supremacy of adapting over planning
  • Observe like a mad elephant—the value of paying attention
  • Don’t try to turn a shark into a vegetarian—the futility of trying to eliminate risk

Sure, chess is just a game, animals aren’t working on a cure for cancer, and when they get sick, they either get better naturally or die. But that doesn’t mean you’re too smart to apply lessons from animals to problems of today.

When solving problems in science, business, or life, you have to create plans. Like animals, though, you’ll do well to agilely adapt your plans rather than slavishly serve them.

Peter Lloyd is co-creator with Stephen Grossman of Animal Crackers, the breakthrough problem-solving tool designed to crack your toughest problems.

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