Take the King

   When I was five, my cousin taught me chess.  He said the most important thing he could teach me was that before I moved my first piece, I needed a plan to take the King. The plan would change with each move, but no matter whether it was the first move or last, the goal was the same - take the King - and you couldn’t achieve that goal without a plan.

            For everything you do, think enough moves ahead to take the King - to achieve the goal at hand. You move, life moves, you move, life moves. Your moves affects life’s moves and vice versa. All along you’re thinking ahead 5 moves, 10 moves, 15 moves - all the way to the end.

             And how do you do this? How do you think 10 moves ahead? Start with the word “and.” You pick option A. “And what happens?” You don’t pick option A. “And what happens?” And after A? If you accomplish A? “And what do you do next?” You keep asking “And” after each potential step and reflect on each choice in your head and the potential consequences of each choice, and you plough forward in your mind until you’ve reached the natural end of your possible choices. Think to the very end so you have a plan to take the King.

             We all grapple with important decisions - in our lives, our careers and cases. We want to make the best decision, the right decision and the decision which achieves our desired outcome. We make these decisions with limited data, facts and lack of appreciation of their full impact. Decisions are tough for these very reasons. Thinking ahead as far as possible helps alleviates the blind spots and dead zones that accompany every significant decision.

             In our cases, we collaborate with our client to define a win, create a plan to achieve the win and execute the plan. We don’t have crystal balls. Surprises, good and bad, arise. Obstacles and challenges appear. These require us to change the steps we have in mind to preserve our advantage, to ensure we still take the King. The bigger the surprise and the larger the obstacle, the greater the aftershock and accordingly your plan to take the King must change in both small and big ways. Nobody wants to rebuild a plan, much less think through every step to the end, but rebuild you must. Moving the prices on the board without a vision of taking the King is ineffective at best and a losing strategy at worst.

             Just as with your cases, think through how to take the King in your career and life. How do you become a top trial lawyer? A better spouse or parent? How do you create a non profit? Or leave a lasting impact well after you’re gone? Play chess with yourself. Think through your move, life’s move, your move, your loved one’s move, your move, your community’s move. You do something which creates a reaction, which in turns makes you react and so forth until the end.

             The average chess player appreciates her actions create reactions in her opponent. The good chess player knows what reactions her actions cause. The great chess player can predict the actions and reactions many moves ahead. And the Grandmaster can predict every move to the last - when she takes the King while preventing her opponent from taking hers. You want to become a Grandmaster in your cases, career and life.

             And how do you become Bobby Fischer? You play yourself. How would you react if you were on the other side of the board? What reaction would be elicited in you if another did what you planned on doing? I’m always surprised to hear of another lawyer’s shock when opposing counsel responded to their e-mail, call or motion in a given fashion when that lawyer would have responded the exact same way. Start with the premise that others will react like you and act accordingly. This applies whether you’re dealing with opposing counsel, a spouse, a friend, a child or colleague.  We’re not all that different from one another and to expect others to be more forgiving, more generous, more selfless or more loyal than you is a recipe for losing your King. 

             I don’t play chess anymore. Haven’t in years.  But that lesson, take the King, has stuck with me. And when I anticipate others’ reactions to my own, I first reflect upon what my reactions would be if I were in their shoes, and act accordingly. And in so doing, I reflect on who I am, why I would react a given way, and instead of being shocked at others reacting as I would if I were them, I work on me to improve my reactions to others.  Ironically, by planning on beating others by taking their King, you can improve who you are along the way.