In one of those free and relaxed moments, this question came to my mind: If the different roles in a business were to be mapped to pieces of Chess, who would make up the different pieces? A few of the relations were intuitive, and the others were obvious on giving some thought.

King (♔)

“Customer is King” is a much abused cliche, and so I took that as a starting point. The more I thought about it, the more I felt that it actually makes good sense. This is because the role he plays in the operation of your company is limited, but all your operations revolve around him. If his interests are compromised, it means game over for you. We can even consider the opponent’s King as representing prospective customers who are now with your competitors, and thus the victory condition may be defined as getting a dominating share in the market.

Rook (♖)

Sales and customer relations teams most resemble the Rook – vital as they are in defending your existing customers and gaining control over the field. One Rook can possibly “castle” to ensure continued patronage of existing customers, and the other can move out into the field to corner new ones.

Knight (♘)

Your most eccentric and geeky resources who are technically capable, but often unpredictable and challenging to manage and satisfy are like the Knight on the board. Not always easy and straightforward to deploy them effectively, but if you know how to use them, they give you the best strategic advantage that is beyond the wildest guess of your opponents.

Bishop (♗)

Throughout the game, a bishop remains on cells of the colour in which it started. Alone, there is little it can do, but it provides excellent support to other players and coupled with the other bishop makes a formidable pair. This is much like the part played by horizontal and supporting functions such as quality assurance, finance, legal and HR which have clearly defined roles that enable smooth functioning of the organization

Queen (♕)

Being the most versatile, able to play the role of other departments as need be, the only piece of its kind, and making a most direct impact on the success of your organization, the Queen represents executive management. They often play the role of sales team, help overcome critical technical challenges (at least in a start-up), and serve in any other capacity as the situation demands.

Pawn (♙)

Numerous, and together giving you control of the playing field, vital in execution of any plan, the pawns represent regular employees of your company who are the load pullers and who generate bulk of the output of your company. A pawn that advances in rank significantly can transform into other roles including finding a place in executive management. This is called queening or promotion in chess.

Of course, these are not the only relations we may have, or the only similarity between mapped entities. So if you have more ideas on these lines – either supporting and enriching this model or proposing an even better alternate one – feel free to drop a comment.