I won a game of Scrabble over the weekend. I was down by 30 points, but played the word, logjam, on triple word and double letter spots to earn 50 points. But another day, I was leading in a game of Ludo and had 2 seeds left. My boss was lagging behind, but then he won by pecking my 2 seeds before I could get home. Isn’t life like that? Those ahead of you don’t always win and vice versa.
My Scrabble game taught me a few lessons about business:
- Every business requires a body of knowledge to succeed. In Scrabble, if your vocabulary is poor, you’ll struggle.
- Every business deal has its rules. It’s important to agree on the rules beforehand and to document them before you commence. One party always conveniently forgets the rules and tries to change them midstream.
- Every business has an element of luck embedded in it. In Scrabble, you must know your words and you must have a great strategy to close up your opponents’ opportunities, while maximising yours. But, you never know what letters you’re going to pick. You make your best play, based on the tiles and board spaces that are available.
- In business, character matters. In Scrabble, if you play with people who cheat, it will affect the outcome of the game. Also, whoever keeps score must have integrity.
- In business, never give up. Play to win every time. As long as you know your stuff, keep pushing. Opportunities will come and there will always be other games.
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