Every Move Must Have a Purpose

Strategies from Chess for Business and Life

By: Bruce Pandolfini

Narrated by: Bruce Pandolfini

Length: 1 hr and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

Fluid and elegant, yet rigorous and rule-bound, chess is a game that seduces, confounds, and hooks. Now, world-renowned chess master and Fortune 500 business consultant Bruce Pandolfini shows readers how chess principles can be simply and logically applied to any business or life situation. No specific chess knowledge is needed, but after reading Every Move Must Have a Purpose, you will share with the most astute chess players the secret to thinking on your feet.

From the celebrated "chairman of the board" comes the secrets of strategy that everyone will find useful:

• Be aggressive, but don't take any unnecessary chances.
• Play the board, not the player.
• Answer all threats with a counter-threat.
• When exchanging, always get at least as much as you give up.

Crisply and engagingly written, with entertaining examples and chess anecdotes, Every Move Must Have a Purpose will improve your strategic thinking so you'll never again debate your next move.

©2003 Bruce Pandolfini (P)2003 Listen & Live Audio, Inc.

Good for me as a beginner

This explains how to think about the game in a way that is interesting to me as a person just trying to Digitas

Simple yet deep

Let me say that this book took me by surprise with its intriguing stories drawn from the annals of chess history. The book is a hybrid chess instruction/business strategy, which draws life lessons from lessons learned on the chess board. The author enjoys interjecting zen-like axioms similar to ?your weakness is your strength.? Overall, the book is extremely satisfying when wanting to know basic principles which the best players abide by.

Good read.

It takes chess to a whole new level, applying the game to real world situations.

Interesting Stories, but Little Practical Impact

Don't believe anyone who says this book is deep. It does give you something to think about however. The principles might (but also might not) be good to role around in your subconscious when doing business strategy. Most likely, the book will educate you a little more on some basic philosophies of chess... perhaps not so much business.

Wonderful!

This book is exceptional. It provides great chess tactics and relates it to life and business in a very educative and inspirational manner. I recommend it.

Admittedly More Philosophical Than Practical

The philosophical rather than practical nature of the work make it a worthwhile 'read'. I like others wasn't overly thrilled with the work when I first heard it, but over my many long drives when fiction failed, this little work called me back. This work claims to be "lessons" for business from Chess. These lessons are not premade plans but, instead, are chess principles that Pandolfini believes a student of business would be benefited by incorporating into life. I agree.

At any rate, it cannot be equitably said that this work will thoroughly teach chess. In order to understand the principles here, the reader or listener must understand the "basics" of chess. Furthermore, these principles are strategic but strategy can be wrecked by the proper use of tactics --chess or otherwise, and he doesn't cover the tactics of chess at all. The value of this work is its philosophical nature and not practical advice or examples.

Good overall

It would be better if....he was to cut the music out between chapters. Has some great references for playing better chess.

quite interesting and insightful

I really liked this short audiobook comparing learning, life, business and chess. very intriguing and enlightening.

Mostly chess stories

If you are hoping to gain insight to business strategy, this is not the book for you. You could squeeze all the business-related jargon in this book into the space I am usimg for this review. As an amatuer chess player, this was a decent introduction into general chess theory but nothing more.

Adversarial, two-dimensional approach to business

This is mostly a book about chess with brief references to business. The concept sounded interesting and it had such great reviews, I gave it a try - and am disappointed.

Seems the author really wanted to write a book about chess history and strategy, and stuck in random thoughts about business. It would be helpful for those whose main desire is to improve their chess game, or perhaps interesting to those who are already fairly accomplished chess players.

Each chapter presents a principle of chess - "Play with a plan," "Learn from your mistakes" - followed by lengthy examples from chess, then a tiny bit basically saying that this also applies to business. For example, in the chapter entitled, "Don't Sacrifice Without Good Reason," he gives the brief business example of flooding the market with free product in order to try to gain customers who will pay for it in the future. Then he says that in chess and business it's really better to sacrifice your opponent's pieces than your own. If there is a way to do that in the business world, he has left me in the dark about what he means.

A more fundamental drawback is that he seems to take a wholly adversarial win/lose approach to business. In chess, there's always an opponent, a winner and a loser. The approach of Stephen Covey and others - to seek win/win solutions - makes more sense to me.

Another flaw in his approach is that chess has only two people/entities involved, whereas in business you have at least three - yourself as a product/service supplier, your prospects or clients, and your competitors. At least in my profession, I find I do far better to work on my relationship and communication with potential clients, than I would do by attacking my competitors in some way. I enjoy good business relationships based on trust.