A trainer in strategic thinking is using a complicated board game to get people to think differently.
In what’s perhaps a nod to her own creative thought processes, Silvia Lozeva is sharing lessons from a 4,000-year-old board game to deliver strategic thinking workshops.
It may not be the most obvious idea for a startup, but that is what the Go game expert has been doing for the past few years.
Regarded as the world’s oldest continuously played board game, Go has far more computations and complexities than the standard game of chess.
Rather than the squares, the pieces (circular black or white stones) are placed on a 19-by-19 grid.
This creates 361 intersections, or points, which was the inspiration for the name of Dr Lozeva's business, Institute 361.
Dr Lozeva lived and worked in New Zealand, Bulgaria, Russia, the UK and central Europe before moving to Perth. She organised the first academic Go Symposium in Australia, in Sydney in 2018, and still appears at various Go conferences around the world.
The idea for the business came while Dr Lozeva was completing her PhD in sustainability. She felt the philosophical theory and the practice of Go served as a better model for sustainable development than the more destructive type of ‘zero-sum game’ that dominated contemporary thinking and practice.
“The original idea was to bring an Eastern cultural heritage time-proven game, with all the art and science of Go, to the contemporary world of business, education and communities,” Dr Lozeva told Business News.
She noticed how business strategy was often developed using linear, short-term and rigid thinking.
“I wanted to bring in the multilayered, long-term and out-of-the box thinking that the Go game has been offering for 4,000 years to help humans think strategically, solve problems collectively and move towards a shared model,” Dr Lozeva said.
“I wanted to change the game, and to show that there are other ways to think, embedded in the rich cultural heritage of the game of Go and its 10 strategic-thinking principles.”
It took her a few years to translate the 10 strategic principles of Go into experiential workshops. Before this, she gave classes on how to play the game and was selected to give a TEDxPerth talk on the subject in 2019. The talk has had 60,000 views.
By 2024, Dr Lozeva had developed and was delivering strategic thinking workshops using the board game as a central part of the sessions.
“In a world where problems are increasingly complex, strategic thinking must evolve,” Dr Lozeva said.
“Traditional strategy models often fall short in dealing with ambiguity, rapid change and cross-cultural dynamics. This is where Go comes into its own.
“Unlike games based on elimination or speed, Go teaches balance, adaptation, and foresight. In Go, every move influences the whole board, much like every business decision has ripple effects across operations, customers and society.
“We help people ‘see’ differently. And when you see differently, you can lead differently. And change the world.”
Dr Lozeva believes business today is more about collaboration than competition. You can’t win every battle, and you need to choose the hill you will defend and leave the other parts of the board to someone else.
Of course, delivering workshops is not very scalable in and of itself. It may be interesting and different, but it won’t grow rapidly like a typical startup.
Consequently, Dr Lozeva is now busy developing online tools and online versions of her workshops, which she believes will open up new markets all over the world.
She’s had plenty of interest from Europe, India, Canada and the US from those who want to take her method and offer it to their clients.
“These people know the game of Go and are always interested in what I am up to,” Dr Lozeva said.
The ancient game of Go may scale yet.
• Charlie Gunningham has spent 25 years in WA’s startup sector, is on the WA government’s Innovation Advisory Board, and is chair of Startup WA
