Business: According to Settlers of Catan!

Settlers of Catan: a much loved board game. If you've never played or never heard of it, it is a game of development, of building cities and roads with the resources you gain from the land you build on. If you build on the wrong places, there is no way to get resources that you need to develope and (really) to win the game! The game of Catan symbolizes those resources with different cards. You can hold them in your hand for as long as you want, but you eventually can lose them if you keep too many undeveloped.

It is somewhat complicated to explain, but it is a great metaphor for a business or managing a team.

Owning a business requires that you have certain pieces or skills to really sustain that. Build in the right places and you have the correct resources to sustain and develop. A grocery store with no groceries will soon cease to exist! Advertising with no capital is rather impossible! A manager with no people to manage...is quite a laugh.

Without the necessary resources one cannot expect to be successful.

Not "cashing in" our resources can be just as detrimental. If you know the game, holding onto a ton of brick and wood does nothing for you, you have to use those to build roads! In the real business world, we can get so excited about our business that we don't realize that our plans for expansion aren't sustainable. We can be too generous with capital and end up closing the doors for lack of funding. On the other hand, there are some developments that need to be saved for, which means turning down a smaller opportunity for the bigger picture.

Being aware of what needs to be spent and what needs to be saved, what needs to be delegated and what you just need to do yourself, is a great skill that must be learned by any successful business person.