Always Play your Best Hand: 3 Lessons from Poker for Raising your Leadership Game – Dr. Dirk Baxter and Dr. Karen Steadman

Watching poker tournaments is a fascinating lesson in human behavior.  While new and amateur players believe luck has a lot to do with winning, professionals approach poker exactly the opposite - every hand is an opportunity to play their best.   Every move is a conscious decision including folding when appropriate.  Lucky breaks are capitalized rather than anticipated.  The game is often long, the stakes high, and one cannot afford to drift in and out “hoping” for the best outcome.    In the world of work, many successful leaders have a similar focus – a balance of routine, high engagement levels, and the ability to take calculated risks that are far from haphazard.   Mike Caro, the “Mad Genius” of poker who is not only a professional player, but a behavioralist and casino executive as well, outlines lessons that transcend Texas Hold ‘Em.  Here are a few of our favorites:

Most of Your Profit comes from Borderline Decisions: Most poker winnings (and prevention of loss) come from borderline decisions –

the times when an action in one direction seems about the same as another action in a different direction.  How does one decide?  Leaders encounter such decisions every day as they work with imperfect information and competing commitments.   Mike Caro encourages players to slow down, gather more information and consider more factors. Sound familiar?  In efforts to make decisions in the short run, leaders may lose out to profit in the long run by not running one more scenario or gathering one more opinion.  When the scale seems balanced, weigh more factors.  

Law of Least Tilt – The One with the Most Discipline Wins:  the tournaments certainly love to share the drama of one of the players upset over a hand, this is known as going on “tilt”.  However, it is quite notable that sustained earnings and the best players are the ones known for not letting emotions get the best of them. For many of our clients, raising their leadership game includes being proactive in response rather than reactive. They are strategic rather than immediately responsive without enough inputs.  Winning the leadership game is seeking the right path for long term gain and executing against that path day after day, quarter after quarter.  Let the competition go on “tilt”.

Stay Engaged to Make the Correct Play: Caro reflects that players that are new to the table play fewer bad hands even though you’d think they would be making errors right and left until they know the players at the table.   How so?   Similar to the first 90 -180 days for leaders in new roles, new players keep their eyes open and their game is “on”.   No derailing behaviors and obvious effort to learning the ropes.  However, it is interesting to see how leaders in transition into new roles start slipping at or about 180 days just when they report feeling more comfortable.  They drop their engagement level (i.e., start playing “loose”) and take more uncalculated risks (i.e., make “improper plays”).    Never forget that each opportunity as a leader is a chance to stay focused and make the correct play.

It isn’t luck that differentiates between good and great, it is the daily decisions that really matter – so shuffle up and deal!