If you’re a technology leader, you likely interact with engineers, designers, product managers, project managers, QA engineers, customers, and fellow leaders. If you’re like most, you’re more comfortable talking about products, technology, and methodologies than you are with navigating your organization, the personalities, and ever-present politics.
There’s no substitute for building constructive relationships with your many stakeholders and you should take the time to do that. But there’s a way cut through some of the uncertainty and to read people and situations better than you do now.
Become a winning player at No Limit Texas Hold ‘Em. With real money.
This seems peculiar advice since playing cards is a long way from writing code, product planning, giving reviews, or attending meetings. At work you’re making decisions for money, but generally not competing directly against your peers for it. But at the core of No Limit Texas Hold ‘Em (NLTHE) are some skills you need in your wheelhouse for business: Analytical thinking, devising strategies, reading situations, and understanding other people’s actions.
First, you need to understand the math. You have to know what what you have, and the odds of making a winning hand. The No-Limit form of the game forces you to think more deeply and subtly about this since the stakes are higher, the odds different, and a mistake can cost your whole stack.
The second is devising a strategy to win. For this you have to understand the game and the way other players play. If you play with loose, aggressive opponents, you must counter them with a tight, aggressive style. If the table is too tight, you can play looser and steal their money left and right. Your equivalent strategy in business is your distinctive value to others. You must know this in the workplace. You’re not usually trying to beat other people’s brains out in the office, but you do have a unique set of skills and value. These are your personal strengths along with those of your team.
By playing NLTHE well enough to be a winning player at $1/$2 in a casino, you will have to read situations and people effectively. In poker, your fellow players are trying to disguise their thoughts. They’ll be stone-faced or talk up the table or engage in some other behavior so as not to reveal their thinking. They’ll try to deceive you with their actions. They’ll try to induce you into making a mistake, getting you to fold or commit your stack at the wrong moment.
In the workplace people are not normally on-guard. They generally show their mood and their thoughts on their faces and in their body language. If you’re good, you can walk into a room and sense the mood of every individual. To find out more, it’s only a matter of asking the right question at the right moment.
When you ask that question, you’ll likely to get the truth. Our culture has a stigma about direct lying. Anything knowingly or easily proved false is frowned up. If the person wants to hide something, they’ll normally answer you one of two ways: They’ll either redirect you, that is change the subject, or they’ll give you incomplete information. Listen to what they say, but think about what they don’t say. Reason backward and you’ll find the deeper meaning.
You have to do this in poker a lot: The other player just made a big bet on the (final) river card. What does it mean? Did he make his hand or is he bluffing? What did he do in the previous betting rounds? Did he check and call down to the river or did he show strength? How did the flop fit his hand? What does he think you have based on your actions? You probably tried to disguise your hand to him, too. What can he reasonably think you have? Those questions will lead you to a range of probable explanations for his actions. There’s a complete story there if you know how to read it.
In the business setting, consider the reasons the other person chose their particular words. Did they leave something out they normally would have covered? What did they assume about the situation or about what you know? What did they volunteer that seems unrelated or unexpected? Is it tied in some way you don’t understand?
Also, what’s their long game? Are they ambitious? Do they see you as an ally or a threat? What filters are they using when they talk to you?
Likewise, when you give someone new or surprising information, they usually have an immediate, unconscious reaction. Watch their face for these micro-expressions. They flash by in less than a second and most people can’t stop them because their unconscious Fight-or-Flight system processes information faster than their reasoning pre-frontal cortex. A second later you see what the reasoning side of the brain wants to show.
People also have a variety of tells. Poker players work hard to disguise these expressions, tics, and unconscious movements. In the workplace very few people are even aware they have them, let along try to hide them. Understand each person’s norms and how their body language varies in different situations. Are they stressed or relaxed? Attentive or disengaged? Scared, angry, or disappointed? Usually a glance is all it takes to pick up this information.
If you’re a consistent winner at No Limit Hold ‘Em, you can be a first class reader of people in business.
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