In The Biggest Bluff Maria Konnikova becomes an expert poker player and learns even more about life. ... [+]
I was talking to a client recently, the president of a large real estate organization. We were discussing his hiring process. He told me that they hired smart people who graduated from name brand schools who were obviously driven. But somehow they didnt make good decisions when it counted and they didnt seem to learn from their experiences. I asked him if he had considered networking in the poker world to find possible hires. He was taken aback, (isnt poker kind of shady?) but as we talked about it he could see that the skills you learn in poker set you up to make good decisions in your day job.
Thats one tangible idea I got from The Biggest Bluff, the wisdom-packed new book by psychologist and author Maria Konnikova. As a complete novice she goes on a quest to learn how to play poker as a way to explore the topics of luck and skill and decision-making. Along the way she becomes an international poker champion winning over $300,000 and playing in the main event of the World Series of Poker. You will be gripped by her story, and youll learn a little bit about poker and a lot of insights for your work and life.
I asked Konnikova about her views on personal risk taking. She had a coveted job as a writer at the New Yorker. How could she leave this behind and take up professional poker to write a book about it, with no guarantee of success?
I always think of worst case scenarios, Konnikova said. That makes me relax. Colleagues and friends (and her grandmother) told her that it was unwise, she said, But Ive never listened to what other people tell me. Ive come to trust myself to a certain extent. And if I think something is fascinating other people will as well.
Here are some of my takeaways:
Dont dwell on your setbacks. When she started playing poker, Konnikova complained to her poker coach, Poker Hall of Fame inductee Erik Seidel, about her rotten luck. He cut her off and told her not to replay bad beats. Bad beats are a really bad mental habit. You dont want to ever dwell on them. It doesnt help you become a better player. Its like dumping your garbage on someone elses lawn. It just stinks.
Some people dont realize the amount of time they spend replaying past mistakes or being frustrated at the hand theyve been dealt in business or in life. As Konnikova says: When you begin to think about yourself as the victim of bad circumstances, you dont open your eyes to possibilities around you and your opportunities naturally narrow so you create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This is a key insight for you as a leader. A CEO I work with used to complain vehemently to his staff about moves his competitors would make. The entire company would discuss external circumstances over and over again. It sapped their energy, wasted time and took focus away from improving their own product and internal systems. I coached the CEO to focus on what he and his team could control.I also helped him see the competition not as an annoying problem, but as a worthy adversary which helps make his team better. We eliminated bad beats which unclogged the energy of the team to be more creative and focus on solutions inside of the company.
Take full responsibility for whats happening. As she learns the game, Konnikova replays her various hands to her coach Seidel who says she is describing things as happening to me rather than taking responsibility for my actions.
By working with a performance coach, Jared Tendler, she further developed her ability to be more proactive. Konnikova saw, for example, that when she got rattled at the poker table her emotions would seep into her decision-making. Tendler suggested that she get up and walk around to clear her head, even though she would lose a few chips if she wasnt present for a hand or two. That was actually better than playing when I was emotional, she said, and that was something I hadnt thought of on my own.
Many leaders are scheduled back to back all day. You may have an emotional discussion with an employee, followed by a high stakes sales conversation with a potential customer from which you go straight into an all-hands meeting.
Its easy to get overwhelmed, causing the quality of your decision-making to go down. When I first meet leaders, they often show me their calendars so I can see that they are scheduled all day long. They act like their calendar just happens to them. Too many meetings are natural in the corporate world, but you can take control of your schedule. You can block out several hours per week to make sure you have thinking time. You can tune in to how youre feeling and take a walk around the block when you see youre no longer clear-headed. And you can stop a conversation when it gets heated. These actions are not intuitive, so you have to build your self-awareness, adjust your behavior, and take control of your day.
Dont get sunk by sunk costs. As part of her poker immersion, Konnikova saw others and herself enact some common decision-making biases and traps. One we discussed was the sunk cost fallacy: this is when people continue on a course of action because they have already invested time and energy into it. In poker you might keep betting, when you really should fold, because you feel like youve already put a lot of money into the pot. If you keep making decisions that way and you dont adjust your process, you keep losing.
Thats true for leaders, too. You may keep developing a product even though data tells you that customers no longer want it because your team has committed so much to it. Or you may keep one of your underperforming executives far too long because youve invested so much time and energy in getting them up to speed.
Konnikova told me that poker helped her see her own tendencies and correct for them. For example she and her husband planned to travel to Florida. After the pandemic hit they canceled their trip even though they couldnt get a refund. They didnt let the sunk cost of the money already spent influence their decision now that they had new information.
Add curiosity and subtract certainty. The best way to learn is to keep an open mind. As Seidel says regularly: Less certainty, more inquiry. Curiosity and intellectual humility are the keys to growing, to seeing the world the way it is and adjusting. They are also qualities that lead to personal growth.
These are also the qualities that make you a great coach to your employees. Your team may regularly ask you to answer their questions, and of course sometimes you will. But if you pause and teach them to grapple with questions and have the patience and discipline to think things through to inquire even when they are not certain they will be forced to find their way through and, in doing so, build their own capability.
This book may or may not inspire you to learn to play poker. But I hope it will spark you to take some of the principles and apply them to your own leadership repertoire.
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