An interactive card game called Personality Poker sorts team members by personality style: hearts for people-oriented, diamonds for idea-oriented, spades and clubs for critical and structure-focused. The core idea is that teams with opposite personality types generate better ideas and stronger innovation.
Chapters
When we hear the word innovation, a lot of times our mind goes to new products, new services, new processes. It's not that it's about changing the organization on a repeatable, predictable basis. It's not about one change. It's about ongoing change. We're going to do personality poker. What I want you to do is get your poker cards that you have in your hands, and I want you to look at the five cards, and you'll notice on them there are words in all the five cards. Okay? So what I want you to do is I want you to stand up. We're just going to do this for about three or four minutes. I want you to stand up, and I want you to trade cards with people. I want you to sort the cards from most like you to least like you. How many of you had two of the same suit? Good. How many of you had one of the same suit? Yeah, you always get some wise guy raising their hand. Good. I want you to choose the one suit that feels like it's the best fit. And you'll know because out of your five cards, probably two or three of them are a really good fit, and a couple of them, you're questionable. So choose the suits that match you the most. Which suit your personality? The hearts are the ones, no surprise, are the people who like people. And maybe Barbra Streisand songs. You want to know it's cool. You want to know it's fun. You want to know it's exciting. You don't care where you're going as long as you're having a good time getting there. And I find that it is true. I'm a diamond, so I can say that the diamonds are typically the ones who like ideas and experiences.
If we look at the black cards, the spades and the clubs, these are the people that I affectionately say put the no in innovation. The red cards are the ones who I like to say, put the fun in dysfunctional. The problem is, if you leave reds in charge of a business, the business will be in the red. They never get anything done.
The person you like the least.
Is.
The person you need the most. Let me say that again. The person you like the least is the person you need the most. Creative tension doesn't come from a bunch of people saying yes all the time. It comes from divergent points of view. So what I want you to do tonight at the party is meet people. If you want to take your poker card that describes your style and stick it in your name tag, find people who are your opposite have conversations. This is what these events are about. It is not about us here. It's about you connecting. Connect the dots in this organization, in this audience, and I guarantee you will leave here with some brilliant ideas. Thank you very much.
