Playing Your Strongest Hand

Welcome to the next edition of the Personality Poker Podcast. This is the show where we talk about personalities and innovation, collaboration and how do we play to our strong suit. How do we make sure our teams are playing with a full deck, that we deal out the work to make sure we're dividing and conquering as efficiently as possible, yet also embracing creative tension when we shuffle the deck. In today's episode, we're going to go through two more chapters of the Personality Poker book. This is me, real life, flesh and blood, Steven Shapiro talking right now. But after this, when we get into the book, that will be my voice clone. So it's not going to be perfect. I'm going to apologize in advance for any of the flubs that the AI generated, but it will give you a pretty good sense of the content from the book. Now, today we're going to get more into gameplay. So if you don't have cards, it may not be as applicable. But one thing which you can do is go to personality poker game.com personality poker game.com and there you will see a Las Vegas style slot machine version of Personality Poker. And it's pretty accurate, maybe not as accurate as the cards, but it will give you your primary cards, your secondary suit, it will give you a readout, it will save your hand so you.

Can share it with others and you.

Can share the game with others. So Personality poker game.com in today's chapters of the book, we're going to talk a little bit about the different types of personalities. Now, when we talk about a strength, I call them strong suits. In Personality Poker, in some cases, though, what you are good at is not your strong suit. And that may seem counterintuitive, but in some cases the thing that you are good at is something you learned to be good at. And if it's something you learn to be good at, it may rob you of your energy. So there are strong suits, strengths that come naturally, they energize you, they give you energy, this is the way you love to operate. And then there are things you are good at, but you learn to be good at them and they might rob you of your energy. So we're going to talk about that in a little more depth and then we're going to get into the gameplay. And again, if you don't have the decks of cards, maybe this won't be as relevant. But if you've played the personality poker game.com, it might give you some new insights. We'll talk about the solitaire version, we'll talk about the version we play with larger groups and if this episode isn't the one that resonates with you most, don't worry about it. Next week we will have a new episode where we start getting into the details, the nuts and bolts of the personalities and how you can apply to your organization even if you don't have decks of cards and even if you didn't play the personality poker game.com app. I hope you enjoy this episode and we are now off to the next chapters of the Personality poker book.

Part 2 Playing Personality Poker Chapter 2 Before Getting Started, we are almost ready to start playing. But before attempting to get your perfect Personality Poker hand, it's important to get a few concepts on the table. How to find your preferred style when you look at the cards in the Personality Poker deck, each word will probably fall into one of four broad categories. 1. Your preferred style. This is what you enjoy most. What feels natural. The style in which you perform your best with the least amount of effort. 2. In the work environment in particular, people take on specific traits because it's needed from and expected of them. This is not their natural or preferred state. They become this way because their job requires it. Sometimes family situations early in life. For example, needing to become the family caretaker at an early age can influence the assumption of an adapted style. 3. Your desired or ideal style. Many people wish they were different. It may not be your preferred style, but you want it to be. For example, if your natural style is chaotic but you wish you were more put together, organization would be a desired trait. I wish I were more organized, but I've learned to give up on that. 4. Your opposite style. This just isn't you. The words don't describe you and you have no desire to take on those styles. Let's explore why distinguishing one style from the other is so difficult. As human beings, we are able to adapt to different situations quite effectively. This is critical to the survival of the species and has helped each to become more successful in his or her selected occupation. Unfortunately, in our quest to be successful, we often take on styles that may not come naturally or may not be what we prefer. We become good at things we do not love because we develop specific skills. Our bosses often ask us to perform certain tasks more frequently. This creates a vicious cycle where you spend more time on tasks that drain you of your energy. As a result, you spend less time on work that energizes you and plays to your strong suit. Robert Biswas Diener is a leader in the strengths based testing world. Although the concept of strengths is a little different from what we are testing here. They are related. Robert and his team at the center of Applied Positive Psychology in England developed their own tool designed to assess strengths and weaknesses. The questions on the diagnostic test focus on three how good you are at a particular skill, how frequently you get to use your skill, and how much energy you get from doing so. When you 1 are good at something 2 do it frequently, but 3 it drains your energy. Robert would describe this as a learned behavior. I call this an adapted style. Distinguishing preferred from learned behaviors is critical. Here's one of the examples Robert gave me. I once coached a woman who was exceptionally creative. She had a head for sales and was a whiz at putting together training sessions to teach young sales associates how to perform better. She was so good, in fact, that she was quickly promoted to a management position. The problem was she did not shine at management the way she had excelled at training. As a result, she had to learn all sorts of new behaviors confrontation, assertiveness, administration, detail orientation that would help her succeed in the new job. My client was bright and she quickly learned these new behaviors and even did them well. There was only one problem. At the end of the day, she felt deflated instead of energized. Learned behaviors are acquired skills that a person can perform well but that do not come naturally. Therefore, extra energy and effort is required, leaving the person feeling flat. People often acquire these new behaviors because their roles or circumstances have changed. Although learned behaviors are frequently necessary for good performance, using them too much can lead to dissatisfaction and burnout. What should you do about your own learned behaviors? Robert recommends moderating them. You will probably need to use your learned behaviors occasionally, but try to limit the amount of time you spend on these draining behaviors. With Personality Poker when selecting cards, thinking through which words and associated activities give you energy and which SAP your vitality is essential. Just because you are great at planning does not mean you should take the planning card, as illustrated in the following example. Suzanne is a natural thinker. She loves both ideas and facts. She helps small companies with their Internet strategies and in particular creates powerful and engaging user experiences. Suzanne loves that this profession blends her desire for both analytical strategy and creative user experience. Design Work at some point in every project, the shift is made into development, the stage when the website is built. She then works with the technology experts who convert her designs into the finished product using computer code. Out of necessity, Suzanne is great at managing projects. She can keep schedule slipping developers right on track and is masterful at keeping projects on time and on budget. Because her clients value this work and it pays the bills, she finds herself spending more and more time on these management activities. Unfortunately, she finds development tedious. During this stage, Suzanne complains frequently to her friends and family and refers to it as development hell. Interestingly, when she played personality poker, she chose analytical cards, creative cards and and planning cards. If she looks at what she is good at, then yes, these all make sense. However, there is a difference between being skilled at something and actually enjoying the work. Although she is good at planning, this is not her style, or at least it is not her natural and preferred style. When playing poker, it would have been more fitting for her to select only the analytical and creative cards and forego the planning cards. Therefore, when selecting cards, be sure to ask yourself if this card gives you energy or robs you of energy. Do not just focus on your skills and strengths. Consider David, someone I met at a conference. The owner of a market research company that is highly data driven and analytical. In conversations with him before the event, it became clear he loved facts. Spreadsheets were his tools of choice. Surprisingly, while playing personality poker, he ended up with a hand of all red cards, primarily hearts. This confused him and me. His company is all about data analysis. He was convinced that this would be reflected in his preferred style, but clearly it wasn't. I asked him what is the number one challenge your business faces right now? Sales. How have you spent most of your days in recent months focused on selling and customer relationships? And that's when he saw the light. David discovered that although he loves the spade type roles that play to his analytical skills, he was forced into the heart. Like sales and networking roles. He quickly concluded that his business would flourish if he refocused on his core spade activities and hired others for the heart roles, people for whom this is their natural style. These learned behaviors or adapted styles are not inherently bad. In fact, they can help you become more self sufficient. However, if you are not spending most of your time in your preferred style, you won't perform at peak levels and you may eventually burn out. Conversely, people have strengths that, as Robert Biswas Diener would describe them, are underrealized. These are strengths that energize you and you are good at them, but you rarely get to use them. Robert describes them as untapped resources that lie dormant, just waiting to be harnessed for success. Just because you don't do something doesn't mean it's not who you are. When looking at the cards, consider which ones truly resonate with you, regardless of whether they are part of your job description the last dimension refers to desired behaviors you wish you demonstrated. I am, as you will find out, a strong diamond. I chose my profession in life both because it is creative and because it offers the widest range of experiences possible. I am also a heart. I love being around people. It energizes me, and I know that I am good with others. I also like data. Every year or so I head to Las Vegas to attend a skeptics convention where a thousand people discuss the application of logic and science to debunk Everything ranging from UFOs and psychics to alternative medicines and faith healers. But here's the rub, though. I enjoy these conversations and subscribe to many scientific journals, at the end of the day, when the chips are down, I throw data out the window. I make my decisions based on gut instinct. When purchasing a car, I read every review in Consumer Reports. I scour the web for information. Then, armed with all this information, I inevitably buy a car that wasn't even on my list. I see it on the lot, get in, give it a test drive, and buy it on the spot. I want to be data driven, but sadly I'm not. So when choosing cards, although I do select the skeptical card, I rarely choose any other spades, although I want to. The purpose of personality Poker is to get the perfect hand. And the perfect hand is one that is filled with cards that represent your natural state. That is what comes most easily. These are the words that inspire you. These are the words that excite you. These are the words that describe who you are at the core. When everything is flowing beautifully in your world and life is is effortless, you want to choose cards based on your preferred style. People have difficulty distinguishing their preferred style from their adapted, desired styles. Sometimes you have to play the entire game before you can tell the difference. Some are different at home from how they are at work. If so, their work style is probably an adapted style. We all learn different styles in our quest for success. Unproductive Behaviors the cards with 2, 3, and 4 represent the unproductive behaviors associated with each style. People typically want to get rid of these cards very quickly. Very few people want to admit that they are disorganized, close minded, or anal retentive. Although some might think of the unproductive behaviors as flaws, what they represent are the inevitable byproducts of strengths. Sometimes these behaviors can even be beneficial and work to the company's advantage. Instead of trying to eliminate these flaws, realize that sometimes these unproductive behaviors are useful. Other personality tools give you reports on strengths and then a couple of things you need to fix. A colleague of mine, Alex, took a personality test that gave him a detailed report of his strengths. The report came back so suggesting he was creative, yet he needed to be more organized. Alex disagreed. If I weren't disorganized, I wouldn't be that creative. When I try to be more structured, I become less creative and future oriented. I need to find ways to work with clutter. It's what makes me tick. Remember, the 2, 3 and 4 cards are not necessarily weaknesses. They are a byproduct of your strong suit. Learning to work with them rather than denying them will be much more productive. I found over the years that these cards give some of the greatest insights into personality styles. We have a difficult time telling who we are when we are at our best. Again, this is because we are chameleons and can adapt to many situations as needed. However, if we are honest with ourselves, we know who we are. We when we are at our worst, we know we are scattered, bossy or cynical when playing Personality Poker, don't be too quick to get rid of those unproductive behavior cards. Keep at least one in your hand. You may find that it provides a valuable insight into your personality style. People sometimes hold these unproductive behavior cards as a badge of pride. They are their strengths on steroids, not their weaknesses. As a result, in meetings I have heard people inquire, hey, are you being the three of clubs? They are really asking, are you being a bit anal retentive? Although over obsessiveness can be annoying to some, this attention to detail can make the difference between a Timex and a Rolex. Sometimes what we think of as weaknesses turn out to be our biggest strengths. Chapter 3 How to Play it's finally time to play. This chapter is the instruction manual for personality poker. I will offer a number of ways to play the solitaire Playing by yourself or with one other person? Playing with a team of people. In chapter 12 you will find alternative rules that are great fun to use when playing with friends and family. Although this is the shortest chapter in the book, ensuring that you play the game right is critical to getting the right results. Again, don't underestimate the power of this simple game. It is based on a proven psychological testing process that's been around for 50 years. Known as a Qsort. Developed by psychologist William Stevenson in 1953, this technique is used to study subjectivity. It has been used in clinical settings for assessing patients in research settings to examine how people think about a topic and as a personality assessment tool. Regardless of what is being assessed, the individual indicates the degree to which a standardized set of descriptive statements written on cards applies to them or their opinion. When the cue sort is used in personality testing, the subject sorts the cards based on how they think the words best reflect their personality. This is the basis of the Solitaire version of Personality Poker. Playing by Yourself Personality Poker was originally designed as a team activity, but I developed this solitaire version after finding that people often wanted to play on their own or with only one other person. I will give you a few different ways in which you can play solitaire, each with its own benefits. Each version can be played with another person who knows you really well. As you go through each card, ask if he or she agrees with you and why. The conversation that ensues is often more valuable than the end result. Remember, Personality Poker is not an attempt to label you, but rather to help stimulate conversations with friends, family, and co workers simple the three Pile Approach the simplest form of solitaire is is to shuffle the cards and look at them one at a time. After viewing each card, place it into one of three definitely like me, sometimes somewhat like me, and definitely not me. As you do this, be sure to think carefully about whether this is a preferred style or an adapted style. Consider your energy. Does the word excite and inspire you or does the thought of it just drain the energy out of you? If it is an adapted style, avoid putting it in the definitely like me pile. As mentioned previously, the 2, 3, and 4 cards of each suit represent the unproductive behaviors associated with each style. Avoid putting all of these in the third or even second pile. Be sure to have at least one or two in the definitely like me pile. Be honest. Denying these traits doesn't make them go away. After sorting the cards into three piles, count the number in each. If you have too many in the first, you probably have not done a critical enough job of looking at yourself. If you have too many in the last, again, you may not have been judgmental enough. In the end, you should have nine or fewer cards in the definitely like me pile, nine or fewer cards in the definitely not me pile, and the rest in the middle. Feel free to sort the cards from most like you to least like you within the first and last pile. If after sorting the cards, you see a pattern, it can give you greater clarity about your style. When you have these piles in place, you are ready to move to the next chapter. You may wonder why I had you limit the third pile to only nine cards since your primary suit is determined by what is most like you, not what is least like you. The answer is that quite often by studying both piles we can gain even greater insights. My objective here is not to pigeonhole you into one suit, but rather to help you see what is most like you and what is least like you. This way you can make better decisions about what you do and whom you choose to do it. With the attributes that are definitely not you tend to reflect your opposite style, what some people might call weaknesses. It is useful to know this because it describes the attributes of the perfect partner to complement your preferred style. Advanced the five Pile Method A variation of this approach is to put the cards in five piles. Although this process is a bit more complex, it can yield some very interesting results. It builds on the strengths process that Robert Biswas Diener of the center of Applied Positive Psychology developed as described in the previous chapter. 1. Definitely like me and I get to use these skills frequently. 2 Definitely like me but I get to use these skills infrequently. Unrealized strengths third like me but is an adapted trait. I learned to be good at this. 4. Definitely not like me 5. Everything else Pile number one probably won't tell you anything new, although it might provide insights to your teammates. These are the well leveraged traits, but piles number two and number three could prove enlightening. You may find that you are not leveraging certain traits enough specific styles that are strengths but are not used distinguishing your adapted skills. Pile number 3 may also help so that you can spend less time on activities of this nature. Again, at this point you are ready to move to the next chapter. Five Card Draw Getting a winning hand with groups for a team of three or more people. You will want to play the more traditional version of Personality Poker. If you skipped chapter two, I strongly urge you to read it before proceeding. This will give you important distinctions between preferred and adapted styles and also explains the unproductive behavior. Cards recommended as well is that you read about the Solitaire versions as this will give you even greater insights into the process and theory behind Personality Poker. The poker version of the game is based on five card draw. In that game, each player is dealt five random cards one at a time. A round of betting ensues and then the draw phase begins. Each player specifies how many of his cards he wishes to replace up to three. He then discards those cards. Each player is then dealt in turn the same number of cards he discarded so that each has a total of five. Again, this is nearly identical to how we play Personality Poker. However, there is no betting and we add an extra step. Unlike real poker, the only person you are playing against is yourself. Or as I like to say, the only way to lose at Personality Poker is if you don't have a personality. The game is played in four simple steps. A fifth step is provided for those instances where the participants know one another. Preparation to get started, you need to make sure you have enough decks to play Personality Poker with your team. Although larger groups can get away with a smaller deck to player ratio, a good rule of thumb is six people per deck. If you have 60 people on your team, you'll need 10 decks of cards. For groups with fewer than 15 members, you will want as few as four people per deck. To ensure enough variety of cards to order more decks, go to personalitypoker.net once you have a sufficient number of decks, shuffle the cards to be dealt. To begin, you'll need a deck for every 10 people. If you are playing with 60 people, shuffle six decks and put aside the four remaining ones. Shuffle each deck individually. Do not cross shuffle decks so that you can be certain that no one will get duplicate cards. As an aside, scientific studies show that shuffling a deck of cards seven times results in the greatest level of randomness. Step 1 Distribute the cards deal five random cards to each person. It saves time to distribute the first five cards to each seat. Before the event begins. Rank the cards in your hand based on the traits printed on the cards. Every player sorts the cards in their hand from most like them to least like them. See chapter two, Step three. Trade Cards it is extremely rare that someone is dealt a perfect hand. Just as with five Card draw, you have a chance to improve your hand. However, in Personality Poker, I prefer a more interactive method than simply discarding cards that don't fit. Ask everyone in the room to stand up, then direct them to trade cards with each other. Any player can exchange cards with another to help improve both hands. Get people out of their seats and have them move around the entire room. You cannot take a card from another player unless both agree it is an equitable trade. Every trade should improve both hands and be mutually beneficial. As stated earlier, Require everyone to keep at least 1, 2, 3, 4 or 4 card in their hand. These represent the unproductive behaviors of each style and can often produce extremely interesting insights. The noise in the room will likely get very loud. Make sure you have a method for capturing everyone's attention in order to give them further instructions. I typically limit the trading to three or four minutes. Hold a Bargain Basement Sale at this point, most players still do not have perfect hands. They just can't get rid of some cards. The next step is to hold what I call the Bargain Basement Sale. Take all remaining cards and spread them face up on the floor or on a table. In our example of 60 people, it would be the four unshuffled decks plus any leftovers from the initial deal. Players then have a limited time to trade their cards to improve their hands. When players have five different cards they're happy with, they can sit down. When everyone sits down, the game ends. You can put a time limit on the sale when people take too long again. I generally limit this section to between three and five minutes based on the energy level in the room. However, if most people are still searching through the cards, you can prolong it as you see fit. Step 5 Give cards to Others this is an optional step that works best with smaller groups of co workers or friends. When players in the group know one another, direct them to give each other cards. I call these gift cards. This gives players an idea of how others see them. Make sure that everyone keeps these cards separate from the five self selected cards. Alternatively, you can have players do this after the event. Leave the cards out so that they can give cards to one another with larger groups. You can also combine this step with the bargain Basement sale. If you want try some alternative rulesets. Check out chapter 12 personality poker can be great for parties. Now it's time to determine your primary suit.