RSS Feeds:Understanding business & design
through casino poker
By Dirk Knemeyer
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4
Photo courtesy of mrjoro
PART 3
STAKES: It's All In The Motivation
"In order to be one of the best poker players in the world, it's very important to be able to put it all on the line and be able to take chances. You can't be tight with money because you're always gambling for big amounts and you have to have a certain disregard for money."
—Phil Ivey, the consensus best poker player in the world today
At the table
"Call!" I barked emphatically, turning my 6 4 of spades over in the process. My opponent, a chatty and caustic 50-something Vietnamese local professional, had all of his chips in the pot. The board showed J 6 4 2, unsuited. My eyes were fixed on his reaction to my exposed cards, because this hand would be the difference between my being a big chip leader at the final table of this tough tournament, or crippled to such a point that a comeback would be all but impossible.
It was Sunday October 9, 2005. I was one of 100-something players bought into the Hold 'Em tournament at Bay 101 casino in San Jose. The quality of play in Northern California is notoriously high, and this relatively small ($130 buy-in) tournament nonetheless boasted various local professionals among the participants. Even Men "The Master" Nguyen was in the house.
Our perspective is typically tied to our sphere of influence. While the stakes for our organization are extremely high—ultimately marked by competitive life-and-death — our personal stakes do not reflect this. Our activities and motivations are often tied to very personal stakes that are not necessarily in parallel to the greater good...and often are in opposition to it.
My day had been a roller coaster. I more than tripled my chip stack before the first break with tight-aggressive play, then gave most of those winnings back during the second session, overplaying mediocre cards. My chip stack continued to dwindle until, with less than 40 players remaining, I had only half of a big blind left. But I doubled up. Then I doubled up again. Then I doubled up again. Luck combined with some really wonderful play, and suddenly I was among the chip leaders and dominating my table. I took some losses but, by the time we were down to a final table, I still had an above-average stack of chips. There were only six of us left as I stared expectantly across the table, waiting for my antagonist's reaction.
"What you raising that crap for?" he yelled, flipping over his A 6. I smiled, knowing he only had nine cards left in the deck that could save him. But the jackhammer in my chest continued until the final card—a harmless 9—hit the table. I pumped my fist, my only show of emotion during the entire tournament. My opponent was apoplectic, because I had raised with what he considered a marginal hand on each the pre-flop, flop, and turn. But that is exactly why I play those sort of creative hands, to trap more traditional players. And in this case, it was the crucial hand that led to my strong finish and pocketing a cool $3,500, part of a prize split with one other player at the end.
But playing that hand the way I did is more than a matter of simple style or strategy. It is also the product of understanding the stakes. I entered the tournament for $130. There was nothing more I could lose; all of my money was already spent. At that point, the difference between finishing in first place versus sixth place was thousands of dollars. If I played conservatively, I would not have a chance to win the big prize. The only way to get myself in the position to win was to play to win. The stakes essentially dictated that I play the style I most prefer. It allowed me to play without fear, focus on the big picture goal of winning first place and the $6,000 or so dollars that came with it, and go all-out with absolutely nothing to lose. I was highly motivated, and there was no downside. This attitude set me up for my most successful tournament result to date.
Almost without exception, the people who had high personal stakes wrapped up in the project were the roadblocks to success. On the other hand, the most productive contributors were those that had maturity, experience, and stability in their professional position.
Stakes and behavior
Stakes in the corporate world are very similar to those in a poker tournament. In an objective sense, the goals of a company are clear: to make the most money over the short- and long-term. This is equivalent to trying to win at poker. And in each case, there are many micro tactics and activities that go into that, and these differ from one organization to another. Some are more strategic and "top-down", closely aligning their activities to the ultimate objective. This approach is typified by making decisions that are set by or closely follow the current business plan, following a systematic process of carrying out tactics that clearly relate to an articulated strategy. However, others take more tactical approaches, skillfully achieving real-world gains and working through the market in a "bottom-up" way—typically represented by making decisions on the fly, reacting to the situation at hand, and going back to adjust the big picture strategy after the fact. Each approach has advantages and disadvantages, but either can ably advance the core goals of the organization.
The same is true for employees within a company: each person sees the system differently, and perceives their own activities and contributions in a very specific and subjective way. Where one person might take a hands-on approach and dive straight into a problem to fix it, another might step back, reflect on the situation, and be more passive in their actual activities. Depending on the specific context, either approach can be the right one. We each have our own temperament, style, and approach, so often the decision of which approach works best is highly personal, and even idiosyncratic.
There are too many other factors outside of our areas of responsibility and, even in the things we do contribute to, other people are involved. Most people work for companies where there are a variety of employees, sharing risk and responsibility. This is much more complicated than poker, where each player is only responsible to themselves. Indeed, very few of us in a business context have a direct and linear connection between our specific sphere of influence and the ultimate financial success or failure of our employer. There are too many other factors outside of our area—and even in the things we do, other people are involved. There are so many checks and balances. While we can individually fail in the eyes of our employer, what effect will that really have on the ultimate goal of the company making as much money over the short- and long-term as possible? In most cases, it's negligible. So we both do not feel the pressure of that responsibility, nor do we appreciate what is ultimately at stake. Our perspective is typically tied to our sphere of influence. While the stakes for our organization are extremely high—ultimately marked by competitive life-and-death—our personal stakes do not reflect this. Our activities and motivations are often tied to very personal stakes that are not necessarily in parallel to the greater good...and often are in opposition to it.
From my youthful ambition and trying too hard, to the marketing manager seeing this project as the crucible to career progression or continued stagnation, to the various insecurities riddling our creative team, the greatest threats lie not in the skills and abilities of the participants but in the way they viewed the engagement as a component of their own personal identity and position.
Making it personal
Understanding people's personal stakes and motivations are critical to success in poker. Some people are very focused on making money; others let their ego and how they are perceived take precedence over their focus on making good money decisions; others are just trying to learn in the moment in order to make more money later; still others are just looking for some action, or some social connection, or to pass the time. Each of these people have different stakes in the game: different levels of investment, different needs, different vulnerabilities. As we talked about in the first article in this series, adjusting your actions to each person's motivations and approach is essential to success in design as well as poker. And when we specifically consider stakes in a business context, each person is vested to varying degrees in everything, be it a design or an org chart, a process or even a memo. Consider this example:
I began my career in advertising design, serving as the strategist on a team that provided clients with organizational market planning as well as provision of their advertising creative and media. Dealing with advertising creative projects was always an adventure. Consider this team make-up for a major corporate client, including some basic characteristics:
click to open chart
Almost without exception, the people who had high personal stakes wrapped up in the project were the roadblocks to success. From my youthful ambition and trying too hard, to the marketing manager seeing this project as the crucible to career progression or continued stagnation, to the various insecurities riddling our creative team, the greatest threats lie not in the skills and abilities of the participants but in the way they viewed the engagement as a component of their own personal identity and position. On the other hand, the most productive contributors were those that had maturity, experience, and stability in their professional position. These people had the lowest personal stakes and the most consistent focus on the success of what we were doing together. So even though they may have artificially had less to lose, this was precisely what empowered them to focus on what was most important. Just as I had nothing to lose in the poker tournament last October once my fee was paid (and could thus focus on the highest goal of winning the tournament), these stakeholders—unencumbered by personal baggage—were able to best serve the needs of their company. While our collaboration together was not as successful as my poker results, it did fall into the range of "typically acceptable," a bittersweet good-but-not-great that could have been so much more.
By taking an objective perspective on each situation and approaching it in the way that contributes to the greatest overall good, we can be far more effective in the different interactions that make up the body of work that stands as our career.
Diverging motivations, converging goals
I very systematically charted out different key players in my example for the sake of illustration, but by no means am I suggesting any of us as archetypes. Just as people at the poker table reflect many nuances and subtleties, so do all of the people we are working with. In each situation, depending on the participants and context, the stakes of different individuals can be quite nuanced, and the dynamics between people can vary wildly. A CEO who is overbearing and controlling in one context may be thoughtful and collaborative in another. It is all a question of the stakes, both real and perceived.
The most important thing we can do is to identify the relationship between our motivations and the stakes in a given situation. By taking an objective perspective on each situation and approaching it in the way that contributes to the greatest overall good, we can be far more effective in the different interactions that make up the body of work that stands as our career. If we are able to separate personal and professional stakes, and not let ourselves get in the way of the ultimate goal, the things we work on will achieve more success, and the things that personally matter to us will likely be taken care of in the process. Following this approach is certainly the reason I was able to succeed in my poker tournament.
Once we are able to succeed in that way, we can begin to deconstruct the other people we are working with, understanding their stakes and motivations, and use that understanding to get the most out of them in order to better achieve shared goals. After all, if we know someone is professionally insecure, we can communicate with them in a way that mitigates that insecurity and enables their best skills to shine. Or if we know someone sees a given project as a possible inflection point for their career advancement, we can help identify and take advantage of other channels that lower their personal stakes in your project and makes them a more productive contributor.
It is a lot simpler at the poker table, where being cooperative is largely orthogonal to your very personal goal of defeating the other players. Indeed, the process of navigating the motivations and relational stakes of various other players in your business context adds layers of complexity, and requires as much maturity and strong sense-of-self as it does experience and insight.
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4
Dirk Knemeyer is a Founding Principal of Involution Studios LLC, a digital product design firm located in Silicon Valley. His diverse professional background includes time as a management consultant, advertising executive, and an on-air television and radio personality. Dirk earned a Master of Arts in Popular Culture from Bowling Green State University and is a voracious cultural observer. He regularly publishes insights on culture, business, and design at his website, www.knemeyer.com.
