Why All Business Leaders Need To Learn How To Play Poker

If you want to be a successful business leader, I believe you can gain a huge edge over the competition by learning how to play poker. And I mean REALLY learning how to play the game, not just the mechanics of the game flow and basic rules. Just like any other skill or career field, it's not enough to love doing it; you have love being a student of it.

Sure, poker is a form of gambling in the sense that there is a statistical probability you can incur a loss. It is gambling in the same sense that driving to work carries a probability of getting killed in an accident or in that there is a probability of your stock investments dropping in market value. It doesn’t mean, though, there isn’t any skill involved, or that we can’t learn key concepts or life lessons that can be applied to our business management activities. I argue that if we reduce poker to purely a game of chance like a slot machine (or a state lotto) and ban it, then that same logic would dictate that we ban flying, driving, or any other activity that requires us to get up each morning, leave the house or make a decision. But I digress...

The truth of the matter is, poker is a game of skill just as it is in driving, flying, chess or any professional sport that we love to play ourselves and watch on TV. Additionally, there are a lot of lessons and skills required to be a winning poker player that are directly applicable to leading a successful business and life. I aim to cover more of each of these topics in greater detail in future posts, but for now I will try to just summarize a few of the main ones as I see them.

How is poker a game of skill? Because there are multiple decisions that have to be made by humans that directly affect the decisions of everybody else. Being a good poker player, in fact, requires extensive knowledge of key concepts in game theory, inductive and deductive reasoning, critical thinking and problem solving, algebra, financial management (like bankroll management and calculations for return on investment (ROI) and expected monetary value), risk analysis and mitigation, statistics, SWOT analysis, data analysis, and strategic planning.

What about life lessons? Well, there are as many angles in poker as there are in business and life. Some topics that can be covered deal with leadership and decision-making, courage, emotional intelligence, happiness, self-improvement, self-discipline, mental endurance, social interaction, self-confidence and resilience, and strong work ethic.

This is why I have become so fascinated by the game. Most likely, you never knew poker could get this deep. I don’t think many people realize all of the soft AND hard skills that can be learned and developed by playing a game like poker. But if leading a successful business or life requires these skills, as I believe it does, then learning and studying how to play the game of poker is a great way to stay ahead of the competition.