cover image Personality Poker: The Playing Card Tool for Driving High-Performance Teamwork and Innovation

Personality Poker: The Playing Card Tool for Driving High-Performance Teamwork and Innovation

Stephen M. Shapiro, Portfolio, $25.95 (256p) ISBN 978-1-59184-360-3

An entertaining, if slightly wacky, personality-type game designed to improve performance in the workplace by Fortune 500 company adviser Shapiro, the game helps players identify and understand their "innovation styles": how they uniquely contribute to the success of a team and its chief goals. Each suit is assigned to a particular personality type, and the cards are shuffled and exchanged as the players learn about each other's strengths and weaknesses. The objective of the game, unfolding through four phases (define the challenge, generate solutions, plan and execute, engage hearts and minds) helps leaders put together a team withe each person's strengths used to their full advantage, in order to spur the team to optimized performance and more efficient work. A successful game ends with a team "playing with a full deck"—with all suits represented and allocated in the right way. Shapiro presents an extremely precise, process-driven method of personality analysis, simplified into game form; a clever idea, but more gimmick than guide. (Nov.)