Can teaching employees poker skills help a businesses thrive?
London — The high-stakes game of poker is making its way into the workplace, thanks to one passionate card player determined to share her skills to help employees master strategic thinking on the job.
When it comes to poker, Jo Living knows her way around the table. She grew up around cards, as both her parents were bridge teachers. She told CBS News she could shuffle at age five. But she never picked up a hand to play poker until she was in her 30's, and she never really fell in love with the game until a trip to Morocco nearly 10 years ago.
"I was pregnant and sat in a smoky Moroccan casino at four in the morning, and I'd actually just beaten 200 men to win my first international poker tournament," she told CBS News as she sat at a poker table that she uses to teach the skills of the game to others. Her big win in Africa gave her a big idea.
Living started hosting home games and teaching the often male-dominated game to her female friends, and said she "quickly saw them growing in confidence, closing client deals and landing promotions."
Shuffle forward a few years, and Living founded her company, Aces High. She runs poker workshops across the U.K., aimed at empowering employees — and especially women — to raise their game across a wide range of businesses.
"People think it's about bluff and bravado, but actually it's a lot of female skills," she said. "There's so many skills from the poker table that are transferable to the boardroom table, from negotiation, communication, deep listening."
Stepping Stone Media was one of the latest companies to get an Aces High makeover, with poker tables rolled into its London office, complete with cards, dealers and chips for betting.
"I mean, it feels good, I wouldn't mind having a poker table in more often to be honest," the company's managing director David Mynard told CBS News.
Mynard said he's all in, if it will help his employees play their best hand at work.
"I really love the idea of taking the game of poker and thinking about how that can translate, how we can learn about ourselves and hopefully develop our own skills of communication and reading other people," he told CBS News.
More than a dozen employees sat around the poker tables, some new to the game, others with experience, as Living took them through exercises in decision making, risk taking and reevaluating decisions as they played.
Head dealer Jimi Sotimehin, who's dealt the World Series of Poker, says he loves bringing the game to the workplace.
"I have got the best seat in the house, I never lose!," he jokes.
At Aces High events, there's no cash at stake. The chips are made of chocolate. Living says it's all about betting on yourself... no matter what kind of hand you're dealt.
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