The Innovation & Collaboration Game That Sticks
Transform Your Team and Organizational Performance in 60 Minutes, With Impact That Lasts for Years.
Since 2005, over 250,000 people in 35 countries have played Personality Poker to drive team innovation & collaboration. Isn’t it time you gave it a try?
What Is Personality Poker?
Personality Poker is an interactive game that reveals how your people think, solve problems, and work together.
Played with a custom deck where every card names a different innovation or collaboration style, it turns an hour of play into lasting insight: who your natural problem-solvers are, where your blind spots hide, and why some people click while others clash.
It started on stage in my keynotes. But now you can also run it yourself inside your organization.
However you bring it in, the game creates a shared language your teams keep using long after the cards are put away.
If you’re not looking for a speaker, explore the DIY and Certification & Mastery paths below.
- Tailored to your team's specific challenges and dynamics
- Reveals hidden patterns in how your teams collaborate and innovate
- Discover innovation styles and blind spots as they play
- Uncover the hidden strengths already existing within your teams
Personality Poker is a full-body experience that helps teams discover their collective genius: the strengths, the blind spots, and the surprising ways they fit together.
The Personality Poker Experience: How It Works
Personality Poker is an interactive game that uses proprietary playing cards. They look like regular playing cards, with one key difference: each card features a word that describes a particular behavior or trait.
Playing the Game
- Preferred innovation styles and how these shape their approach to challenges
- Hidden blind spots that may be limiting their effectiveness
- Natural collaborators they might otherwise avoid but who complement their strengths
- Missing elements in their team dynamics that are creating innovation barriers
- How others truly perceive them and why any perception gaps matter
Personality Poker is backed by implementation in hundreds of organizations worldwide and validated by organizational behavior experts. It transforms how teams see themselves and each other.
Ultimately, Personality Poker establishes new (often unexpected) collaborations that continue evolving long after our session.
Success Stories That Continue Evolving
Leaders don’t book Personality Poker again because it was fun. They book it again because their teams work differently afterward.
Building high-performing teams
I’ve been using Personality Poker for the 13 years I’ve served as CEO. It’s an invaluable tool that has helped me choose high-performing teams to execute on critical projects and initiatives. ‘Playing the game’ helps all of us identify our strengths and weaknesses, fosters better collaboration and truly supports our culture of innovation.
Eric Dickson, MD, President and CEO, UMass Memorial Health
Collaboration across silos
Our Personality Poker event created a buzz that continued well past the event. A month later, I continue to see evidence that the awareness the game fosters really stuck. Teams are collaborating in ways we’ve never seen before.
Michele Littleton, Chevron, Innovation Operations
Impact that lasts a decade
Claudia Sanchez, Marriott Vacations Worldwide
Ready to Deal Your Team In?
Every organization brings Personality Poker in differently. Some want the full keynote experience, some want to run it themselves, and some want to build the capability in-house. Here’s how to choose.
Three Ways to Experience Personality Poker
Pick the path that fits your goals today—then scale when you're ready.
Book Stephen for a Keynote
A dynamic, high-impact session that sparks collaboration and innovation.
- Tailored live experience, shaped for your team's dynamics
- Every participant plays with their own 5-card hand
- Real-time insights that reveal hidden team patterns
Try the Personality Poker DIY
A low-cost way to run a small-group session before scaling further.
- 5 decks of cards, enough for up to 25 people
- Quick-start guide, cheat sheet & instructional videos
- Ebook and plug-and-play slides included
The Certification & Mastery Programs
Pilot Poker inside your organization, or embed it as a full cultural transformation.
- Certification: bring Poker in yourself, then scale company-wide
- Mastery: embeds Poker into your culture at scale
- For internal organizational use. Not currently for outside consultants or coaches
Whichever Path You Choose, Full Deck IQ Is What Comes Next
Personality Poker creates the shared language, however you bring it in. Full Deck IQ turns that experience into organizational intelligence: a leadership-level view of collaboration patterns, capability gaps, and innovation barriers, plus the structure to close them.
Explore Full Deck IQ →Frequently Asked Questions
Unlike static assessments that people quickly forget, Personality Poker creates an interactive experience that sticks. The physical cards become daily tools for better collaboration, while the gaming dynamics create stronger neural connections for lasting behavioral change.
The beauty of Personality Poker® is that it quickly transitions from feeling like a game to revealing profound insights about team dynamics. Even the most skeptical participants typically become engaged when they see their colleagues having breakthrough moments about collaboration styles.
Personality Poker works effectively with groups ranging from fewer than 10 people to over 1,000. The experience scales seamlessly while maintaining its interactive and personalized nature.
Any organization that values collaboration, innovation, and team performance. Personality Poker has been used by Fortune 500 companies, startups, and everything in between.
Personality Poker cards are available through three channels:
- Bring Stephen in for a keynote or workshop.
- Embed innovation and collaboration with the Personality Poker Certification or Mastery Programs.
- Purchase a Personality Poker DIY to give it a try and get a sample pack of five decks
If you have questions, please contact Stephen through the contact page to discuss your specific needs.
It’s both! While the experience is highly engaging, the insights are deeply practical. Teams walk away with concrete strategies to improve innovation and collaboration that continue delivering value long after the session ends.
Every participant receives their own deck of Personality Poker® cards and access to our exclusive training program. Teams can immediately apply these tools to real workplace challenges, ensuring the insights become part of your daily collaboration culture.
Plus we have programs such at the Full Deck IQ and the 10-day Personality Poker Challenge that ensure long-term results.
Yes, consultant Werner Puchert reviewed it in his podcast series. He highlights how Personality Poker helps teams identify collective strengths and reduces innovation uncertainty by leveraging diverse thinking styles.
Watch the unbiased review here.
Yes, Personality Poker underwent scientific validation with Michael Wiederman, a psychology professor at Columbia College. Our research confirmed two key findings: individuals are multidimensional and shouldn’t be rigidly categorized, and the conversations during gameplay provide exceptional value for team development.
Many participants keep their cards for years as powerful reminders of their strengths and collaboration styles. Teams use them to identify the right mix of styles for projects, resolve conflicts by understanding different perspectives, and communicate more effectively across departments. We’ve even met people who’ve carried their cards through multiple job changes spanning over a decade!
If you’d like to explore how Personality Poker® can create positive change in your organization,
book a call or contact Stephen directly.