The Answer Is: It Depends

"Too many rules get in the way of leadership. They just put you in a box. … People set rules to keep from making decisions."

- Mike Krzyzewski,

Duke University men's basketball coach

"I could teach you to play in a day, but it would take you a lifetime to learn." That's what I told my friend Lester when he asked me how long it would take him to learn how to play poker. The rules are very simple, and anyone with good common sense can learn the basics in a couple of hours. It's the nuances that very few people ever master. Consider my frustration when I was teaching Lester the strategy of the game.

Lester: "If I have a good hand, I should bet."

Greg: "It depends."

Lester: "It depends on what?"

Greg: "If you bet, your opponents are going to think you have a good hand and may not call."

Lester: "So, I shouldn't bet."

Greg: "Well, if you don't bet, maybe no one else will bet."

Lester: "So, if I think no one else is going to bet, I should bet."

Greg: "Not necessarily. If no one bets, that could mean a lot of things. It could mean that no one else has anything, but it could also mean that someone has a great hand and is trying to suck you in by not betting."

Lester: "How do I know?"

Greg: "You don't."

Lester: "Back to my original question, then: If I have a good hand, should I bet?"

Greg: "Back to my original answer: It depends."

Can you imagine being the student who wants answers but can't get them? Can you imagine being the teacher who can make these decisions without thinking, but doesn't know exactly how or why?

In Hold'em Poker for Advanced Players, David Sklansky advises, "First, think about what your opponent has. Second, think about what your opponent thinks you have. And third, think about what your opponent thinks you think he has."

Sklansky doesn't bother providing a checklist in his book, because there's an infinite number of situations in poker. Contrary to the way we learn in school, both poker and business are games that reward the thinker, not the memorizer. They are not sciences where you can plug in a situation and come out with a definitive solution. It's why Michael Dell said, "One of the things that really helped me was not approaching the world in a conventional sense."

Should you play A-Q when there has been a raise before the flop in hold'em?

It depends. If a supertight player raises in front of me, I'll fold this hand. If an aggressive player who is steaming raises in front of me, I'll three-bet with this hand. I don't have a set of rules for how to play A-Q. As is everything in poker, and business, the answer is situation-specific. It depends.

When Chrysler was on the verge of bankruptcy, conventional wisdom suggested that it should cut back on expenses. When times are tough, you should always cut back on expenses, right?

It depends. CEO Lee Iacocca examined every way possible to save money, and sure enough, he asked his employees to take a pay cut and reduced his own salary to $1. His move met resistance, much more than if he had made cuts in research and development (R&D) – a department that always gets cut when times are tough, right?

It depends. In this case, Iacocca reasoned that if the company was going to survive, it would need to have great cars in its pipeline. Thus, he decided to increase the R&D budget. Iacocca's ability to defy conventional wisdom led to Chrysler's re-emergence as a legitimate automaker.

Using the words "never" and "always" runs counter to the "it depends" approach and leads to poor decisions. You'll often hear, "Never quote a price to a prospect over the phone," but what if a new customer calls up to ask for a price and tells you that he will overnight a check along with a purchase order?

You'll often hear, "Never play poker with players who are better than you," but what if you see that a world-class player is drunk and on tilt, and a seat opens up in his game?

How about the notion that you should never work with family? Had Orville and Wilbur Wright followed this rule, they may have never owned a bicycle shop together – and you still might need a boat to cross the Atlantic.

Greg Dinkin is the author of The Poker Principle: Winning in Business No Matter What Cards You Are Dealt, which will be published by Crown in April 2002. He is also the co-founder of Venture Literary (www.ventureliterary.com), where he works with writers to find publishers for their books and producers for their screenplays.