Dominoes Are More Than Just a Game
Domino is a game that uses a set of small, square blocks with a printed value on each face. A domino is normally twice as long as wide, which makes it easy to re-stack the pieces after use. The printed value on each side of a domino can be either blank, marked with a single number, or with multiple numbers in groups of six called suits (each of which is usually given a name).
Dominoes are used to play a variety of games by matching the ends of the dominoes, and forming chains that build up in height or length, depending on the game. There are also many scoring games that determine points by counting the pips or dots on a domino. Some games are adaptations of card games that were popular in some places to circumvent religious proscriptions against playing cards.
For some players, dominoes are more than just a game, they’re a way of life. A 20-year-old woman named Lily Hevesh is a professional domino artist, creating elaborate displays of straight and curved lines that can take hours to complete. Hevesh says that one physical phenomenon is key to her creations: gravity.
When you kick off a large domino chain, the force of gravity pulls each individual domino toward the ground, causing it to crash into the next one and trigger a chain reaction. Hevesh explains that the same principle applies to our lives, and she has created a video demonstrating how focusing on just one priority can have a major impact on other areas of our lives.
Hevesh has worked on projects involving as many as 300,000 dominoes, and her YouTube channel has more than 2 million subscribers. Her most complex creations can take up to several nail-biting minutes for each domino to fall, and she says that a single domino can generate enough energy to topple hundreds of others.
As a leader, it’s important to stay aware of how your team and company can improve their work processes, and how these changes can be implemented effectively. The team at Domino’s knows that keeping close to their core values is vital. When David Brandon was CEO of the pizza chain, he made it a point to listen to employees and make changes accordingly. When Dominic Doyle took over, he stayed true to those values and even improved the line of communication with customers by introducing a new Domino’s Chat app that allows them to order their pizzas by simply texting or using voice assistants like Amazon Echo. The app has been a big hit, and Domino’s is now at the forefront of new ways to order pizza.