Insights
Why giving feedback teaches you more than receiving it
Most people think the hot seat is the product. It's not.
Leo Judkins, Founder, The iGaming LeaderMost people think the hot seat is the product.
Two minutes to present your challenge. Eight minutes of feedback from peers at your level. Then rotate. That's the format. And when people hear it for the first time, they almost always say the same thing: "That sounds really helpful."
But it's not where the real change happens.
The real shift happens in the chair next to it.
A few weeks in, most members say the same thing: they get more from giving feedback than sitting in the hot seat.
That surprises everyone. It surprised me too, at first.
But it makes sense when you think about it.
When you're diagnosing someone else's challenge you're using everything you've learned over 15 or 20 years: a market entry they're unsure about, a hire they've been putting off, a partnership that doesn't feel right.
And the person across from you isn't guessing.
They've been there. They've made that decision. They've lived with the consequences.
That's what combined decades of iGaming experience in one room actually sounds like. Pattern recognition from people who've already been where you're going.
Someone asked me recently why people join. Fair question.
They didn't join for the content. Or the frameworks. Or even the hot seat, as good as it is.
They joined because at their level, they had no one left to talk to about the decisions they were actually making.
Their board lets them get on with it. Their team waits for direction. And their partner at home doesn't want to hear about another restructure over dinner.
So they end up carrying it alone. And the longer you carry it alone, the heavier it gets.
What happens over a cycle is usually the same.
Someone who's been stuck on a decision for months makes it in one session because they finally say it out loud to people who have nothing to gain from agreeing with them.
Someone who came in overwhelmed walks away with one thing. Not a plan. One thing to act on.
And at least one person realises that the problem they thought was unique to them is the exact same problem three other people in the room have already solved.
I've seen it happen so many times:
- A founder finds the conviction to sell his business months earlier than he would have alone.
- A director goes from ten options to one decision in a single session.
- A CMO kills a project she'd been protecting for months because it didn't align with where the business was actually going.
- A member spending 30 hours a week on work that should have been delegated restructures his entire team.
- Another lands a COO role, and the feedback from his roundtable session shows up in how he handles his first week.
No pitching. No pretending everything's fine. Just a room of people who've already been where you're going.