Helen Walton: Naive or ballsy? Building a company from scratch in an industry you don’t know with Helen Walton

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So that means I can pretty much guarantee I can go through your bathroom and there will be something I've worked on so I don't want anyone thinking that we've got some brilliant success in our background that we just have never told you about no it was a total failure but we learned a great deal I cannot tell you how many sort of awful moments we have had as a company we've been running out of money deals that you thought were going to happen that collaps at the last moment products that you were completely invested in that you thought were going to be huge that flopped

totally there's also the good thing that you're just tired you're only human you can't do everything you've got a life you've got a child and a partner and a house and you know you can't do everything famously we got thrown out of our shared working office because we hired their Barman to be an account manager for us and they were so annoyed with us that they kicked us out of the office welcome to the igaming leader podcast where we uncover The Human Side of some of the most inspirational leaders in our industry I'm your host Leo Judkins and as an exi gaming director turned performance

coach I've worked with over 200 leaders from companies like entain 365 flutter and many more to help them build the habits to achieve sustainable high performance in these episodes we share exactly what it takes for you to achieve the same so with that being said let's dive in welcome to the I gaming leader today I'm joined by Helen wolson and I'm super excited to talk to you today Helen because uh I've spoken to you to Paul and know quite a few things about g games now but you have such an interesting backstory so um yeah I've been super excited to talk to you first of

all welcome to the igaming leader thank you it's lovely to be here great wayed spending afternoon Helen I wanted to start off with something you said which is in your house there will be at least one product that you help made and I found that like I know that that is outside of gaming but I and that such an intriguing statement that I saw uh because you've had a you know varied um history and and and career I'd love to hear a little bit more about that and and how it all started and and where that statement comes from well it helped that I have

worked for Unilever for boots and for pz cussins uh in my life so that means I can pretty much guarantee I can go through your bathroom and there will be something I've worked on so do you use Dove or Lynx act does your does your partner use santra pre that there will I will find something in your bathroom that I have worked on and I've also worked for a you know a really large range of of clients doing different things I worked for uh for the National Trust via jante Nuno Mendes Danielle Ryman Gemma kid her makeup range I've even written a column for the

Daily Mail as a a ghost writer yeah I've done all sorts of things and then and then 12 years ago you found a gam how did you roll into that and I know it was a crazy idea to start with and it all evolved from there but how did you roll into it in the first place well Dan Paul and I we're the three co-founders of G and we met at a different startup which was creating a series of courses for Enterprises to deliver software products better at scale and we wrote a series of books together that then became the course called bfq value flow

quality about how to do Agile at scale uh and it became the qualification for the British Computing society and it's now used by some ridiculous percentage of the footy 350 or something like that and it yeah it still exists and it's it's going really strong and as we were sort of coming towards the end of that project which we worked on as a tight small te we started talking about what were we going to do next and meeting business partners is not easy because you're looking for quite specific things you you need to share values you need to be at roughly the same stages in

your career and that often means you're at roughly the same stages in your life you need to have roughly similar appetite for risk and roughly similar amounts of money to be able to put into the idea and survive and your skills need to be complimentary so here we were the three of us uh we worked together for like two and a half years so we knew we worked well together and that we trusted each other and we knew we had complimentary skills Paul was really good at finance and product and Dan was really good at leading the it and the software development and I had

a marketing product concept development sales background so we you know it is not that usual complimentary skills roughly the same age in life experience and so when we said and we kind of all said it together why don't we build another company together that was what we knew first we knew we were going to do something together before we knew what it was we didn't start with some brilliant idea we started by going this is our chance to be entrepreneurs at scale together what are we going to do yeah that was how it went and H how did that then get to gaming Helen because

you've got a very different product anyway but but how did you get to to gaming as a as as the outcome of that business well at the time we were we were particularly struck by TV game shows continued to be massive business despite the fact that you might have thought that they were dated and they were going out of fashion as you know as the rise of kind of online gaming and mobile gaming was happening you might think that the TV game shows going out of business but we noticed that no they were actually picking up and that some insane number of um people were

watching Million Pound Drop and while they were doing it were playing on second screen as they watched now a quirk of UK entertainment licensing meant that TV companies couldn't monetize in the most obvious way which is getting people to pay to take part in order to win a share of a prize because that's called gambling so we went H some kind of massive multiplayer event with real money prizes played out online seems like a really good idea to us we're going to do that I look back I think we were insanely naive but you know probably if we'd known more we wouldn't have dared do

it we'd have known all the objections and all the problem and listen we failed totally so I don't want anyone you know thinking that we've got some brilliant success in our background that we just have never told you about no it was a total failure but we learned a great deal we were I think at the wrong time we weren't well connected enough because you know there is a company out there doing massive online real money game show they're called Evolution they've done pretty damn well out of it and there's a whole bunch of other people that are delivering their own versions of those we

were just the you know Scrappy Trio of idiots who didn't know anything about the gambling industry and who thought we could do it first we were wrong but along the way we have succeeded in you know building a studio that delivers a range of games some more Innovative others less Innovative and we are still working on our Dream it's a different dream we're still working on multiplayer though that is that remains the big concept that g is working on today and we're still really excited about it what were some of the things that you found most surprising perhaps or fascinating about moving into game is

such a different industry from what you had done before so I'd love to hear a little bit about what what surprised you the most it felt like quite an old-fashioned Small industry to me so I don't think I've ever worked anywhere before where sort of everyone knows everyone and the idea that everyone just goes from place to place to place to place you know that was fairly new to me even working in FMC G and Beauty where people talk about that they laugh about it oh you went from this company to this company to but not not in the same way and also the fact

that like physical trade shows were such a big thing that sales happened to such an enormous degrees through relationships all of that was felt felt different felt weird still feels a little bit weird to be honest yeah outside of the industry people don't really get it right especially the trade trade show uh conference type of stuff how how how's that gone for you over time has that has your approach changed there what are some of the things that worked well for you didn't work well for you as you've gone through those those 12 years specifically around events and and around networking well we've built that

Network we built it from scratch again depends on how you look at it was it naive or ballsy the whole point is you can do it right but we we made our journey a lot longer and arguably Harder by not having any network at the beginning by not knowing people who would invest by not knowing customers by having to build back from scratch we did gain aention through being Outsiders and through doing things a little bit differently whether we were coming up with gimmicks and stunts and events I still get people coming up to me asking about oh you you were the woman who put

those guys in stilettos right and I so you were the person that had those grannies going around so you know stumps and gimmicks because we were outside that worked we still have a slightly irreverent approach to doing business and to advertising you won't find us doing the kind of typical sponsorships or the or the typical ways of marketing so I think we're still known for doing things a little bit differently but you have to build a relationship with your customer that's different to that that built on a different form of authenticity you know as you started you guys started out you naive failure were there

moments where you really questions the decisions that you'd made and oh my God all the time so tell us a little bit more about that like how did you persevere what did you learn from it you know I cannot tell you how many sort of awful moments we have had as a company we've been running our money we've had a kind of a minded to revoke notice through something that genuinely still wasn't our fault still stones that one we've had all sorts of challenges and issues deals that you thought were going to happen that collaps at the last moment that you were totally reliant on

products that you were completely invested in that you thought were going to be huge that flopped totally spent years working on and that were a complete waste of time working on the wrong priority falling out you know there have been so many issues and at each of those points yeah you question why am I doing this I'm tired this feels hopeless oh we're never going to get anywhere nothing's going to be delivered but something keeps you going of course you know the answer that everyone wants you to say the answer that sounds like a really good narrative is oh you keep going because of your

team or because if you still believe in the vision and of course there's some of that but there's also just being bloody minded and stubborn and going I refuse to give up I'm going to show those bastards or sunk cost fallacy never underestimate sunk cost fallacy you've you've given so much to the business you can't bear for it not to be worth it it may be wrong but it does keep you going through the hard times that's some cost fallacy I always love that right because that is so true also in what you just described you you have projects that you've put years into and

at some point you've got to decide to pull the plug because it's just hopeless it's not going to go anywhere and that stings a lot happens to I think it happens to all of us so how have you stayed sane throughout the years with all those like difficult decisions and and difficult moments that you're talking about here I mean some would argue whether I've managed to stay safe at all that's I knew you were going to say perly acceptable I I would say this is this is this is life right it's not just work just anyone who's a parent would also say how do you

stay samean through all the Dreadful bits that go on with raising children but there's always something just when you're at your most exasperated there's also something lovely and the same is true of running a business you're at your most exhausted and set up and everything feels aw but then you hear something lovely from a team member or from a customer that keeps you going or you're absolutely sick of your team and you're arguing with one another and you feel like you're misaligned on your values but you you get a breakthrough in a product and you think it's all going to be worth it or or

or a deal comes in and you realize that it is going to work out you have little moments that keep you going even when everything's terrible and just when you think everything is perfect there's a little moment that brings you down to work on the flip side of that what what what have been what have been some of the highs that you've experienced throughout those 12 years what did some of your proudest moments big or small what did they look like first time we persuaded I this sounds tiny it is tiny but you know the first two people we persuaded to join us as our

employee I mean that was massive they were so brave we had s all funding we had just what we put in and some Consulting and freelance gigs that we kept going for the first like year that was all we had and two people believed in us enough to go yeah okay we're going to give up our nice paying jobs and join you for less money to help you fulfill this Vision it's easy actually as you get established that you get a bit used to the idea that you're paying people decent wage and that they have expectations of you and you have expectations of them but

I guess I never quite forget those first early employees where we were all taking the most enormous shared risk together and you feel incredibly committed to those people Forever After because what they did in taking that Leap of Faith with you so that that was an enormous High um first product going live oh my God the F this is so ridiculous it's so many years ago but we did this um this social game a Facebook game and the first time somebody bought one of our like big packages on that game Paul I can still remember Paul ringing me up like I want there and like

you know here we are today with like Millions going through in wages you know every day and you you don't even think about it I think it was like 50 Quid we so over excited and then you know even now so we're doing this big new multiplayer product and it looks fantastic and every time we have a play test I'm just so happy to see how much further it's come on and to see people enjoying it when I see a customer playing it getting so involved that they go die die as they like smash the screen you're like yeah okay this is great first time

the first time somebody signed the contract for it you know every time actually someone signs a contract I'm really excited because I just go yeah this is going to deliver it's going to be worth it yeah love it Paul was telling me how people just in kind of the sales the sales presentation just just play the game rather than than doing the doing the pitch right yeah yeah yeah and they get so engaged and involved and yeah they're smashing screen people throw the phone across the room yeah crazy hey Ellen how's that changed over time and and with pulling down it's like a marriage right

you it's 12 years there's ups and downs like how's that changed over time and and what are some maybe some some advice that you could give to people that cound a business with with others there's this um diagram or theory of teams I've always found very helpful that forming storming norming performing and you you go through that cycle several times when you have a really long-term relationship with people so it's interesting you know because people don't have that that often anymore in business and until I founded G the longest I'd ever worked for any company was seven years and I mean that felt like forever

and you know now we've been working together if you put our previous company with j we've been working together for 15 years now that is seriously unusual so we know each other really well and sometimes we get on brilliantly and sometimes we're arguing really badly over something and sometimes we're just fed up with each other or something niggly or stupid annoys you about someone you've worked with that long the thing that helps is first of all you do have this weirdly deep underlying Trust of just knowing that you can rely on them to to just get on with something to do so that just deepens

over time and therefore a lot of the other stuff a lot of the irritation I often think about it it's like it's like weather it will just pass you're just yes you're annoyed yes it feels very intense in the moment you're disagreeing over something really bad if you think they're a complete idiot for not agreeing with you you you think they're being outrageous and not properly listening to you or appreciating you or understanding how much you know all of those feelings that are real feelings that happen in in everyday working life but you also learn to stand a little bit outside of it and just

go yeah okay that's for today maybe it's even for this week or even for this month but it's not forever and you trust it's not forever you should never underestimate how important staying with a group of people how much it UPS your performance over time because when you know them so well you really know how to complement each other's strengths and weaknesses and build on them yeah it's that it's that idea of psychological safety right and being able to trust each other and you know each other and even if even if oh piss each other off you still know it's going to be okay right

we we'll be okay and I think that's such a such an important area one of the things you've said to me before is is about how sometimes that is also can also almost become a weakness right where you because you complement each other you go so narrow almost in your focus that you don't you you don't widen your skills as much anymore because you're leaning on on perhaps people next to you right that's that develop those skills so well I think you do become a little bit codependent if again you've been together such a long period you just go okay you're going to do this

thing so much faster and better and I'm going to do this thing so much faster and better that we don't ever you know experiment with that that is I think a risk I think it's it's helped by having a lot of other people in as well so it's not as if it's just the three of you you know we're a team of 80 people nowadays so that's not easy either I think that's something you have to really think about when three of you have worked together for so long we tend to have um quite High retention so we've got a lot of people that have

been with us seven plus years how does somebody new come into that team and find a role amongst people who've been working together so long how does that work yeah that's difficult so how do you deal with that because like I'd love to talk a little bit about your organizational structure in a bit as well because it's fascinating but uh before we do like when you've had people that have been there for so long and know the ins and outs of the business ins and outs of you like how do you onboard new people and make sure that they also feel that they're part of

that bigger thing that you want them to be part of we do a lot of the basics that you'd expect us to do so we run quite an in-depth on boarding with each new person who joins that you know covers all the basic stuff but also talks a great deal about the ethos of the company and shows how the ethos of the company Works through the various different tools and the various different processes that we have so that we try and you know map everything to our values we make sure everyone has a buddy that they work with and we tell people very clearly it's

their responsibility to ask for feedback and to ask for how they are doing um and we have some kind of formalization around that but not really that much although all of that is true and all of that happens the honest answer is I don't know that we are always brilliant at it I would say we have really high retention but I would also say we probably have a you know a reasonable failure rate as well where we fail to onboard people properly where they go this is not the environment for me I don't find this liberating and exciting and filled with autonomy I find it

scary and isolating and I don't know how to find my place I you know I think that's true too and I can only say that I passionately believe personally everyone you bring on you bring on because you think they're good they want to do their best they have nothing but their you know the the best motivation to be doing things as well and if both of you go this isn't working out you try and find them a or something that works better for them within the organization and we've had we've had quite a few successes with that actually so we've had people who joined in

one capacity and who have ended up doing something totally different that they've been much better at amnon joined us as a a product owner a product manager um and it just it wasn't for him he wasn't enjoying it it wasn't particularly good for him he became a sales manager and he was the best sales manager I think I've ever met he's a fantastic IC sales manager and eventually he felt that he needed to spread his wings Beyond G what could I say except yeah you're going to be absolutely fantastic when wherever you go anyone is going to be really lucky to have you and yeah

he's he's gone on to Greater Heights in his career and will go on to far greater Heights I have no doubt and I still Harbor a hope that one day he'll come back because again it's back to any relationship right that if something's not working it's normally not the person it's normally the circumstances and you just have to if you can't for some reason change the circumstances maybe you can't pay them enough maybe you can't give them something particular they want okay you just have to acknowledge it's not working right now but maybe it'll work differently at another time and you do your best to

help them to support them to to find the place that they're going to be really happy and it will help as well of course and and and the thing is that you can't filter everything out during an interview process anyway right I mean you can do so many interview but it's this is a cultural fit like all the small tedious things that might happen in an organization might not necessarily be for that person might be just wrong tools that you're using or something you know that that annoys I don't know whatever it is and you can't filter all of that out beforehand and what do

interviews tell you anyway really yeah Paul and I uh actually completely agree on this we always say there are two things that we are looking for pretty much two things only so the first is can you learn and can you demonstrate that you learn quickly and then the second thing is do you work hard and if you do those two things then almost nothing else matters because if you haven't done something before if you don't have a skill well you're going to work hard to learn and get better at it great so we're very uninterested normally about do you have the exact experience in the

past have you done the exact same thing before we definitely believe an interview is often about figuring out if you want to take a chance on somebody if you go I believe you could be great and a lot of what the role is going to be is about is about trying to make sure that you've got everything you need in order for you to become great because you're going to do the learning and the hard work that will get you there that's why we're big Believers in sometimes you take people on in one role and they end up in a completely different one or you

build the role around the person that that too yeah I love that I love also the approach on autonomy taking responsibility for your own actions and and just being your own person and and if it's a good fit from a from a personal perspective then all the skills will they they will happen right you can build them you help them develop you will build them you will get them you will go develop them you will find just like in our crazy way we built a network from scratch without knowing anybody in the gambling industry not saying it was the fastest thing but it's entirely possible

and doable yeah I think sometimes when people hear about the way G structures itself that we have a a pretty flat structure that we tend not we we don't really have formal reporting lines people sometimes kind of think that we must be all fuzzy and warm and delightful and hippie and I I don't think we are I think we're pretty tough actually because you know we're big Believers in dissent it's not all let's all agree on everything no it's it's let's ensure people have the freedom to disagree to say I won't work on that I'm going to work on this I believe this is more

valuable to have those arguments openly to keep bringing up the argument to to share the information to make sure people have access to really good information so that they can make those decisions to make sure meetings are open so that people can be involved and can speak up things like being responsible for asking for feedback yourself there's no oh no you you know your Mentor is going to check in with you and check how you are we're like you're an adult you're responsible for your own career if you are concerned that maybe people don't think you're doing well you you should be asking do you

think I'm doing a good job do you think I'm contributing value to the company you know those can be uncomfortable questions to ask but they're really important and we would say they're your responsibility so you know again one of my pet hatreds is someone saying well I didn't know that nobody told me well did you know there was some information that you needed why didn't you ask for it then why didn't you go find it out because nobody in our company is trying to hide it from you there's no secret Discussion Group if there's something you don't know you need to go find it out

and of course the things you don't know you don't know sure but where there are you know areas whole areas where you go that's funny I've heard nothing about this project or the priority why haven't you joined the prioritization why aren't you checking that board I'm just saying there's a obviously there's a mix of two-way communication but on the whole we believe in putting quite a lot of responsibility on individuals as well as giving them quite a lot of freedom no I love it Helen because I think with lots of people there's a serious lack of ownership and own responsibility right and even from a

Stress Management perspective I think it's so disempowering when you lay blame with everything else but yourself but when you actually start taking control of your own actions and start taking responsibility for okay what can I do about this situation rather than management or rather than the government or rather than whatever it is it allows you to feel in charge again and it will help you get out of whatever that stress is that you're experiencing and it's I think it's the most frustrating thing there is when when it's no longer in your control and you feel absolutely helpless but a lot of people are actually in

that mindset where they feel everything everybody else and everyone else should be telling me what to do whereas actually it's you that should be doing it h but the problem with it is that it's uncomfortable because you will make decisions with not all of the information and you will probably make mistakes as well and that's okay yes yes it it being okay to make mistakes and to stand up and admit when you've made a mistake and to say when you're wrong that's a really important part I've never understood either why it is that people don't realize it's much more disarmed when you say yeah I

got that wrong I'm sorry guys it it almost instantly stops people being cross with you it is much better to take ownership but of course you have to you know you have to model that behavior you have your own mistakes and that mistakes can happen but you know if you're making the same mistake on the fourth time that might be exactly the S kind of thing that you reflect on and go well why am I making these mistakes is it because I hate that thing or I don't care about that thing and therefore I shouldn't be doing it and if that means I shouldn't be

doing this entire job maybe that's the right answer I'd love to hear a little bit more about your journey from kind of starting starting the business up to now 8 employees right so it's not just about like that that comes with structural changes comes with teething problems but also comes with challenges for yourself right and how you develop as a leader leading a an organizations very different I'd imagine from from being there with the three four five people to now with 80 so what have been some of the most biggest changes that you've experienced in in your role within the company I mean I suppose

I you know I personally have had to get a lot better at not interfering so a classic of startup Founders right is that they medal in everything because they think they know better they think they can do it better they care more perhaps because theirs so they you know they really want to be involved yeah I am not claiming to be immune from that you know you have to let other people take ownership and control and make mistakes and get better and grow beyond what you could do so you also have to acknowledge the things that you're not very good at I mean that that's

actually helped by there's always stuff that you also have to do that you hate doing just as it quite difficult to let go of control over things that you passionately care about that's balanced by the fact that it's great to let go of things that you were always a bit at you always hate doing I mean God there's a whole bunch of stuff that I can't wait until I can let go of that as well I'm still stuck doing but how did you how did you deal with that Helen because that I think that's actually the hardest bit hardest part for Founders is is because

you are so deeply involved not just in the vision but in the actual operational bits of it you understand everything better than somebody that's come comes in new right and and maybe their skill set is more advanced in certain areas you understand the detail far better and so that makes it super difficult to their go right because you see things and you your fingers will just start burning right you'll just go I I can fix this you know yeah then you become the crutch as well and yes yeah and the B did you have a moment where you realized that you were doing that I

will just say that this is one of the benefits of there being three of you as three co-founders yeah you get very good at pointing out to each other the times that you are becoming a bottleneck or meddling or inter sharing that saying that's always easy but you know that's one of the things pul down and I do to each other you've become a bottleneck on this you need to stop you need to delegate that and then also you know you just get you get pushback from your employee you reflect so you you you have some moments of self-reflection where you go am I doing

that thing I just criticize Paul for doing and there's somebody who's been working with you for a certain amount of time time and you can feel their frustration over something whether they express it or you're just sensing it and you recognize that part of their development is to take something on is to go further with something and that you need to support them in that or just let them do it because that's part of them choosing to stay with you yeah and and there's also again so a little bit like we were saying things that like sunk cost fallacy can be a good thing there's

also the good thing that you're just tired you're only human you can't do everything you've got a life you've got child and a partner and a house and you know you can't do everything so some things have to let go and there is actually nothing worse than when you let something slip yourself you're too busy you're trying to do too much you let something drop you're embarrassed by that it feels okay that's a really good sign you need to be delegating more stuff to other people yeah it's always better to have something uh done at 80% of your quality than having it not done at

all because you didn't have time right so it's always better to delegate it and one of the big things that we always talk about in our Mastermind is is understanding what you no longer do right you we we talk about not do lists rather than to do lists and you know they're almost like the things the rabbit holes that trap you every time that you go down into and and you can't find yourself coming out of and and when you start doing that the problem is that employees start getting really disengaged as well because you're constantly meddling like you said yeah or or they come

and check stuff with you that they don't need to check with you that's another really good sign actually if someone's checking stuff with you is it because they're genuinely asking for your creative input to make something better and they're talking through their thinking that's totally fine or are they checking something that is already the right answer because they're worried that you're going to interfere yeah you can almost become somebody's crutch by by doing that Al the time yeah hey if you're a VP a director founder or executive and eye gaming and you want to achieve sustainable high performance with sacrificing your personal life or your

well-being then the igaming leader Mastermind might be your kind of thing it is a highly vetted community in which we work together with other iig gaming leaders in the industry to achieve that sustainable high performance because leadership in igaming can be really lonely and isolating but when you've got the right people around you it can make such a difference to your performance your productivity and your personal life so if that's something you want to know a little bit more about head over to igaming leer.com and apply to join okay um you talk a little bit about change you mentioned change en courage giving people chances

as we've touched on it a bit by saying you know what matters is not whether someone has the experience or has done a similar kind of job before even comes from inside the same industry right yeah you know be looking for and finding people from different Industries but who have skill sets or personality traits that are highly applicable and give them a chance don't assume that you need somebody with a degree or somebody with you know proof that they've done that type of slot MTH before maybe they've done something different you know I I would argue that we are quite good actually at looking from

outside industry perhaps from necessity we couldn't match salaries but also for a genuine ideological belief that that's a good way to bring in fresh thinking and give people individuals chances famously we got thrown out of our shared working office because we hired their ban to uh be an account manager for us and they were so annoyed with us for having stolen their fabulously B that they kicked us out of the office so you know we were like he's great he's fantastic at customer service he's really clever he's really personable and he wants to change industry why would we not give him a chance I think

so many companies are just too isolated on only hir hiring inside of industry and it really kind of I think diversity is just such an important topic in general right well beyond kind of male versus female just in in General you need to diversify your team to have Diversified thinking and I think it's some it's a massive opportunity that that most businesses just I don't know pass out on you know and it makes it makes no sense in my head well I think it's it is often about safety right you you don't want to make a mistake when you're recruiting someone and you don't want

to be blamed for having recruited the wrong person as opposed to going we're going to take a chance on someone and the risk is more on their side and we should then make a decision much faster about whether we are working well together or not so you have more riskier hires but you have more honest conversations earlier about no makes a lot of sense honesty Integrity uh personal accountability I love all of it and so for somebody that is maybe that is growing quickly in their in their role is progressing really fast in their career but maybe feeling that they're hitting a bit of a

ceiling what's what's one piece of advice that you could give them what's the thing that you've seen in others that inspired you the most I think the danger in our industry in particular is that when you feel that happening in most companies you need to move jobs you need to actively move to a different company in order to be seen differently in order to get a new role one of the things we try to do is that because we don't have levels or you know promotions in that traditional sense what we try to do is just go you have more responsibility more you know if

you're an account manager more higher value customers do more things on your own take on more challenges you decide to improve this process just go do it and as a direct result of the value that you can be seen to be contributing to the company a percentage of that value should come back to you in a pay rise how is the and we often talk about pay Rises we say how is the company doing and how much are you the individual contributing to that obviously if the company's not making any money there is no money for pay Rises no matter how brilliant you are the

company's doing brilliantly but you are not perceived and cannot demonstrate that a great deal of that value or any of that value is due to you well you're not going to get above whatever the standard rat is that is being given out that's the kind of the golden ideal I'm not saying we always 100% do it but you know that is definitely how we try to work you know why I think that's also really important and i' love to hear your take on this is because I think the reason why a lot of people disengage from jobs when they when they no longer engaged they

no longer feel that they um just basically hate their job they turn up and leave um I think that often happens because you don't see the value that you're bringing to the wider picture you know you know what I'm saying like that they don't necessarily see how their work contributes to the overall I think you often feel blocked so when I think about the kind of the worst the most frustrated I've been in the job it's not just because I felt like oh I'm not sure if I'm a a valuable part of the experience I felt like my bosses were actively blocking me from delivering

what I knew to be valuable for the company when I wanted the freedom to run a marketing campaign or a sales campaign that I knew would make a difference it was too difficult to do or you know it couldn't get done on time or a launch couldn't happen or there was always something in the way and not because of tradeoffs which happen in every company um where you're prioritizing between different things but just because internal kind of petty fogging rules halted value contributions so think the absolute worst is when you feel not just that are you really valuable or not but you're actually stopped from

delivering the value you want to deliver I love that you're saying that because I think that happens a lot I don't think I know it happens a lot and I know a lot of listeners will uh will probably experience as well so what would you recommend for people feeling that they are in that situation specifically people that are high Achievers and I feel that perhaps you know by their manager even by the person is what kind of signing off to stuff uh things are just not progressing so you see I want to give the cheap easy answer which is instantly leave and start up your

own company but and also I think actually by the way I think I think there is nothing more valuable than working as an entrepreneur to give you a really good idea of the other side of the coin of just how painful those trade-offs sometimes are and how invisible they sometimes can be to other people so that's that's very good because having got that side of it you're going to be a lot more sympathetic in the future future to people saying no to you but the key the key thing really yeah is that the more information you have so the more you understand the deep trade-offs

that exist within a company the more likely you are to make sure that the things that you want to do deliver the True Value that the company needs right now so it may be that you've got a brilliant idea that's going to make the company loads of money but for some reason you're being blocked from doing it and it could be as simple as there's a cash flow crisis and your company is not very good at being being honest with you saying therefore you can't spend this money to make this money so a lot of companies aren't good at sharing that kind of information because

they're scared of what employees might do with it we don't act that way but I I know a lot of companies do trying trying to understand what are the levers in the trade-offs that the company is facing but also that the individual manager boss whoever it is that feels like they're blocking you what they are facing that will help you get something done uh I think I was quite lat on in my career actually before I really understood power of making my boss look good and I think a lot of people don't learn that for me it was because I think I'd grown up in

quite a kind of an adversarial um academic environment where you got high grades by just winning arguments that was what you did and I think I carried that slightly adversarial I'm right into my early career and um you know that's disastrous for yeah let's argue over everything yeah don't do but also you know don't obsess about being right and definitely don't obsess about winning and all the things that you can do that make other people look good that make their lives easier that offer them quick win make it so much more likely that the other things you really want to do will get green lit

will go through and that sounds manipulative in a way that I really don't intend it to be actually I I I mean it that you are you are all collaborating you all of you actually believe most of the time that you're trying to create value for the company and if if you come from a place where that's what you believe most people's motivations are they want to do a good job they want to do what's best trying to understand why their motivation for that why their behavior feels quite antithetical to what you're doing both of you share the same motivation that can really help you

get to a better place so if you're blocking me from making loads of money from the company is because there's something else that is truly important to you that I'm not understanding and it's probably not something selfish or stupid it's probably something also really important to the company that I'm not understanding and I need to get a grass spot love it Ellen thank you so much for today's uh podcast really enjoyed talking to you've been fantastic oh thank you it's lovely to chat to you Leo thank you thank you for joining me on the igaming leader podcast if you enjoyed today's episode head over to

igaming leer.com for more conversations and insights don't forget to subscribe to this podcast I'm your host Leo Judkins and hope to see you next week

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