Leading Through Change: How to Transform Teams and Performance - Rob Duthie, Entain

Arguably, if you step out of the industry, it's the very thing you end up missing When you start to break it down, you begin to realize How did I ever get anything done without really planning the day ahead of me? No wonder you get home and you're tired Welcome to the I gaming leader the podcast where we uncover the human side of some of the most well-respected leaders. In the industry. I'm your host, Leo Jenkins. And today I'm joined by Rob Duthie. A true industry veteran.

been in the industry For over 20 years, starting out at Victor Chandler, nowadays BV group. Working out Stan James nowadays, kindred and ending up as the managing director at Entain. He will share the lessons that he's learned throughout that 20 year career, the challenges that he's faced, and also leadership lessons that will help you and I uncover what is required to sustain high performance in this high pressure, fast paced industry. So with that said, let's dive in.

So. You know, it's, there was no intention of joining the industry, but, 20 years has gone by and it's been a fascinating journey from, you know, back in 2000s, early 2000s, where everything was on the telephone and it was all sports betting. We had a single person in the corner looking at something called an internet casino or casino online. Now there isn't any telephony or very little of it. And everything is pretty much digital for us.

So what an exciting journey it has been over the last 20 years. Lots of variety.

So what I find fascinating about this industry is that. There is so much variety sitting within this business. In fact, when we talk about progression, individual progression, they typically think about this industry as just taking a bet. But actually, if you dig into it, it's about marketing. It's about legal. It's about compliance. It's about acquisition. There's so much variety within the industry. I've been very fortunate to be a part of a lot of that, which has helped me grow as a person.

over the last 20 years. So, you know, that coupled with the fact that there is such a fast paced moving environment. In terms of language, relentless change, continuous change, is something that you become used to when you're working in this industry. Arguably, if you step out of the industry, it's the very thing you end up missing. It's just the pace at which you move. there's very few other industries that match that.

that can be, quite a motivational piece, quite an energizing piece of the work that I do.

The types of positions and jobs that we have won't be the same. in terms of my own journey, there's some key learnings around, finding happiness and engagement in the challenge, in the change of everything that we do every day. by embracing that, I actually have lots of reasons to get up in the morning. to come to work because there is so much variety and the minute you stick your hand up and say, yes, you start learning and you start growing.

and I don't think I'll ever stop, learning or growing in this career because it's always changing for me.

we've got to ask those questions about fine, we hit target. Okay. We did very well in terms of the number, but how did we perform and turn up every day to hit that target? And we've got to make a decision as individuals to say yes, in terms of our behavior, in terms of how we look after individuals and teams and people, because we all want to have that opportunity to develop. we all want to have the opportunity to grow and to learn. but the key is how do we perform every day as people?

That means that we actually end up hitting the target. there might be occasions when you don't hit the target, okay, but you're comfortable that in terms of behavior and how we turned up and what we did was acceptable.

So, you know, what I love about, the last two 10 years that I've had at Hills and in Tain is that at William Hill 2016, that's really when we had the start of regulation and started taking it seriously in terms of affordability. knowing your customer source of funds and source of wealth. that's when we started to take it seriously. the one consistent area for all operators, especially in the UK market, is that impacts value.

customer value has been hit across every operator in the UK because of regulation and how we run our business. And so at Hills, four years that I had at William Hill, was all about the start of. that piece. where I'm super fortunate to be right now is that we are at Intane. I came and joined Intane at 2020. Again, that was the start of that journey for Intane.

you would see that reflected in the share price and the way the business is moving around, consolidating, restructuring to where we are now coming out the other side at a very exciting time. Thank you. in fact, we talk internally that these will be the most exciting times that we will see in the next 24 months, just in terms of how we grow as a business and how we take share of wallet in the UK.

how we get people to jump over that divide, to say, look, yes, we're doing well as a business, but actually now we need to invest heavily in our people that are, you know, that are tired, yea they're tired of having to go through the restructures and the changes over the last couple of years, along with the challenges of performance. it's how you change that mindset. and that's something we're really focusing on now. Is that we need to have fun, yeah? People need to have fun.

They come to work to have fun, and we get paid, and that's fantastic. but we really need to enjoy the journey. So, we are focusing on Getting back to the basics, yeah? How do you deal with those brilliant basics in terms of development and progression and succession planning? because people want to move on. that's an exciting place for us to be, because the focus now is on the people.

the focus is on the performance piece, because we know that the targets are realistic, and we know, we're going to achieve the results that we need to achieve.

And then more importantly, what I, what I really love is how we as individuals take the skills that we have. Okay. So instead of us going to people and saying, here's the objective and I need you to do this. We talk to people about, what is your skill set and how do you tie into being accountable and responsible within the objective. And that encourages cross team work.

people are now doing what they're really passionate about doing, which is why we want to come to work, as opposed to being told, you need to be doing X, Y, and Z. So the way that we work with our guys is we talk about the big rocks the big things we want to deliver for next year. if you go a little deeper on that and peel it back, what are the deliverables we need to achieve within our verticals, within our pillars to achieve those objectives?

And then drill it down again into the individual, what are the skill sets you have? And how do those tie in? it could be across multiple functions or pillars. let's focus on what you're good at as opposed to all the weak areas. that then gets people engaged because they have a clear sense of where they're going. Okay. And they have a very clear idea of what got to do to get there. that's when the magic starts happening. and people feel like, they want to be here. Because they're adding value.

Yeah, that's a very exciting place to be.

What are some of the people that you've really looked up to, leaders that you've looked up to throughout that 20 year career of yours that, you know, the skills, the behaviors, the habits that you feel, were really kind of transformational for you when you looked at them and thought those are things I want as I'm progressing through my career?

I've been fortunate to run across a couple of guys like that, where I might be overthinking something, and they would just pull me back in line to say, well, just if we think about it differently. What is the outcome going to be for you? and exploring that. it's a little bit like getting into coaching. we know that you turn up to a coaching session expecting, the person on the other side to have all the answers. And actually that's not their job.

Their job is to sit with you and help you understand what is the right answer for you. And so it's the questioning techniques. and allowing you to explore those areas that, you wouldn't necessarily do on your own. that for me is quite key. in terms of leadership as well, it's, you know, the most engaging leaders that I've worked with are people that bring everybody along the journey. that's quite a skill because, Storytelling, is really how it works within our business.

Being able to tell a story that people believe, that could be through change as well, because, people have to understand that the reason why we are making the change is good for the business and that it has, there's some deep thought that's gone into it and it is going to benefit the business. When people realize that, regardless of the outcome, you understand the reason why. And as long as it's meaningful and it makes sense, then people engage with it.

, and so you go through a lot of transformation, we just really want to cut costs at any cost. And there's blood on the floor. there's a lot of casualties. And people are confused. They don't understand why we've gone through this change and they take it personally. Whereas when you've thought it through and you've come with a very clear business plan, people can tuck into that. even if it's not good news for them. there's just a couple of examples.

I always love to think about, I mean, Ressie, from the Springboks, who's the son of the new coach. Um, I've, I've spent, yeah, I've spent quite a bit of time watching how he's managed to take a team that wants to win. But actually there's a connection within each one of those players. means that they have to win. it's not about, we're just turning up, it's not about, we're just, we're going to play another game, but , it's the ability that Rassy has on his players.

to actually connect, the winning piece with the motivation that they have. and that's a very exciting place to be because, that's where the magic happens and that's when you can achieve many things.

But I wanted to tie back to something you said earlier about giving people space and asking the right questions and creating that sense of, all right, let me, let me think about this problem differently, right?

One of the things that I see a lot with people that are perhaps a little bit newer into leadership roles is that they feel they have to have all the answers and they have to be telling rather than asking, it's a typical, issue that many people struggle with because they feel if they tell them and they don't ask, it's an easier way to get to the result that they want. And you must've seen that a lot around you, right?

Over the years these kinds of challenges, but newer leaders stepping up, how can you help people feel more confident with actually asking questions instead of telling, so being a macro manager rather than a micro manager, if you will.

when I think about my guys, if I step out of line, I give them permission to call me out on this. it's quite a powerful place to be because, as a team, I know we are very successful. it's the fact that they are super inquisitive that means that we can actually leapfrog and make a lot of progress. So I encourage people to ask questions. Meaningful questions. They need to be thought through questions because you genuinely want to get a result or you genuinely don't understand something.

my commitment is I want to make sure that you fully understand what it is we're trying to deliver. You've got to work as a team. a lot of young people come through and they get progression very, very early in the career. And that comes with the risk. Yeah. Because, they haven't quite, built on how they manage those conversations. They're not quite at the place where they know how to ask the questions.

in a structured way, in fact, I'll give you a really nice example here is that when I joined both hills and attain, compliance always said Rob, there's no way that because you guys are commercial. There's no way that you guys can get involved in compliance at all. It's that you can't even attend the meetings.

And it took three years at Hills and a couple of years at Mtain where we could all get around the table because we all understood that we had a single goal and I take it as seriously as anybody else in the business. So building that really strong relationship that says. I'm not going to push on something that is going to jar with you. We can all talk about the challenges that we're experiencing. and as a collective, we are so powerful.

one of our guys had always said to me before is that if Intane, only knew what Intane knows, we have so much knowledge in the business, But not many people share it. it's quite a powerful piece because when you bring all that experience together, you're very powerful, in the market.

So how, like in a large organization moving from, you know, Victor Chandler, Stan James, even, I'd imagine it was quite intimate as well to, to a far larger organization, which is now Vogue Hills, and, and what are the big differences you feel between being in a small organization and being in a large organization, and managing those complexities?

I was away a couple of weeks back, on a high performance, leadership, meeting with some of our guys and, two days in, I went to the guy that was leading the session and, said to him, listen, Keith, in terms of how I show up in the meeting, don't be put off if you see me there in the corner, quiet and not necessarily contributing. So you've got to understand that I'm a deep thinker.

which means that, when we're discussing problems or how we fix those problems, what's going on in the back of my mind is, picking up on all the different touch points that that's going to impact to make sure that it does actually work. And he turned around and he said to me, Rob, you've been operating in stealth mode your life. And what was amazing about that statement is, yes, it was true.

Okay. Is that because I'm an introverted thinker, because I very happy to go away and let it consume me for the next week. I don't necessarily share that information with other people. that piece of work around stealth was quite an eye opener for me because you've got to balance that out. You can go away and work in stealth mode, which is absolutely fine. But then you have to come back and be transparent and share the ideas and share the plan.

when I sit and talk with our guys, I might have 19 or 20 projects working in the background and none of them would necessarily know about that. because I'm sneaking back into stealth mode. So, very much in terms of my leadership style, working in those different environments, especially in an operation like ENTAIN, where there's a lot of politics involved, I have to over index on the transparency piece, and I have to really talk about that storytelling piece. which is the unifying story.

Yeah. So, hey, this is what we're doing guys. Here's the detail of it and keep doing that because if you remember working in a super fast paced business, what's, you know, we're doing something this week and in two weeks time, it might be totally different again.

You communicate how you might actually sit in that corner and be quiet for a minute because you're thinking through something, how? has that changed over time? You might have, is that an area that you've struggled with historically? Is that something that you've picked up and made your strength over time? how's that specific skill set of yours, that being a deep thinker evolved over time?

Instead of running away from challenges every day, I actually run towards them because within that challenge is actually very, very likely I'm going to find a lot of engagement and happiness and fulfillment. so because I'm more conscious of it, I'm more inclined to throw myself into super challenging scenarios. My boys who are older now, when the rains come down, you know, we've had rain in the last week. The first thing that I was saying is, dad, did you go out in the Jeep?

Did you go and find some people that are stuck in the mud? And it's funny cause we, we look back and that's what we used to do. when the rain came down, we'd get some rope in the back and, go and find the challenges that are out there. That was just a subconscious thing. it's always been there, in terms of, running into challenges, a lot of deep thought around those challenges and how we solve for them.

does come with a risk, because what I find is that will consume you, but does consume me every day, all day, probably seven days a week. So you have to be super conscious that, well, I do need to switch off. do need to stop thinking about these things and focus on family and focus in other areas of my life in terms of well being. but it is a superpower. So we all have our own superpowers.

and it's important to understand that within the team environment, you don't want to have everybody that's a deep thinker.

getting up at six where you've got really good quality quiet time. no distractions, no noise. really allows me to think about what it is I'm doing during the day. Plan for the day. So I'm not spending my whole day in that deep thinking state. I actually assign time in the day to do that. Do it first thing in the morning, when there's nobody around. read as much as I can. as part of my distraction and then, plan the day ahead of me.

So when I come into the office and the meeting is from nine o'clock through to five o'clock meeting after meeting, I don't have to then rush home and carry on working because I've already prepped and planned early in the day. And that helps me get control of this crazy animal that we work in. and that allows me to spend time and be in the moment with the family. when I'm sitting at home and I'm talking to my wife or my boys, I'm actually there.

I'm not deep in thought thinking about something else. you've got to be ruthless about these things. You really have to assign time, very clearly assigned time to say at this time of the day, I'm going to be doing this. And when I'm finished work, I'm going to dedicate my time. I'm going to be in the moment and I'm going to, be there for that session of the day. and actually what's fascinating is when you break that down, you really don't have a lot of time left.

So when you break it down and say, well, I'm going to, do my emails between six and seven. And I'm going to have my deep thought between seven and eight. And then I'm going to have my breakfast and whatever until nine, I'll be in the office. And then you've got all your meetings, you know what I mean? When you start to break it down, you begin to realize How did I ever get anything done without really planning the day ahead of me?

No wonder you get home and you're tired because you're trying to log on and read content. Bear in mind, regulatory changes is a lot of documentation that you've got to read and try and keep in your mind. So I'm doing all of that stuff at the wrong time of the day.

I Just a quick word of encouragement that if you're also struggling to switch off. Or find better balance in life then that's really normal. Many of the I gaming leaders that I've spoken with really struggle with that as well. It's very typical for being in a high pressure, fast paced industry. And it's difficult to kind of break out of that.

Now if that's something that you want some support with, we've actually created the I gaming leader mastermind, where we help people live, lead and perform at their best using science proven methods to help them achieve sustainable peak performance. If that's something that you want to join, please head over to I gaming leader.com. And apply. Let's get back into the interview.

And align that with how your brain works, you're up early because that's how your brain works and you feel energetic so align your most important work with that. I think it's key.

I would rather somebody, be humble and have honesty and integrity. I can work with that. You People that are engaged and genuinely want to be here, We can teach you about how to run this business and we can teach you the skill sets that you need to run the business, but I can't train in the behaviors. So So those for me are super, super important. we practice a lot of listening. to what people have to say. I don't have all the answers. I don't want to have all the answers either.

Because as a team, we need to contribute and get the solution over the line. really good listening, a lot of humility, and we are here to serve at the end of the day,

that means we take ownership and responsibility for how we do things. unless you turn up to work like that, the challenges you're going to face is that you won't be around very long because you have to be adaptable. You've got to understand that the business structure is going to change in the way the business is run. If you look at regulation, for instance, I always say regs come, it's going to come to everybody's door.

It doesn't matter what, Markets you're in, whether you're Germany, Austria, Spain, it doesn't matter. Regulation will come, whether it's marketing affordability or player protection, it's going to come to your door. So you have to be forward thinking, open to saying, well, hang on, maybe I need to explore some of the areas that are not within regs today. It's just a mindset. If you think about the tobacco industry, they went through exactly the same challenges as we. pretty much having gaming.

So you've got marketing prohibitions and underage considerations to factor in. we think outside of the box, what if there was a total prohibition on gambling for 18 to 25s what would we do in that environment? It's just how you think about these challenges that is super important.

I was super passionate about the brand. I never, wanted to leave that brand. But the minute I left, I suddenly realized there's something bigger out there for me. when I left Stanz, I was with Stanz for about 15, 16 months. When I left Stanz, I then went and, worked in the startup casino. the experience as well. There's something different out here for me. And then going over to EPG, which is a payment gateway. there's something new out here for me.

So what I found is that my seasons, were shorter and shorter and if you think of childhood as eight years and then every other season I've had is four years or two years, I'm conscious that change does happen and that I should embrace it and move with it rather than sitting in a season, because I think we're all guilty of this. We sit in a season and we just stagnate in that season. If the season is finished.

So my encouragement to anybody is if you feeling that the season is finished, then get up and move. Don't stay in that and stagnate because there's so much opportunity out there I'd rather be going out, and taking a risk, for something which is bigger out there that's going to help me develop and grow than sit in a stagnant position for many years. so yeah, the pain, I think for me, if I could play it back, I would definitely move quicker, and be more intent. Around what it is I wanna do.

one of the ladies that worked here, Julie Dalman, she was running the UK for a couple of years and Julie always had this, fascinating, way of visualizing decision making. And she always said to me, you know, Rob, what are your must have? What are your five must haves around decision making?

So, you know, your must have means that I need development, or I need a bigger salary, or I need a certain location, or I need to be close to my family, or I need to be healthy, or, you know, what are the must haves that you need in order to either stay in the job that you're doing, or move into something else? And if your must haves are that four out of the five or five out of the seven, whatever it is, all crosses, that's the wrong decision.

But if the must haves are all ticked, then you move, so if I'm sitting in a position and I'm feeling stagnated and I'm not getting developed, just go through the process of what are my must haves. And if they're not there, then you know, the season's over and it's time to move.

You know, it's true to your values. It's such an important skill to have as a high performance leader. The second thing is that it's all about embracing change as well. Businesses will go up and down and it's inevitable. So as a high performance leader, your ability to ride with that change and embrace change is such a key skill in also helping your teams become high-performance teams.

And the third thing, which I loved the most was his approach to actively seeking out challenges, because he finds happiness and engagement on the other side of that challenge. And that is so true, isn't it? Every single dream that we have goes to die inside of our comfort zone. It's outside of our comfort zone where all our dreams happen. So I really loved his approach there. So that's it for this week. If you found this episode helpful, please leave a rating or review.

It helps us so much with other gaming leaders, like you finding this podcast. And if you've already done that, you're an absolute legend. Make sure that you send it to somebody else that might need to hear this podcast as well. So that's it for this week. Next week, we're interviewing Dmitry Belianin. He is the CEO and founder of actually three different companies. He's serial entrepreneur. He's been in the industry for 17 years. Real high performer.

Has got some fantastic insights on what it requires to move from, starting off early in your career, all the way to his case, running three different businesses. So I'd love for you to see that episode next week. I hope to see you there. And I'll speak to you soon. Take care.