Leadership Training

Sylvia Allen is the Director of global organizational leadership, diversity and inclusion for International Game Technology (IGT), a global company specializing in the design, development, manufacturing, distribution and sales of computerized gaming machines and systems products. Based in Reno, Nevada, the company also operates a facility in Las Vegas, has branch offices around the United States, and also has offices in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Japan, and South Africa.

• In a recent Diversity/Careers article, you were quoted as saying that IGT relies on an inclusive culture “because of our commitment to customers, employees and communities worldwide.” What steps do you take in order to foster this type of working culture?

We really take a great deal of that direction from our CEO, who has said continuously that we need to take very good care of our customers, our employees, and ourselves. We realize that for this whole industry, diversity is a critical platform for how we do business. Because the industry is going through such enormous change, the whole focus on leadership skills and capabilities is increasingly more of a critical priority for us.

So at IGT, we are much more focused on leadership development for our employees. Also, we are increasingly looking at ways in which we can partner with our customers, not just by the way in which we sell them product, but by the way we partner in the community with them. We’ve worked with a number of educational non-profits in terms of scholarships and board memberships; several of our leaders sit on boards that do some really important work around education, health and underserved communities. IGT is also a member of a subcommittee of the AGA (American Gaming Association), which focuses on human resources and diversity initiatives.

Our industry is a very inclusive one, and we care about our involvement in those kinds of programs, which demonstrates our ongoing commitment to them. That becomes extremely important as the growth of the international markets continues to be very aggressive.

• How would you describe your own leadership style?

I really like this question, because it makes you look inward in regards to how you become successful. More than anything else, I think you need to have a really strong team. Over the time I’ve worked at IGT, I’ve worked with all of our team members to make sure we all have a shared vision, and that we all aspire to collectively be a very high-performing team.

I think I’m a participative leader, meaning that I invite all thoughts to be put on the table in terms of whatever project we’re working on. I think it’s critical that whatever our decision may be, we take into consideration the customer impact and financial implications. So if we’re not doing it to improve our relationship with the customer, and we’re not doing it to improve the financial performance of the company, we need to always revisit where we are in regards to strategic alignment with the company’s goals. If you stay close to that alignment, and regularly communicate that with your team, you ensure that your whole team stays very focused on some common practices and priorities. I encourage my team to do that, and give them a great deal of empowerment to do the work that they have come to do.

I think employees choose who they want to be led by, either overtly by what teams they join, or more quietly by how much they give in terms of energy. In all of corporate America, there’s a dialogue going on around employee commitment; not just are you glad to work at a company, but are you truly committed? Commitment is a choice, and I work hard at making sure that each of the folks on my team feel like they’ve made a good choice.

• What are some of the major training and/or diversity programs you and your team are currently working on?

From a major training perspective, our biggest focus (which is across the whole company) is on leadership development and performance management. Performance management is there to ensure we are all connected to the strategic goals of the company, making sure that our work is aligned to it, and that we become very effective at coaching and leading change.

We are in the process of asking our executives to sponsor this throughout the company and to provide “waterfall training” to support this initiative over the next 12 months. Through all of that work, you want to have a length of diversity. There’s some thought that diversity ought to be integrated in your core training, and I absolutely agree with that. So one of our exercises, for example, in our performance management workshop focuses on how our goals are differentiated if it’s in regard to a person of color. We talk about where the decision making process is impacted if you do or don’t have a culture of inclusion. There is a training program for diversity that we have taken our diversity council through, as well as our HR community through. This is being led by our diversity manager, Dennis Daniel.

Our performance management training has a couple of basic connections; one of them is, are we connected to the strategic vision and goals of the company? The second is, do we understand what our leadership competencies are, as well as our functional competencies? We have used those competencies in the past, and now we’re building a new foundation to have strategic and executive leadership competencies across the whole company. A few months ago at the senior management team meeting, we had a dialogue around the core competencies for leadership. I was very pleased with this dialogue, because this meant our leaders own those competencies.

The short list of competencies they came up with included inclusion and innovation. This is critical to us, because innovation comes with being diverse. You have to be able to think out of the box on a regular basis in this industry. So competencies are a very important part of the basic foundation to performance management.

• What would you tell prospective employees about some of the advantages and benefits that come with working for IGT?

First and foremost, you get invited to join one of the most dynamic, transformational industries around. I think the entire world is looking more at the gaming industry than it ever has before because of its impact on the entertainment industry. I would tell any prospective employee that if you enjoy change, if you enjoy being close to the contributions that you can make, if you enjoy opportunities to be innovative, if you enjoy rubbing shoulders with other employees who are also being innovative, then this is the company to join.

We care about our employees, and we demonstrate that by really inviting innovation and the opportunity to make things happen. I think IGT has one of the best benefits packages in the industry, as well as in corporate America. Combine that with the opportunity to learn, and I think that makes IGT one of the most attractive candidates for employment around.

• How important is presentation and communication skills training for your employees?

Many times, people presume that these types of skills are relegated to just a few people in management. But I really think about someone who, for example, might be in our product development area, who has a wonderful idea. We live and breathe by the game ideas that we can bring to market. The ability to present an idea, communicate a concept, and communicate a potential impact to customers is especially critical no matter what role you’re in. In any company where change is part of the day-to-day effort, you need to have your voice heard. The ability to communicate an idea crisply is critical.

Just recently, one of our senior vice presidents asked for presentation skills training for our entire technical organization. I thought that was a real recognition that their ability to sell and promote ideas is critical to our business. We have a basic workshop based on presentation skills. We have communication skills training, and we also have other venues by which presentation skills are emphasized. For example, in one of our team leader and coaching workshops, your team may be required to make a presentation.

The whole focus on presentation and communication skills is integrated in a large percentage of our training. You don’t just do it in one class; it’s something you get to practice again and again.

• IGT has international locations in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Japan, and South Africa. How do you coordinate and communicate training and diversification needs to those offices?

I feel that I have some responsibility in looking at global training needs for the whole organization. I would say this is a relatively new area for us. We’ve been doing some of this work all along, but now we’ve stepped up our investment, looking at common messaging and priorities when it relates to overall leadership. Each country then has its own work and agenda to take care of.

Just recently, we had many of our international leaders here, and we put on a workshop that focused on the business of IGT. It afforded them the opportunity to go to class with some of their peers here in North America, and they were able to have a round table discussion on leadership with our CEO.

These are things that we want to do more often, and we will have more global workteams as well. We are really looking at how we can take the best practices from each of our different locations worldwide, share them, and create some efficiencies. A great deal of the training is focused on getting those best practices; so we ask more from our peers in the UK, Australia, and South Africa, in regards to what they would like to see. That way, they become a much larger stakeholder in the entire process.

We utilize some video teleconferencing equipment to facilitate these conversations between our global locations, and in the next year we’re going to look at more creative technology options that are available. Our IT organization is doing a great deal of research to see what’s the best, practical application for us that we can make accessible to as many of our leaders as possible.

• Any final thoughts on IGT you’d like to leave with us?

Yes, and this is based on conversations that I’d have with my colleagues at some of the other gaming companies. I’ve asked them if they are experiencing some of the same challenges regarding organizational change and transformation, to see just how aligned we are. And the overwhelming answer is yes, they’re making some of the same changes and going through similar challenges.

Change management is a topic that everyone talks about. I think it’s hard to do it, because it takes time, you need to look at things with a different perspective, and the capability to operate in ambiguity is not something that we as people are necessarily comfortable with. But it’s so important and necessary for our organization. So you just need to be comfortable being entrepreneurial and really make sure you’re aligned with other people that you’re working with and working for, both within and outside the organization.

IGT, Sylvia Allen, Director, Organizational Leadership, Diversity, Interview