Summary:

Kari Stout-Smith, the General Manager and COO of Cache Creek Casino Resort, shares her insights on how people and profit go hand in hand and the importance of embedding core values into elite teams. She emphasizes the significance of shared values, shared goals, and good communication in achieving success. Kari also discusses her own journey in the gaming industry, starting from an entry-level position and working her way up to leadership roles. She highlights the challenges of communication in a 24/7 environment and the importance of trust in enabling team objectives. Kari believes that leadership styles should be authentic and aligned with the company's culture and values for sustainable success.

Key Takeaways:

People and profit are interconnected, and success comes from shared values, shared goals, and good communication.

Building elite teams requires trust, effective communication, and a culture of support and accountability.

Learning from both positive and negative leadership experiences helps shape one's own leadership style.

Core values, such as respect, integrity, commitment, and humility, can be infused into an organization through regular communication, recognition, and reinforcement.

Middle managers play a crucial role in carrying the company's culture forward and need support and guidance to navigate their responsibilities effectively.

Chapters:

00:03:00 Learning from different leadership styles and experiences

00:07:00 Linking people and profit through aligning culture and values

00:09:00 Influences on Kari Stout-Smith's leadership style

00:12:00 Engaging line managers in living out the core values

00:13:30 Role of a boss in resolving conflicts

00:18:00 Leadership style that creates sustainable change over time

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Welcome, Kari.

Kari Stout-Smith: Hi, CT. Thanks so much for having me.

CheeTung Leong: Kari, tell us a little bit more about Cache Creek Casino Resort and what you do there.

Kari Stout-Smith: Yeah, thanks. Cache Creek Casino Resort is located in Northern California. We are equidistant between Sacramento and San Francisco, so part of the Greater Bay Area region and one of the largest properties in California.

CheeTung Leong: Absolutely. In terms of your experience in building elite teams and working with them, what has been that game changing realization that you've had? That allowed you to link the chain between people and profit.

Kari Stout-Smith: Yeah, I would say my experience really started at the ground floor.

CheeTung Leong: Thanks for sharing that. Let me dive a little bit deeper into that because you started out at the very entry level. How do you think that colored the, way that you went about building trust, building that culture in the teams that you wanted to build? Did you, look at your bosses and think, all right, that's what I don't want to do, or were you inspired that, okay, this is a model and a role model that I want to follow and in their footsteps.

Kari Stout-Smith: I would say it was a little bit of both.

And it really came down to things that seemed very simple from the frontline team member standpoint. Now that I am over a large operation, as I said, over 2,100 employees, I understand the complexities of communication in a 24 seven environment that really never slows down and has a lot of diversity amongst its employees.

That makes communication, which is really the most important component quite challenging, but nonetheless, the most critical component of our success.

Kari Stout-Smith: Yeah, I would say what I learned very early in the industry, and this goes back to I would say what I consider my high school or college alumni is the first casino that I worked out, which was called Verona Resort and Casino in Southern California and San Diego, and I think because gaming was still so new, tribal gaming was really a growing and emerging industry in California. And we didn't have access to a lot of experienced gaming professionals. So Verona really focused on, a heavy focus on training for hiring the personality of the employees that they were looking for people that were going to be a great cultural fit. But recognizing that they might have the personality and the motivation but not have the technical skills that were needed.

It was a lot of trial by fire, but it was a lot of we're going to learn together and communication is really going to be the way that we're going to, lift all boats so that we can be successful together on the other side of that equation. A not so great communication experience was working for a particular leader who I think in fairness was stretched pretty thin and didn't always have the time and resources to be able to address challenges directly with the individual that needed to be addressed. So there was a lot of telephone that was being played amongst a team of individuals. [00:06:00] Now, ultimately, we became a high performing team of individuals, but more so out of survival of the fittest. And not as much out of a more productive and supportive environment of trust.

It was, something where we really had to pan together to help make sure that we were able to survive some pretty challenging times.

CheeTung Leong: It became a high performing team despite the leadership rather than because of it. There's something that you said around that training piece where going through those experiences together and figuring things out together was that one of the, times that you, started thinking about people and profit and instead of an usually antagonistic relationship that people imagine people in profit to have you started linking them together to say that instead of choosing either people or profit, you could actually have both. Was that one of the crucible times for you?

It's only been over time and a lot of really amazing experience working for some amazing tribal owners and operators. that those tides have shifted and there's more room in our space for diversity of leadership and for different styles of leadership. I think it's really about making sure that you find the style that works best for you, that is most authentically you, and then [00:08:00] find the place where that most authentically fits.

It doesn't mean that one style fits all doesn't mean that one company fits all. It's more so about aligning culture and values to make sure it's going to be sustainable. And if that's the case, then you can align and people and profits.

CheeTung Leong: What do you think has influenced your leadership style the most?

Kari Stout-Smith: It would be hard for me to choose one person. I'd like to think that I'm a combination of a lot of people that I've looked up to over time. First and foremost would be my dad. He never met a stranger. He could make conversation and really gain the trust and friendship of most anyone that he met, certainly the person I look up to most of my life.

Brené Brown and her studies of authenticity and leadership really inspire me. But so too does the psychology of business that comes from Adam Grant, Simon Sinek like I said, Avid learner and leader in progress every day.

CheeTung Leong: I think for me, Brene Brown's authentic leadership writings have influenced me as well. And I think on that note, I would like to segue a little bit into what you talked about earlier around core values and having one of them being putting your people first. Could you talk a little bit more about what other core values that you hold dear and how you infuse them into your teams?

I've been here for five years, five very interesting years, of course, because of what we've all been through together. But I inherited what they refer to as a RICH culture and rich for us stands for respect, integrity, commitment and humility. It was actually one of the first interview questions that I received when I was applying for this job and it really helped convince me that this was a place where I would be really comfortable because it aligned so closely with values that I've long ascribed to, and that is infused throughout all of our conversations that we have here as a company. We have a recognition platform that we use to be able to award[00:11:00] RICH points when any of our employees convey acts that support those RICH values.

We're able to actually call them out for that behavior and reward them on the spot. That platform also allows for cross functional teams to collaborate and recognize each other. It even allows for peer to peer recognition, and then they can bank those points and essentially use them for little rewards along the way.

So it's really building in that constant and positive reinforcement for conveying and living and walking in those rich values. We talk about it as part of our onboarding process through all of our guest service training, and and then it really just becomes part of our language, part of our vernacular, and it's a great place to live in, quite honestly.

How do you go about working with them to ensure that they live out their RICH values?

Kari Stout-Smith: Being stuck in the middle of a needy middle management sandwich is one of the most challenging positions. I lived it, I walked it. It didn't seem like it would be as difficult from the bottom looking up.

Until I was there and then realized the challenges of both managing down and managing up. We have a regular cadence of manager meetings. Took us a little while to get it started, especially post pandemic, but giving the managers a safe space to talk about. Here's what we're working on, but also here's a challenge that I'm having.

CheeTung Leong: Can you think of examples or maybe what is it that line managers would do? For example if, they see someone who does not live up to the RICH values. Are there real consequences to flouting these values?

But those usually do come down to some coaching and counseling conversations about I don't feel supported or I felt I was communicating, but I wasn't getting any follow up from this individual and then trying to work through together. How do you go back and have that conversation with that person?

Because. My job as boss is often to play tiebreaker. My job as boss is to help remove obstacles and to keep everyone rowing in the same direction. I can have those conversations, but really, if I go back to that example that I shared from my earliest stages, we build the strongest teams when we're willing to have hard conversations with each other and not through a proxy, right?

CheeTung Leong: I think that's very much the, tricky part of leadership, you have to manage all, of those different environments. We're running close to the end of time, but perhaps if, I were to ask you to say, if you want to meet another GM of, property and had to give this person advice on how to build in core values into their organization in a way that it is authentic, in a way that it is not weaponized as core values can sometimes be.

Kari Stout-Smith: I don't think there's a one size fits all solution for anyone.

And so my first and foremost guidance to anyone in a new role is always to sit back and learn and listen first, to try to really understand what it is that you're working with, who you're working with, what the history is that came before you. It's not always easy to do. I think that the more senior you become in your role, the more you want to make an effect change faster.

And ultimately, I'd rather have the type of leadership style that affects change in a more graceful and sustainable way over time than an earthquake that can create a lot of disruption and discord. that ultimately could substantially change if not destroy a culture. So water on stone is my advice.

CheeTung Leong: I love that. Water on stone and listening first, right? Thank you. If, people want to find you, Kari, what's the best way for them to do?

Kari Stout-Smith: You can find me on LinkedIn. I'm Kari Stout Smith. Very easy to find and track down. And of course, you can always find me here at Cache Creek Casino Resort in Northern California. We're located in Brooks, California, about an hour and a half outside of the Bay Area, about an hour from Sacramento. And I look forward to seeing you and meeting you here.

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