Comfort is the true enemy of change

If there’s one thing the iGaming industry doesn’t do well, it’s staying still. New regulations, new markets, new mergers or new technologies. Change isn’t a quarterly event; it’s the air we breathe. Yet, for an industry built on agility, even the sharpest leaders can find themselves blindsided when the very teams that built the future start resisting it.

I’ve spent years helping leaders across iGaming, tech and affiliate networks navigate this paradox. Everyone says they want innovation until it starts disrupting their comfort zone. That’s not hypocrisy. That’s biology.

Why humans resist change

Our brains are wired for homeostasis, “the tendency to maintain the current system”, even if the current system sucks. The body wants stability, the mind wants predictability and our nervous system loves a good comfort zone. Change, especially at work, threatens all three.

When we face a big shift, be it new leadership, a compliance overhaul or an acquisition, the amygdala lights up like a slot machine on fire, igniting our fight or flight response. It interprets uncertainty as danger, overriding our prefrontal cortex, our rational thinking mind and floods the system with cortisol. The reward centre that once buzzed with dopamine goes quiet. In other words, our brains treat ‘new strategy’ like a potential sabre-toothed tiger.

That’s why even the most talented teams can swing from enthusiasm to anxiety in an instant when the roadmap shifts. The resistance isn’t personal. It’s physiological.

Seven steps to integration

To make sense of the human journey through change, I often refer to the Change Curve, seven emotional and behavioural stages people typically experience when change ensues: shock, denial, frustration, depression, experiment, decision and integration.

The truth is, people don’t walk through these stages neatly or in order. They bounce between them, sometimes on the same day. Recognising where someone is on the curve can transform how a leader supports them. And as leaders, identifying where we’re at on the curve can help expedite the team to integration faster.

Shock: The “Wait, what?” moment. A new policy drops, or a merger hits the news, and everyone freezes. In this phase, people need clarity more than comfort. State the facts. Don’t sugarcoat.

Denial: “This won’t really happen.” Teams cling to old processes or keep doing what worked before. Patience and repetition are key here. Change messages need consistency, not creativity.

Frustration: The irritation phase. Productivity dips, tempers flare, Slack and Teams threads get passive-aggressive. Leaders need to listen without rushing to fix. Validation before direction.

Depression: Morale hits bottom. People disengage, question leadership, or fantasise about other jobs. Transparency is vital here, not false optimism. If you don’t name what’s hard, trust evaporates.

Experiment: The turning point. Individuals start testing new ways of working. Leaders should celebrate small wins and lower the risk of failure. Curiosity becomes the antidote to fear.

Decision: Energy returns. People decide, consciously or not, to engage with the change. This is when leadership modelling matters most: walk your talk.

Integration: The gold standard. The change becomes the new normal. Teams don’t just comply; they embody the shift. Integration means innovation is no longer forced; it’s fluid.

Affiliate lessons

Look at Catena Media, which went through major restructuring and leadership changes in recent years. Its pivot from volume-based affiliate operations to data-driven, SEO-centric growth wasn’t painless. But as leaders embraced transparency, clearly explaining what was changing and why, the organisation began to stabilise. Those who could experiment and adapt became the backbone of the new Catena.

Or Betsson Group, which quietly transformed its operating model post-pandemic. By normalising remote flexibility and blending digital collaboration with cultural rituals, they didn’t just survive the shift; they deepened loyalty across global teams. That’s integration in action: when change stops feeling like an event and starts feeling like identity.

Turning chaos into cohesion

So what separates leaders who merely manage change from those who master it? A few key traits stand out:

Empathy and emotional intelligence: You can’t shortcut human emotion. Great leaders name what others feel before demanding performance.

Transparency: People can handle bad news, but they can’t handle being left in the dark. When you explain why and what’s next, you shrink the fear gap.

Flexibility in style: Change leadership isn’t one-size-fits-all. Some people need reassurance; others need to be challenged. Adaptive communication builds trust faster than rigid messaging.

Courage: Change invites criticism. The best leaders stand steady in the discomfort. They understand that clarity often feels like conflict at first.

Curiosity: The willingness to experiment, learn, and iterate in public models the behaviour you want from your team.

At Saroca, we believe: change reveals culture faster than any engagement survey ever could. The way a company handles the messy middle, those frustrating, uncertain, awkward phases of transformation, will expose the real leadership DNA of an org.

Transparency is the uncomfortable superpower

If I could bottle one skill to give every iGaming executive navigating change, it would be radical transparency. In fast-moving, regulation-dense environments, secrecy breeds anxiety. In the absence of information, we all make things up. When people fill in the blanks on their own, they tend to write horror stories.

Transparency doesn’t mean oversharing, announcing half-baked plans or breaking an NDA. It means being honest about what you know, what you don’t and what’s still in motion. It’s saying, “This might get messy and here’s why we’re doing it anyway.”

When trust is high, teams don’t demand perfection; they rally around purpose.

The payoff of staying the course

Integration isn’t a finish line; it’s a way of operating. When teams reach it, they’ve metabolised the lessons of change. They innovate faster, recover quicker, and collaborate more authentically.

In our industry, the companies that thrive long-term aren’t necessarily the ones that moved first; they’re the ones that stayed adaptive after the move. Integration means the culture has absorbed resilience as muscle memory.

The ultimate irony is that the comfort zone leaders cling to for safety is often the very thing that makes change harder. The work isn’t to avoid discomfort, it’s to build capacity for it.

Rounding it out

If you lead in iGaming, you don’t get to choose whether change is coming; you only choose how consciously you’ll meet it. The question isn’t how do we get through this? Rather, who will we become because of it?

Because when leaders approach change not as a threat but as an invitation to evolve, to clarify, to connect, the curve stops being something to survive and starts becoming the shape of growth itself.

Change isn’t the enemy. Comfort is. And the sooner we make peace with that, the sooner we can get back to what iGaming does best, taking smart risks, learning fast, and always playing for progress.