Enthusiasm

One of the things I’ve never been good at is giving people tough love. I’ve always been good at coaching people, but when coaching doesn’t work and their performance does not increase, I have a hard time delivering bad news. This is an important topic, not only because it’s one of my areas of improvement as a manager, but for our guild it’s important that I toughen up when necessary. We have quite a few under performers in the guild and they need to step up to the plate. I made “player improvement” the #1 goal for HILYMI for the month of March with a close second goal of “managing the stress of wiping” which for those who aren’t MMO players reading my blog, basically it’s about managing the stress of failure.

In regards to player improvement, I need to remind myself about a course I took a while ago at IHS titled “Feedback for Accountability”. I think it will give me the tools necessary to help further coach people who are under performers and if necessary, prepare them, not necessarily for removal from the guild, but at least removal from progression raids.

In regards to stress management, I need to work on reminding people that:
1. Rarely does someone win at progression the first, second, or even 6th time encountering something.
2. It’s not failure, but rather a learning process.
3. Learn something from every attempt, improve, and conquer.
4. Focus and congratulate people on what things are working well.
5. Reward people with breaks after downing a boss that we’ve struggled on

Every once and a while I like to reflect on what I enjoy most about what I do. It’s kind of interesting to look through all of my experiences, previous self reflections, and currently where I am in my life, career, etc. Most of all I think about my experiences and which of those experiences I get the most fulfillment from, whether they are technical, managerial, or leadership oriented. Of all of my experiences in both personal and professional, I think that I enjoy any kind of managerial / leadership position where I’m helping a team build and perform. Mostly, I love supporting others.

Leading a strike team of developers on CPWeb over a 6 month process to resolve security flaws in a decade old web product. My time as an alpha medic, representing the players of Tabula Rasa, communicating to the developers on how they could improve the class. My experiences as a Admin / Developer / GM of Obsidian, helping shape a world for other players to enjoy. The ongoing saga of and all that guild has meant to me, leading a community of players who have like minded, respectful, play style. My attempts to start a leadership resource website for MMO leaders, giving them resources to learn how to be better leaders and write articles on leadership styles and techniques and my conversation with John Kotter about the idea and his support of the concept. All the volunteer work I’ve done to help small business, organizing volunteer efforts for work, and helping provide feedback to how we can improve our respect for remote colleges in a globalized corporation. My time as a manager of software development, both improving my product, managing a small team of developers, and all while making vast improvements to the product and customer delight. My attempts at leading an independent game studio to develop an XBox 360 title with a team of people spanning the globe from the UK, to the east and west coast of the US. If you really want to boil it down, my role as a healer in an MMO is because I enjoy being in that supportive role, helping others succeed.

All of these accomplishments I’m deeply proud of. All of these accomplishments have a central theme: they involve leadership and supporting others.

I think it’s always good to sit back and reflect on Lessons Learned after going through a training, especially training focused on soft-skills. Last week I took 4 different courses on “Leading the IHS Way” and while nothing was particularly mind-blowing, there were a lot of little things that added up to some profound processes, new ways of thinking, or even some things I learned about myself.

Personal Strategies for Navigating Change
This was a very interesting class because it was a mix of managers and individual contributors all sharing their own personal ways they cope with change. Probably the biggest take away from this course was the recognition of the four different types of ways people deal with change, how I personally deal with most change, and how I can help others navigate change when I’m either in the driver’s seat, co-pilot, or just early adopter of change (aka a “Navigator). Most of the time I’m the Navigator but often times I don’t take the time to properly assist Victims, Critics, and Bystanders on their way to accepting and embracing change. Recognizing that sometimes I need to put on the breaks and slowly help people catch up to my mindset is important or else I’ll sometimes I’m sure just make things worse.

It was also nice to be able to recognize how I’ve been personally dealing with the recent changes in my role. I’ve been bouncing around between the Victim, Critic, and Bystander a lot recently. There’s a lot of fear, doubt, doubt in others, doubt in the objective, and may other things which has been making me bounce around, stress me out to the point of complete and total physical shut down (my recent neck troubles), and it’s just not healthy. I NATURALLY want to be on board with change. I NATURALLY want to be an influential member driving change. When I’m not, it’s uncomfortable and I want to be in that zone. I think the most important thing is that when I’m being a Victim, Critic, or even a Bystander, I need to focus on the positive and trying to channel all my energy into positive action. It will make me the most happy and before I know it all my critical questions will be answered, I won’t feel like a victim because I’m delivering positive results, and in the end things will work out.

I’m so positive all the time that when I’m not positive, it’s hard to come out of that shell. It’s not something I’m used to doing. So this book has really helped me personally deal with change when I am in that mode. It has also helped me lead others even more effectively.

Behavioral Interviewing
This was a great course without a lot of spin. Simply put it REALLY for the first time brought to home for me some of the concrete ways on how to conduct a behavioral interview. I think before I was a decent interviewer, but I focused too much on hypothetical questions. I quickly saw the power in how to ask behavioral questions properly and what to gain out of it. I also liked the quick reference guide on avoiding illegal and unethical questions. Overall, great book that I’ll dust the cobwebs off of next time I have to interview someone.

Feedback for Accountability
I was most excited about this course because I had hoped it would be the answer to all my problems. Unfortunately I think I over inflated it a bit too much so I was expecting… more or something, but I think in the end this course combined with the two others on change and leadership really turned into a total package of tools I can use to properly lead change in a more concrete way. See the thing is that I understand good leadership philosophy. I also understand good leading change processes as taught by John Kotter, but even Kotter is a bit too high level sometimes so you get lost in philosophy and not action. This and the other two courses focused on real concrete things you can do.

This course in particular focused on how to REALLY drive candid conversations and make agreements that were open, honest, and binding for which you could if necessary follow up on for proper re-commitment, confrontation, coaching, or if necessarily take other steps to follow through on the accountability of that agreement. It also gave me further opportunity to really focus on how to control my own emotions in a conflict by focusing on the other person’s emotions. I know I’m an emotional person and I feel the other person’s emotions as well, but I don’t always do a good job of validating those emotions. Sometimes I’ll even get upset because someone’s expressing their feelings “like I don’t know that or something”. I need to be more reflective and not immediately jump to tell them that I know and here’s the solution.

Overall I think that the biggest take away from this course was how to not bruise and not bail. I want to really stay in the “candor mindset”, middle zone where I can be upfront and honest, but not be blunt about it. I think that many times I use my natural charismatic leadership style as a crutch. 80% of the time I’m really successful in my ability to motivate and lead people, but it’s the 20% of the time I don’t have a framework on how to deal with. I get frustrated and either bruise my way to get my point across (if I think I can “win”), or I bail and then send someone a gigantic email later that day or the next. In the end, I honestly do want a collaborative “win win” solution to the agreement, but it’s my passion that gets the best of me and either I bottle things up or explode (or both). This course really taught me a structured way on how to stay objective and come to an objective, win-win agreement without getting overly emotional on either side.

The Principles and Qualities of Genuine Leadership
As previously stated, I recognize and try to embody the principles and qualities of genuine leadership. To be honest with you, I initially thought this course was going to be the biggest waste of time but attended initially for the “fun” of it. I was dead wrong. This course was fantastic because again, it gave a good framework on how to “respond” to a challenge using leadership principles so in a way your ACTIONS show the principles and qualities of leadership.

I thought the exercise with the “Response Cards” was so good that I took them because I thought that they WERE The big take away from the training. It’s great to take a scenario you are dealing with and just use the cards as brainstorming on how you’re going to effectively lead your change, help people navigate change, create a change vision, or even how to properly form agreements with large groups of people. I think it’s great to line up the individual actions with steps in John Kotter’s framework on leading change.

Overall what is so powerful about the cards especially was they took something as big as the problems I’m facing in leading some kind of common whatever we want to call it, and it allowed me and others to objectively come up with a strategy for leading that change.

I was asked to day by someone today, who I highly respect:

What do you want to be doing?

I didn’t really have an answer for him. Partially because I don’t even know how the cards will fall and what the reporting structure and new career paths will be when things are done. Right now the best I can tell anyone is what I DON’T want to be doing.

I made a conscious effort many years ago to pursue a role in some kind of leadership or management position. I enjoy it. I was given the opportunity. I think I shined in my role I’ve been taking in the last year. Overall, there are very few things I think I would have done differently. Anyone who REALLY knows me, it gives me a lot of personal pleasure helping guide a team, large or small, to an inevitable victory. I get the most pleasure from assisting others than doing individual things myself. While individual accomplishments are great and all, I’d rather see the whole team succeed (of course that includes my success too, I’m no martyr). I think in some level once you’ve reached a certain point in your career, you need to have ownership of something bigger, something visionary. I’m well past that point today. I mean, look at why I keep getting guild leadership on my lap so quickly. I’m hedging bets right now on how long I’ll be in Heretic before I’m approached about becoming an officer.

On top of my personal level of enjoyment in leadership and management, I also personally believe that I’m not all that great of a developer. I know I keep bringing this up. I know that many people SAY that I’m an amazing developer who does wondrous things, has a grand mind for architecture, and has an amazing combination of skill sets… I don’t know I don’t believe it. I think I’m a mediocre developer with lots of crazy ideas and some of those pan out to be good ones and that makes people notice me. As a “skillful” developer, again I think that I struggle keeping up with all the new moving parts and changes to technology. I know enough to be able to come up with vision and product prototypes, but I’m not really great at producing something… well I guess I am. Yeah OK, I am what everyone says, but I think I’m much better at other stuff. I have more POTENTIAL in pursuing a position with some kind of leadership component to it.

Most of all, I don’t want to be an individual contributor on a team that simply writes common components. That’s not fun to me. I don’t think that would have ever been fun for me, even in my early career. I’ve always enjoyed owning a single product or core piece of a product, than writing behind the scenes common components?!? I’d rather be an individual contributor on a single product that I can have some shared personal ownership of something that’s being given to a customer. I’d rather be the leader of a common components team. I’d rather be an individual contributor on an architecture team, due to the fact that even individual contributors on a team like that help guide other teams, assisting them improve how they do things. I don’t know. Maybe I’m overly thinking things, but I’ve never been on a team that built common components for consumption in other products. I really don’t think I’d enjoy doing that work. Maybe leading it, but not being an individual contributor.

Sigh. What’s worse is that as part of my final 2 courses for school, completing in 5 weeks now, I’ve been HAVING to update my resume and talk with career advisers. It’s bad enough that I’m pissed off about how horribly my pay has been handled at work, it’s worse that I have people at my school reminding me of the fact that with my degree, grades, and experience I shouldn’t have to take this crap. The problem is that at the end of the day, I LOVE the company I work for and I think they will do me right eventually. I’m just not sure how much longer myself or my wife can stomach “eventually”.

Right now I’m trying to focus on our yearly user conference next week. I’ve been preparing screen mock-ups of the next release for presentations and working on concept screens of the new development we’re planning for 2010. Hopefully the cards will fall sometime in the next week or two. Maybe once the OTHER stuff is set in stone, things will be easier to see how I fit and where I want to be. Right now, being a nomad in no-man’s land is not fun.

One of the purpose of 360 degree feedback is to help coach people on their perception problems. If you sit back and think about top performers, high potentials, or whatever you want to call them, these individuals are generally the model citizen or at least they try to be. Sometimes people have concrete problems like personality flaws, technical or skill gaps, or in most cases in technical people, communication problems (communication is not an engineer’s strong suit).

I feel that I time manage reasonably well, multi-task reasonably well, do have some skill gaps that I’m always improving, and while I do need to continue to hone my personal style and communication skills (as we all need to), in general I don’t have a lot of concrete personality flaws. I have a few minor personality flaws, but they all stem from a concrete “flaw” if you could say it is one is my natural tendency to get hyper focused on something and be OVERLY enthusiastic and sometimes off putting to some people. One’s greatest strength inevitably is their greatest weakness.

But my real problem I continue to struggle with I think is perception. Perception problems are a tricky thing because reality is in the eye of the beholder. I can’t change people’s point of view, but if I understand their point of view I can help influence it, yes? Of course step one is understanding who’s having the perception problem and their point of view. Once I understand people’s point of view, then I can find the source of the perception problem and change something usually indirect that changes how people are perceiving things.

People perceive my intentions, my motives, my actions, my communications, my gestures, etc incorrectly. I’ve been accused of looking “angry” before by a simple eyebrow gesture. I’ve been accused of being intimidating when I was being curious. I’ve been accused of being cocky when I’m simply confident. I’ve been accused of “needing to win” in an argument when I’ve been trying to educate. I’ve been accused of being pontificating when I’m trying to energize people about something. I’ve been accused of being distracted when in reality I’m focused. People who really know me well and those who know me even reasonably well know that I don’t ever intend to come across that way, but rather that I give the perception of such. Perception is not something you can touch or feel, it’s something you have to look at yourself from the outside to figure out.

All of these perception issues stem from the over use of my strongest natural trait, my enthusiasm. I try to temper it as best I can, but I’m an emotional person and when I get excited and passionate about something (which I always do), then my enthusiasm kicks in to high gear. I also tend to lose it when I’m being challenged or pushed into a corner and I’m trying to passionately defend something I feel strongly about.

Since I’m on a self-reflective honesty streak, yes, I get defensive. This is not news to anyone who has read my blog, especially for a long time. It is another bad side effect of being passionate about something you believe in. In some ways I also have some control issues, probably still stemming from … well just read some of my blog posts with the Health tag. I don’t know maybe I’m over that, maybe not.

I need to come up with some techniques to not necessarily CHANGE my nature because one cannot change their nature when it is so extreme as mine. The best I can do is channel my natural tendencies in a more… mutually agreeable fashion. One of the ways I can do that is make sure that whatever cause I’m fighting for, whatever goal I’m passionately pursuing, whatever objective I’m pushing myself to complete, that it’s something that everyone has full buy-in for.

I think my biggest mistake in recent time is getting overly passionate about a cause that not everyone was truly bought in on. Some people said they were bought in on it, but apparently they weren’t and now I’m getting myself into trouble. Makes me wonder if some of the other causes I continue to fight for are really supported by everyone or if I’m fighting other battles that are a lost cause.

Keep in mind that I admit I’m wet behind the ears. On the other hand I do feel I’ve been around the block and am at least well studied on management techniques, HR methodologies, and leadership techniques. I would say I have the most personal experience in leadership and it comes very naturally to me and I while I understand management and HR techniques, it’s not so natural so I tend to stumble. One thing I AM capable of doing most of the time is recognizing the different mechanisms in the system and processes in the organization and realize how they are designed and why they are designed that way.

It’s mid-year review time so I’ve been noodling about a specific technique in performance management that I’ve gone quite a bit into detail on in multiple classes during my time achieving my bachelor’s degree. There are many strategic reasons for a two pronged performance management system such as the one at IHS, one part which has a positive leniency error and one with a negative leniency error. What I mean by that is that every person has a certain amount of leniency or strictness. People are really lenient, really strict, or somewhere in between. Depending on the performance management process, it will either work well for people who are lenient or people who are strict. If you use a two pronged system, it will balance out based on whether the person is super strict or super lenient.

• Strict people are generally focused on RESULTS. So an objective based system is agreeable to managers who are strict. They will grade people really harshly or really well as appropriate based on their results. On the other hand, lenient managers will struggle with an objective based system because they don’t want to give “good” people a “bad” grade. So lenient people will generally put “meets expectations” across the board for all people unless there’s something REALLY out of place.
• Lenient people are generally focused on EFFORT and SOFT SKILLS. So a core competency is agreeable to managers who are lenient. They will grade people really harshly or really well as appropriate based on their efforts and soft skills. On the other hand, strict managers will struggle an effort based system because they are so results oriented. So strict people will generally put “meets expectations” across the board for all people unless there’s something REALLY out of place.

So if you use a two-pronged system it should balance out. The problem occurs when either A. the systems aren’t appropriately balanced or B. managers forcefully “monkey” with the system to make the outcome what they wish. When either of these things occur the checks and balances of leniency is destroyed and people who have leniency short comings are not caught. Now I will step back for a moment and suggest that the two systems might not actually have to be perfectly balanced. For example, if the company was TRULEY results oriented, they would put a heavier weight on the object based side of the system vs the competency side.

What is important is that people not “monkey” with the system. In a two-pronged system, everyone will be uncomfortable with either one side or the other side of the system, but at the end of the day that’s what makes the system work. You need to stick to the rules of the system, grade people the way the system tells you to grade, and the human factor will be counter balanced by the system. I don’t know maybe I’m arguing my own point in circles. Maybe the system is designed so that even if people monkey with it, in the end it ends up being balanced. Who knows…

In the May 2009 article of HBR there was a very interesting article “What Only the CEO Can Do”. It made me think a bit about how this could be adopted to the role of the guild leader and what ONLY the guild leader can do. A member recently told me that ONLY the guild leader can make amazing things happen. Officers can make things happen, but generally only in support of what the guild leader is already doing. Of course the guild leader can’t do it alone which is why he needs good, dedicated officers.

Defining the Meaningful Outside – Of all of your external stakeholders which ones are the ones that matter most? What results are most meaningful?

In applying this concept to Warhammer, our external stakeholders are potential future members, members of the alliance, and the general opinion of the server community. Unlike a normal business who’s goal is profit, the goal of a guild is to be self sustaining and sustainable over time. Depending on the guild, different results will matter.  Our guild does a little bit of everything, but generally we’ve prided ourselves in excellent PVE results and meaningful RvR results. Showing these results to the outside means that we attract people of similar goals into the guild.

Deciding What Business You are In – Where should you play to win? Where should you not play at all? These are difficult decisions that require thurough evaluation and discussion. However, only the CEO has the enterprisewide perspective to make the tough choices involved.

Frankly we’ve always tried to be a mix of everything, especially in Warhammer. Maybe the time is nigh and we need to get serious and focus as a PVE guild or just an RvR guild. Obviously we will still do a mix, but we need to focus on “winning” at one or the other. If we win at one or the other, then the other will fall behind it, as such is the nature of the game. I think for this reason, we might officially change the focus of the game to be more PVE focused with a supporting RvR back focus.

Balancing Present and Future - Learning to strike the right balance between short and long term comes wfrom experience and judgment than from facts. Defining realistic grown goals is the first step toward getting the balance right; determining what goals are “good enough” to deliver in the short term is critical to gaining creditibility and momentum for the long term. Finally, the CEO’s personal involvement in leadership development may have the single biggest long-term impact on the company’s future.

This is something I think I have always done well in setting short and long term goals for the guild, delivering those goals, and following up on the progress of the goals in my monthly addresses to the guild. I need to do a better job of getting everyone involved more with the monthly goals. One thing I have not done well in my transition from WoW to Warhammer is establish a well enough base of officers who can reliably push the momentum when I’m not around. I can’t be online every night of the week and there needs to be officers who are moving our goals forward.

Shaping Values and Standards – Values establish a company’s identity; they are about behavior. If the company is to win, these values must be connected to the meaningful outside and relevant to the present and the future. Standards are about expectations; they define what winning on the outside looks like.  They are best established by answering two important questions: Are we winning with those who matter most? Are we winning against the very best?

I have to admit that while I’ve always done an amazing job of shaping values and holding a high standard in our values, I have not done the best at holding people to high standards. Unfortunately there is always the constant struggle with a volunteer organization of pushing people too far or not far enough. Some people do need to be pushed to get the optimal performance out of them, but push them too far and they leave. A volunteer organization like a guild makes defining and holding people to standards very difficult.

Andrew today shared a tidbit of leadership and motivation with the group. Not too sure other’s opinions of this kind of thing, maybe some people said it was “neat” just to humor Andrew, but of course I eat this kind of thing up.

The concept was looking at the individuals “Will” and relative “Skill” and take the appropriate approach to coaching them. It’s presented in am X/Y matrix, but can be explained just as simply in a list. Skill is just that, the skill and individual has at completing the task. Will is the level of self motivation the individual has at completing the task. Different people have different levels of skill and will for any given task. Some people might have HIGH will for doing very detail oriented work, but LOW will at doing very creative oriented work. So really I see this as not a catch all for all individuals, but needs to be evaluated on a case by case basis.

• Direct people who have low skill and low will. By doing so, you show them a clear, direct path to success. This kind of coaching is almost on the level of teaching, but this approach will increase skill over time and with relative confidence that comes with the increased skill, their will can increase as well.
• Excite people who have high skill and low will. By doing so, the aim is to increase their level of will to complete the task at hand through enthusiasm and other soft motivational techniques.
• Guide people who have low skill and high will. These individuals seek to complete the task at hand, but need guidance on how to get there. You don’t need to completely direct them, but push them in the right direction and maybe even create barriers to help guide their success. Over time as they gain skills, they will need less guidance and that leads to…
• Delegate people who have high skill and high will. These individuals not only are motivated to do the job, but can be trusted to get the task at hand done right with little to no supervision. Basically these individuals need to be empowered in every sense of the word and you need to support their efforts.

I’ve been taking a Virtual Leadership course with IHS and thought I’d include a few tidbits in my blog of different angles on how to effectively communicate. I know I struggle with this particular thing and sometimes I know others I communicate with who have a hard time with me as well. Maybe when I’m having a hard time talking with people maybe I can make sure to present them my thoughts in this mode to help them understand my point of view. Likewise I of course need to help people who are trying to communicate an idea to me to follow this process so I can effectively understand what they are trying to communicate to me.

In regards to my interactions with my boss, I think he very quickly skips steps 1 and 2 and immediately jumps into step 3 and 4 without taking the time to appropriately go through steps 1 and 2. This causes long drawn out spin out at times. I think it would be better for both me and him if we took the time to make sure that all the data is understood, how I interpret the data, the conclusions I’ve made, and what assumptions I’ve made. Then if I have holes then please test my assumptions, but don’t jump to that step. 

I’ll see what I can do to work with him on this process and see if it works better in regards to how he and I communicate.

All of us have at one time encountered the peer whose methods and thinking we didn’t understand. They mystify, frustrate and, on occasion, upset us. Rather than give up on him or her or try to glean their next move, you’ll find it more valuable to analyze their thinking process. In any particular coaching moment, start by trying to understand why the person has come to the conclusion they have. Ask them to:

1. Describe the data and what it means. What’s the relevance of the data to them, to the industry, or to experts in the field?
2. Explain their assumptions. Based on the data they’ve acquired, what assumptions have they made relative to the project? Why?
3. Test their assumptions. What’s your impression of what they just said? Do these ideas seem reasonable to you? Are there additional assumptions to make? Encourage others to ask questions at this point.
4. State your conclusions, and show your reasoning. Consider: Who and what will be affected? How will they be affected? Why did you come to this conclusion? How will it impact the company?

Remember that few people are used to defending their conclusions, and that these questions might make the person uncomfortable. Assure him or her that you are asking in order to better understand their thought process and provide additional perspective. As you continue to work together, start considering some alternative conclusions and possibilities — different ways of thinking outside both your normal realms. Another peer or someone else on the team may offer another perspective.

Thanks to Michael being on board now, I’m feeling amazingly oddly relaxed and most of all I feed like I can focus on the guild for the first time in months.

I actually recruited 10 new recruits for HILYMI today. I tried a slightly new angle on my recruitment method and it seems to be working really well. I actually took the time to promote an officer and come up with a game plan on how to get the guild running back at full steam again. I’m absolutely amazed, I dunno, it just feels like magically things are just going really well. 

I think I might need to make some revisions to the HILYMI website. It seems enough people are getting confused with the forums that it might warrant some updates to the skin. Not really a big deal, just something needing to be look into. I also need to start producing some guild videos as well as updating the guild gallery. Maybe I can find the time this weekend to do some of that. 

Tonight we had 12 people online at one point. I really would love to see the guild over 20 online again. Once we start hitting over 20 consistently, every night, then I know we’re at a healthy guild number. It seems like a healthy number of about 20-25 will keep the guild from ever complaining that there’s “nothing” to do. We might certainly get close to 80 unique members with 40 or so alts, putting the guild around 120 characters. Of course the most I’ve managed in unique members was around 120. If we ever get that big again, I’ll have to make sure I have solid officers first. If we had that many we’d be able to fill over half a war band and probably a full war band on most nights. Of course regular PVE runs would be a given for sure. I think we can’t do it just with recruitment though. We need to focus on scheduling events.