You never, ever, ever second guess yourself when you’re the boss. You can’t afford to. Otherwise you’ll start growing a collection of white hairs at the ripe old age of 21 (like yours truly).
That’s a direct response to the Fel Firey one.
It’s not very often I craft responses directly to other blog posts. I felt compelled to make an exception because the problems she outlines are similar issues that I’ve experienced. I wanted to share my solution and outlook to everyone as well.
Question 1: Play the veteran no show or the steady underachiever?
All too common question for those in charge of determining raid composition, right?
Do I go with the skilled player who’s attendance has gradually decreased over the past few months and has gotten bored with the game or do I reward the near-flawless attendance player who’s not as skilled and has the gear to compete but cannot match the performance?
In order to answer this, you need to ask yourself what type of organization you’re building. Do you believe in success at all costs or a steadier but more consistent and rewarding pace?
I lean towards the former. I play this game to raid and to kill bosses. I will almost always lean towards picking the team that will grant me the highest chance of a progression kill. It’s a constant reminder to everyone. The onus is on the raiders. They’re not playing to earn a raid spot. They’re playing to keep one. Like it or not, that means the Rogue that did 7000 DPS who just happened to renew his interest in the game is more than likely to get the nod over the 5500 DPS Rogue wearing the same stuff.
Yeah, that’s a pretty big exaggeration but you know what I mean. If the alignment of the guild is in fairness and the like, then you’re going to favor the little guy. The problem is that it might take your guild two weeks or longer to get through an encounter or something. But if the guild doesn’t care about rankings and competing with other guilds, then you’re in the clear anyway.
It’s summer. I’ve seen guilds ahead of us explode and die off that would shoot us from a top 20 placing to a top 5 placing. It’s a fight right now for a lot of leaders just to maintain full strength.
Question 2: How do I cover my ass against players upset at being sat?
Ah the fine print. If there’s anything EULA’s and TOS’s and all those fancy contracts have taught me, it’s that you can get away with almost anything with fine print. If a player gets upset that they’ve been sat or are not being invited, point them to the fine print.
“But you specifically agreed that you were okay with being sat out when you applied to the guild. Isn’t that your signature, retinal scan, thumbprint, and DNA pattern on that form?â€
It’s common for guilds to do some line juggling particularly on progression raids. Maybe you have an extra tank. Perhaps you have too much melee DPS. Or you’re lacking healers. Assuming your forces don’t have dual specs of the right sort (or of high enough quality gear), then you have to do an outright character for character swap to maintain the raid.
Look at it this way.
One of the best ways to truly take stock of a person’s character is to ask them to sit out and see how they react. What they say on their application is one thing. How they handle it is another matter entirely. If they handle it extremely poorly, then they’re not a player you want in your organization anyway allowing you to go headhunting again.
Question 3: How can I handle loot discrepancies?
Include the human element. Having a clause that allows a group of players to override something will help with progression. If the guild is more based towards fairness and equality, then don’t bother. I’ve written about loot posts in the past. I firmly favor looting gear to the people who will get the most use out of it instead of passing it to another player where it’s only going to collect dust because they never use that spec. Why did they get it? Because a chart or a list of numbers demanded that it be so. We can’t control item drops. We can only control who it goes to.
It’s about trust. If you don’t trust the guys making the loot decisions, you shouldn’t be in that guild anyway. They’re going to make mistakes. As long as their mistakes don’t exceed the number of right calls, then it should be all good.
Yes human discretion can be bad. I’ve heard the arguments before. But it can also be used for good.
It sucks being in charge. The reason why there’s so few GMs compared to players is because no one wants the job.
Okay, that last bit might not be entirely true. Have a good weekend! (By the way, if you intend to check out GI Joe, leave something in the comments about it when you do. Undecided between theatre or just waiting.)
I have responded to this on my blog, link should be below.
In short, I think you definitely need to second guess yourself in order to be a great leader or you will make the same mistakes all over again. It is important to hold a strong front when you make a decision, but it is equally important to be able to accept that you were wrong and act differently next time.
.-= scrusi´s last blog ..Second-guessing Yourself =-.
I’m going to have to second scrusi in this one, imho any leader should constantly be analyzing and reflecting on his/her decisions. The tricky question is knowing if or when to admit you made a mistake. Sometimes you just have to stay the course and make a better decision next time. Sometimes you have to about face and admit that there’s a better course of action. It all depends on the situation and the persons involved. But I think if a leader’s goal is to be (or to appear) perfect at every second, he/she is get laying the ground for serious stress. Most people know being a leader is hard and are willing to cut him/her some slack.
As for question one, I tend to get frustrated by good players who just think they can show up whenever they want and basically treat others poorly. Sometimes dealing with players is like dealing animals or small children — they will constantly test the limits and learn just how far they can push the leaders. Until there are consequences to such egotistical behavior, people like that will just keep on playing leaders for fools. Once they realize there are consequences, they might shape up their act. Or they might QQ. But again imho, being an uber-player doesn’t magically entitle one to be a selfish asshat who thinks of him/herself before the team. And sometimes, but not always, all mediocre players need to improve is more play time.
I think that what Matticus meant was that if you are 2nd quessing your decissions all the time you really cant make any decissions. Yes if you see that something goes wrong and its because your choise then rethink, but if everythingn seems to be ok just go and dont bother about that too mutch later on….
this reminds me of shattered fragments of val’anyr.
Every guild has a primary healer who the fragments go to first. But sometimes that healer won’t be there so they go to another primary healer who’s just as good and is usually there.
Every blue moon both are not there and a fragment drops.
do you give it to a healer who’s pretty good but rarely shows up or do you give it to someone who dual specs, is almost always there and is asked to heal nearly as often as not even though they might not be as accustomed or as good as characters who always heal?
In the end it’s almost a rhetorical question as we all know that a guild may get 1-2 maces and 3 is not likely and will take over a year but it’s better to give the shards to someone than to let them rot. Feelings and wants get in the way.
Spots and gear is tricky, and there never does seem to be a middle ground. Personally unless it’s a very heavy progression night I’d stick with the person who shows up as you’ll love them on nights when you can barely scrape together 20 people let alone 25 + 5 backups.
I’ve always tried to stick to the well-known academic adage: Strong opinions, lightly held. If you stop challenging yourself and letting yourself be challenged, you eventually risk being blinded by your egotism.
Also, while presenting the strong infallible leader persona has is benefits, don’t forget that if you did your recruitment well, your members aren’t sheep and they will understand that you are also only human. Contrary to what some people seem to believe, you won’t lose respect and status by making an honest mistake. However, if it becomes obvious you’re keeping up a front, decay will set in harder than you might think.
Hm, this sounds a lot more preachy than I intended. Take with a pinch of salt.
Second guessing yourself isn’t the same thing as analyzing your decisions and policies. What you can’t do is sit there going “oh man, but what if I’d done this, or maybe that” because then you’ll put yourself in a position where you cease to make decisions at all.
Make a decision.
Stick with it.
Analyze the outcome.
If the outcome =/= to expected results.
Refine decision.
Repeat.
.-= Adgamorix´s last blog ..Finding the 10th =-.
There’s nothing wrong with analyzing your decisions after you’ve made them. It’ll help guide future choices if you’re in the same situation again. But you can’t kill yourself continually making “What if?” questions. What’s done is done. Don’t beat yourself up over it.
RE: the veteran no show or the steady underachiever
I think this is a question of short-term versus long-term gain and your return on investment. Yes, the flakey rogue gets you an immediate benefit but what benefit has that player been providing overall if he/she has spotty attendance and has demonstrated a lack of dedication to your enterprise? (In this case, think of it in terms of aggregate dps over a period of time–which player offers the greater value?) Further, assuming that you’d like to stay in business in the coming months/years, how are you contributing to the development of your team by choosing unreliable but high productivity over steady but average productivity?
IMO, this is one of those times where you should second-guess yourself.
Analyzing situations and decisions before hand can reduce the anxiety of what-ifs afterwards since outcomes are most likely weighed in the decision process. It’s how you react after your decisions is what matters and I agree with you; Constantly asking the what-if questions after decision making rather than beforehand is a recipe for ulcers.
That does not mean however that if a decision goes awry that you are off the hook and should ignore the consequences; feedback should always be taken in as needed and discussed if things could have been done differently on a case by case basis.
.-= Napaeae´s last blog ..Gut Feelings: Part Deux =-.
I agree with the what’s done is done philosophy, but it didn’t stop me from asking my raid leader today why I was left off this week’s raid when it was clear I fit all the attributes we choose by (raid success, geared, dependable, and signed-up as one of the first 3 healers). If that makes me a bad guild member for questioning authority when I just want to know the reasons, then so be it.
And I agree with your philopohy of taking the more flaky but better player. When they are there, progression will go smoother…and that’s what your kind of raid wants (aka non-casual). The second person will still have plenty of chances if the first is as flaky as you indicate.
.-= DFitz´s last blog ..The State of the Union – Priests =-.
Being a guild boss is very stressful and deserves a lot of respect. It’s like management in any sort of workplace. Being a bad leader is easy but being a good leader is very very difficult and people often underestimate it. Good advice from your post 🙂
.-= We Fly Spitfires – MMORPG Blog´s last blog ..Guaka and the Fate of the Lost MMOs! (Guest Post) =-.
Maybe my grasp of the English language isn’t as good as it should be here. I see a big difference between “not constantly” and “never, ever” second guessing myself.
Princeton’s WordNet defines second-guessing as:
“S: (v) second-guess, outguess (attempt to anticipate or predict)
S: (v) second-guess (evaluate or criticize with hindsight)”
Both of these definitions seem to be essential leadership tasks to me.
As I have pointed out in my post, you need to be careful not to overdo it, but never ever doing it?
.-= scrusi´s last blog ..Patch 3.2 – Halfassing Deluxe =-.
But isn’t there a time horizon here; i.e. too many decisions focus on the short term.
In choosing between SporadicallyGood and ReliablelyAdequate then the better short term decision is to go with SporadicallyGood tonight. But if you do that and ReliablelyAdequate moves on to another guild then in a bit will SporadicallyGood be unavailable due to not logging on, alts, PvP, server change or whatever the latest whim is, Then wouldn’t the decision that leads you to downing Arthas (3.3) faster be to go with ReliablelyAdequate?
@Hagu: Not necessarily. You’re assuming that ReliablyAdequate’s going to be adequate enough for Arthas. There’s a lot of mistaken assumptions out there that players get better with time. It’s possible, but its not always likely. Players hit different levels of “peakness” and never go beyond that. Some players will just _never_ be good as others. If ReliablyAdequate somehow became ReliablyExcellent, then that there is a clear winner. But being adequate all the time just isn’t going to be enough for some fights.
I agree this is a tough call to make (this scenario at least). I have established my guild to reward attendance over performance, however everyone knows that I’m not going to waste anyones time by bringing undergeared or underskilled players.
The 100% attendance under geared raider or the previously absent geared up excellent dpser (healer/tank)? Is there really a difference? 99% of the time the person who is geared to the teeth and excellent is gone because he is bored and is “geared up”. The person who has been “loyal” really isnt any different he is only LOYAL and ATTENDING because he is undergeared. Once he gets geared he will also eventually disappear when he gets bored. again, this is not ALWAYS im sure you will point that 1 GUY in a million your friend for the last 30 years who will show up no matter what. BUT usually, there isnt much of a diffrence so you just have to find a way to make them both happy if you need them.
Now, DKP vs. Loot COuncil? ie. numbers vs. human intervention. numbers 1000% of the time. loot council/human intervention isnt bad sometimes. It is just horrible all the time. Why?
1) more than likely you will give it to someone you prefer. doesn’t matter what you will admit to here….you know your own heart.
2) people will always assume point # 1 and this causes dissatisfaction
3) you dont know enough about classes/make up to make that decision, even if you THINK you do
4) equal time , equal pay. for the most part you need everyone in that raid. They are giving up their time and everyone should be given a fair shake.
@Matt – If only the reliable became Reliable Excellent, we would not have these hard questions on who to take. I mentioned my “conflict” about being benched 3 days ago and I wrote about my thoughts and the resolution, quoting this article at one point (I feel obligated to inform authors when I quote).
End of story – I think it worked out OK, but your article made me focus more on the hard job being a raid leader is and how difficult it must be to fill those slots. Even if it was a mistake to leave me out this week, it might have been a bigger mistake to question authority.
.-= DFitz´s last blog ..Dealing with the Bench =-.
I am having this exact same issue in my guild. I have two raiders who were my old-school progression workhorses who recently renewed their subscription and want raid spots, and their spots were filled by two so-so replacements that have been showing up every week (and were waiting for their spots to open up for weeks beforehand). I feel bad by telling these guys who are some of the best at their class and who were incredibly hard working before that they’re getting benched for the new guys who replaced them. But I am not going to take from the rich to feed the poor. These new guys will be treated like any other raider and will be respected, and the old school raiders will be treated like new recruits. It hurts me to do this, but it’s the choice I had to make.
Completely un constructive comment, buuuttt. I think White hair is sexy (if you’ve got a full head of it)