Lessons from a Leader III: Weeding and Pruning

I’m a bit of a gardener in my off-line life, and weeding and pruning your garden regularly is one of the true keys to a healthy, successful yard.  Problem players are a lot like crabgrass – if you pull them out early, before their roots spread too far and wide, you can do it rather smoothly and prevent the rest of your plants from being choked out.  Let it go too long though, and it really can wreck the entire effort – casting runners long and far throughout your plants until the healthy ones start dying off and the entire garden’s potentially at risk of being destroyed.  Gardeners are told to weed and prune regularly, get the weeds while they’re small and before they spread throughout – a small bit of work regularly can prevent a lot of labor and trauma to your plants, rather than waiting until the weed problem is out of control.

Of the areas I think we perhaps did our worst in terms of the first great guild experiment, handling problem children is up there towards the top.  The problems for our leadership have always been – one, we’re generally pretty nice people who don’t like causing drama or hurting other people’s feelings.  Two, we are heavily conflict averse as an officer corps – too much so, in my opinion.  Avoiding conflict is a healthy thing in small doses, but like with many things it needs to be in moderation – too much, and it means you’re just avoiding dealing with your issues.  In my opinion, I think Veritas spent too much time in that latter zone, trying to just smooth things over and have everyone get along when the better course of action was probably to remove from the roster.  In fact, I’d be hard pressed to name a single successful case of “rehabilitation”, where a problem member actually improved after warnings and disciplinary actions, rather than just lay low a bit and then continue to cause issues later.

So the real challenge is – how do you know what is a problem member, and when to prune them?

Our “official” policy is three strikes, you’re out – just like baseball.  I put officially in quotes because in reality, if often seemed to turn into about 6-10 strikes before you’re actually out.  Furthermore, I wonder if even three is too generous?  We’ve always treated dismissal like it’s some sort of horrible fate, the way we avoid it – and when it comes down to it, it’s really not that big of a deal, especially if handled sooner rather than later.  After all, we’re just one of many, many guilds out there.  Kicking someone out does not remove their ability to play the game, to raid, to roleplay, or do any number of the vast majority of activities in any MMO.  It just takes away the ability to do so with your particular group.  And yes, while if the player in question has been around a long time and made some close friendships, or had time to foster discontent, it can be very disruptive for the guild.  That’s why I recommend – do it early, before those roots get in and cause upheaval.

If I had to do it all over again, I’d only give one warning – with latitude to modify based upon the offense.  If the offense is minor, something like being disruptive in raiding or having a fit over loot, you can always extend this.  However, anything that is truly disruptive to players – namely, getting into personal arguments with other members, causing another member to quit the guild by direct action, sowing discontent, or openly disparaging and criticizing the leadership, I say one stern warning and then off you go.  (Please note – I add this latter not to say that the leadership is infallible – but there are constructive ways of handling these issues and destructive ones.  Offering suggestions and raising concerns to other officers is constructive.  Pointing fingers and just criticizing openly is disruptive – and really when it comes down to it, if you don’t like the way that group’s leadership works, then why should they work to keep you there, right?)

I think on the next post, I’ll write down what I would recommend implementing as behavioral rules.  The bottom line really is though, you’ll know when you see it.  When multiple players raise concerns about the same individual – even if the concerns seem nebulous (I just – don’t like the guy/girl, I don’t really get along with them, etc) – I’d recommend trusting their gut.  Sometimes, a person just feels wrong, they aren’t fitting in to the culture or they’re just – keeping things off-kilter.  Remember – being in the guild is a privilege, not a right, and it DOES NOT ultimately harm or ruin their game experience being in another guild.  They can still play the game as much as they want, this is not capital punishment or anything that will hurt their ability to get a job in the real world.  Lighten up Francis, it’s just a game after all.

Things to look for:

– Failing to get along with other members.  There’s a difference between keeping to themselves (not bad), and seeming to come into conflicts with other members.  Even when the other member says it’s mutual, watch for patterns.  If different people seem to run into personality conflicts or arguments with the same person – they are a problem, remove them.  Even without hard evidence or screenshots – really, you don’t need them.  The first time, it’s one person v. another.  The second – it’s a second data point.  By the third?  Well if all these other people seem to get along well with others, you’ve found your weak link in the chain – fix it.

– Refusal to take responsibility for actions.  Sadly, this comes up more and more with younger folks, just part of recent American culture maybe.  But if you sit down to talk with someone about a problem or issue and all their responses are either “It’s someone else’s fault, not mine” or other things along those lines?  Problem.  Well-balanced people take ownership – sure, sometimes it’s a bad day, and that’s ok.  But when you’re faulting other people for your mistakes?  Immature and uncool, and odds are they won’t change in future meetings.

– Lying.  Parenting 101 here, folks.  Little white lies are one thing, but lying to avoid trouble or putting someone else in trouble?  Bad juju, you don’t want it.

– Snarkiness/Mean Streaks.  Some people are just – mean, catty, belittling, or negative.  While you may want to help them, it’s not your job and that can really spread through a guild like a toxin.  If you have someone who’s always critical, cruel, mean, or just petty – I sincerely doubt ANYTHING they are contributing is worth asking your friends to endure that.  No DPS, tank, healer, etc is so good they get carte blanche to just be a brute – so let them do it elsewhere and cut them loose.

– Self-Centeredness/Neediness.  This is one of the toughest to pinpoint, because we all have days where we’re a little needy.  But when you see the same person continuing to demand 90% of the attention, stop and take a second look.  Does it seem like to matter how many private sessions you put aside to mentor them in raiding and their class/role, they’re *still* demanding or pleading for help, and not learning to bookmark sites or do their own research?  Are they always RPing a victim?  Kidnapped all the time, assaulted, abused child, possessed by a demon, or any sort of other victim/save me RP?  Sure, there are guilds that cater to that and encourage it – but none I want to be in.  So my personal advice is – point them in the direction of a guild that caters to that, and save your own time and energy as well as that of your members.  If the above type of person is a toxin, this one’s a drain – a good irl friend of mine calls these sorts of people psychic vampires – no matter how much you give, they always need more, more, more til you’re out and still they need.  It’s exhausting, not just for your officers but even for your members having to devote so much of their attention to one person.  Give them all a break, and weed that crabgrass!

Here’s the bottom line, and what you have to keep repeating to yourself as a mantra when you’ve got to make these decisions and weed problems.  Odds are, the problem player won’t – and perhaps can’t – change who they are.  It’s not ruining their life, it’s just making a decision about if who *they* are and who your guild is are a good match.  If they’re not, it’s a bad relationship for both parties – sure, you can force it, you can make it work and keep it going for years.  But is that really helping?  Or is it better to have the hard talk sooner, so you protect your guild family and they can maybe find a group who better fits them too?

At the end of the day, your guild is one of only hundreds, and dismissing a problem from the roster will not truly harm them in any lasting way – and often, you’d be surprised no matter how they carry on at the time, how quickly people on the internet move on.  Think about the benefit of the entire organism, the greater guild good, and protect that culture so that it stays healthy, happy, flourishing and bearing fruit, rather than having its soil and nutrients drained by rapidly spreading, harmful weeds.  And if it makes you feel better, go ahead and wear gardening gloves. 🙂

Lessons from the Trenches II: Rejection

Rejection is one of the toughest parts of being a guild leader, if you’re at all a nice person or dislike telling people no/hurting feelings/etc.  It’s also one of the parts of the job you will have to do regularly – and if it’s something you are uncomfortable or not very good at, then I would very strongly encourage you to think about serving as a guild officer and finding someone else to lead.  As Ned Stark says in A Game of Thrones, “The one who passes the sentence should be the one to swing the sword.”  (Well, *technically* George R. R. Martin said it I suppose, but moving along…)  As a guild leader, you’re the ultimate authority, buck stops here, etc. etc., so you’re the one ultimately responsible for managing rejections in your guild – and it really isn’t the sort of thing to pass off to officers if you’re not willing to do it yourself.  It’s definitely one of the least pleasant parts of running a guild, and one even after four and a half years that I always hate having to deal with, but part of the job nonetheless.  And if it helps – as bad as it is, it’s even worse if you find excuses not to reject someone and let a bad seed flourish into a real problem.  I always tell myself that no matter how much this conversation will stink, it’s a lot better than ruining many of my friends’ gaming experiences by continuing to procrastinate and put it off and let things get worse.  With this disclaimer aside – time to get to the nitty-gritty.

Rejection Type I:  Application

There are a couple forms of rejection we deal with in our guild.  The first type is rejection of an application, which is the far easier of the two.  In many cases, the application is clearly not suitable – they’re either under age, not roleplayers, or something else that’s fairly clearly out of scope with our admission rules.  These are the easiest – I used to try and track them down in game to tell them, but honestly it’s really not worth that extra effort.  So now I send a polite, in game letter to the effect of,

“Thank you for your recent application to Veritas.  Unfortunately, your character background is not in line with our guild’s style of roleplaying and we will not be able to admit you at this time.  Best of luck in your guild search!”

I also try, whenever possible, to include recommendations for another guild.  I could go through a list of guilds from the Moon Guard server in terms of where I tend to send people, but it’s far too early to know anything about guilds in TOR.  The important thing is – by including a recommendation for another guild, it helps to soften the blow a little bit.  I find when I do this, the person is a lot less likely to follow up with me and ask for an exception or something for our guild – really, at the end of the day most people just want *a* guild, whether it’s yours or someone else’s.  By pointing them in the direction of somewhere that fits what they’re looking for, it’s easier for them to just refocus their efforts in that direction rather than continue in yours.  I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from people when I do include an alternate guild, so I very strongly recommend including a recommendation in your letter.  However, if there are no good fits for the applicant, that may not be an option.

Rejection Type II:  Interview

This comes up fairly rarely, that an applicant gets through the written application phase and something comes up in the interview that raises an alarm.  In the rare times it does, rather than admit the person at the end of the interview, I tell them I have to update the other officers on their application and someone will get back to them in a couple days.  Then I mail the letter.  It’s a bit of a cop-out, but it also tends to avoid unnecessary arguing or confrontation.  Also, as I mentioned – in 4.5 years, I think this has happened maybe 3 times?  Once of those was strictly due to playtimes as well (which I did convey in person).  So, don’t lose too much sleep here.

Rejection Type III:  Das Boot

This is the one everyone dreads – having to gboot an existing member from the guild.  There is no good or easy way to do this, that I’ve found, and it rarely goes smoothly.  Once in a blue moon, the person will have had the same feelings and agree that yes, it doesn’t seem to be working out and make things easy.  The other 95% of your time, brace for unpleasantness.  In general, the unpleasantless will come in two flavors:

1.  “But I’ve done nothing wrong”.  The amazing thing is, even if you provide the person with direct quotes, screenshots, or any other hard and fast evidence, they will *still* insist they’ve done nothing wrong. Often this comes hand-in-hand with pleading for another chance (no matter how many you’ve already given them.)

2.  “Well you’re a witch anyway so eff you.”  (I have taken some creative liberties with the language usually used in this scenario to keep it PG.)  If you’re lucky, they’ll take their parting shots and quit rather abruptly.  If you’re not, they will wax poetic in fantastic, technicolor-detail about the myriad ways in which you are either a witch or can entertain yourself in your free time.

Now, a few things to note here about both personality types above.  They do often – though not always – break down along gender lines, with female players tending to whine and play helpless more, and male players going on the fear-aggression tactic of scorched earth.  Not 100% true, but going into the talk, it doesn’t hurt to at least prepare yourself for the more likely scenario.  Also, remind yourself frequently – this person is being booted for a reason, at least in our guild.  Booting a member is never a decision we make lightly, and it is always with the consensus and support of the officers.  Our policy has always been (on paper, at least) to give a person two warnings or chances to improve before we consider dismissal.  In reality, because we’re all a bunch of wimps who hate booting people, in practice it’s more like 10 warnings before a boot.  So if someone is on the old booting block, they have more than earned their place there.  In fact, in many cases it is exactly the behavior that they’re displaying in this discussion that led to them getting booted – either an unwillingness to take responsibility for their actions and work to improve them, or temper/attitude problems that caused them not to get along with others.  So remind yourself that the very way they’re acting is why they’re getting kicked, and not to cave in and give them another chance.  You *DON’T* want to have this discussion again, trust me.

There are two things I recommend when having “the chat”.  First – if you can get officer backup, it’s better.  Xavron was always the best about forming up a party with me when we’d go talk to someone and offering support as needed.  (He also knew I was a softie and would quietly in tells help reinforce my resolve if I started to waiver.)  Having another officer there is as much for you as it is for them – that third party can help step in if things turn heated (especially in scenario 2, where the other person can begin making personal attacks and it’s hard not to react), and they can provide a second voice if the player accuses of personal vendettas or dislikes.  If there is any question from the membership about how things were handled, it’s also a second witness to back you up.  So really – it’s all wins having another officer in the party when you have the conversation, and I definitely recommend it.

I think the thing we did best in Veritas when it comes to booting people is to give them the option of gquitting themselves.  I guess you could say, I run the guild like the White House Cabinet?  You see, when a secretary is fired – they’re never formally “fired”, they resign.  Sometimes they resign because they really want to resign. Sometimes they resign because someone from the WH staff comes and explains they’ll be resigning, and if they really made a mess of things, they’ll even be given their resignation letter to sign.  But – the President never “fires” you, it’s the Cabinet member who resigns.  Maybe it’s because I’m a poli sci professor, maybe it’s living in DC – personally, I’ve just found that giving someone a little bit of dignity in the end can really work wonders for avoiding ugliness in public channels.  So, I explain to them that they’re being booted, and why, and then say something along the lines of, “I’ll leave it up to you if you want to say a quick goodbye and gquit, or if you’d like me to remove you from the roster.”  AKA, do you want to gquit or be booted?

It’s a little thing, but in all my years of doing this, I think only 3 people have had me remove them.  Most people will choose to quit on their own terms, and very rarely do they abuse it by saying something petty in guild before doing so.  So – it’s a measure that costs you, as a guild leader, very little, but definitely shows a lot of grace and poise.  I think this is the best thing I’ve come up with in terms of handling guild dismissals, to allow them the option to quit.  (Just don’t let them try to put it off until later – make them do it then.)

The other big piece of advice I would give – and one I need to improve upon myself, in the future – is to make use of the ignore feature.  Keep the talks short and sweet – 10 minutes is a good length of time, and definitely avoid letting it drag out much past 15 minutes.  Explain in brief why this is happening, the steps that were already tried and failed, wish them well, and give them the choice above.  That’s it, that’s all you need to cover, and the quicker you can wrap it up, the better for both you and them.   Me, because I can be a bit of a softie, I’d let them talk….esp in example 1, they will go on and on, sometimes hours if you let them.  By the time you get to the boot phase though, they should be out of chances already – so really, all you’re doing letting them continue is wasting your time (since the decision was already made), OR second-guessing and counter-manding your other officers, if you do allow them yet another chance in spite of the group’s decision to dismiss.  Instead, don’t do what I sometimes did and let people go on and on.  Trust me – you will NOT convince them that they’re wrong, and you won’t get them to realize what they should have done differently.  Have the conversation, keep it to the point, and if they keep talking them gboot them directly and put them on your ignore list.

I can’t stress this enough.  If I had a dollar for every time Ehr or Xav reminded me, “Ignore list, Nora” when I’d complain about the recently booted person *still* talking to me hours later (or sometimes, even days) – well I’d be if not rich, at least able to treat myself to a nice dinner with a good glass of wine. 😉  So don’t be me – keep the conversation short, to the point, 15 mins or less, and then if they keep talking to you – throw ’em on the old ignore.  It’s better for you, and it really is better for them (by preventing them from continuing to dwell or taking the time and energy to try and change your mind.)  So – do it, don’t be afraid, ignore the bad apples and move on!

The TL:DR Version: (Maybe at the end, I can make a list of “Nora’s Rules for Guild Leaders?)

1.  Guild leaders need to be able to boot misbehaving members.

2.  Keep the conversation short and professional, explain why they’re being booted, what was already tried, wish them well and move on.

3.  Give them the choice of gquitting themselves before removing them from the roster.

4.  Don’t let the conversation drag on, and use your ignore list as a resource if it does.