Ever had a really crappy job? And I mean really crappy, not just a place you’re dissatisfied with. I’ve had a couple really awful jobs, but I’d like to share a story about the worst one I ever had. When I first left college I started a job at a pharmaceutical sales call center. I won’t use any names, but my job was simply call people, primarily elderly patients, who requested information on the clinics we ran and book them for appointments, let’s just call them, “the clinic”. Within 4 months I was approached by one of the owners of the company and asked if I’d be willing to step up into corporate management and manage the Customer Service division for the entire company.
This proved to be one of the more difficult positions I’ve held in my life. My job description was simple, I fought refunds for the company. Within my first 6 months I managed to save the company over $2 million in potential refunds. I started living a comfy life and began to thrive. Then almost 1 year after I ascended to the position things started to unravel.
The company, which had a 3-way equity split of ~33% per shareholder, began having disputes amongst the leadership. One of the owners became greedy and dug up the past of another owner. He spread this through the entire company and built an army to take down his once business partner. What’s sad is that his plan worked. He soon acquired 51% of the company and kicked his partner out. My thriving career soon became a game of office politics and resembled an early episode of House of Cards and not a medical clinic.
So why do I bring this story up on a video game development blog? Well simply, this clinic is now starting to fall apart due to how they manage their team and treat their customers, and anyone leading a team of their own can learn from their errors. They lack one element that successful companies thrive off of; transparency. Transparency is one of those things that a lot of people in leadership fear, which I've never understood. Transparency builds trust, which is a crucial ingredient in getting the most out of your team.
At the clinic, corporate was separate from every aspect of the company. You never knew what would happen next and it cultivated an atmosphere of uncertainty, fear, and distrust. Rumors began flying around and people started retaliating against corporate change. Those who spoke out would often be greeted with termination or suspension, causing more panic. Now, as a leader, you must recognize this toxic behavior and not allow it. If your people are constantly concerned with losing their jobs or forming alliances to further their office political campaigns, how are they going to accomplish their work? Short answer, they won’t. Transparency reduces the need for office politics. If everyone knows what’s going on and the company does a good job of maintaining transparency, then there’s no need for people to be scheming around trying to get answers or to protect their interests.
Transparency also boosts communication. At the clinic you had to send things up the chain of command to get it moving and if you stepped outside that protocol you were significantly reprimanded. This process was time-consuming and by the time the information got the right person it was often too late. You cannot let the process get in the way of doing business. At GravTech, we encourage our team to go directly to the source. If they need something done, go to the person who can get it done. Of course they still need to notify the appropriate leads to ensure we’re all staying on the right track and not running off in all different directions, but it’s not about waiting for permission to get things done.
Lastly, transparency builds trust with your audience. At the clinic, the main issue was the wording of the paperwork they would sign with us. It was essentially a waiver of rights that gave me precedent to fight the patients on their legitimate requests for refunds. However, when being sold the process generally happened so quick that many patients would never read what they were signing, and even the ones that did, many didn't understand the scope of what rights they were relinquishing. I fought the company to change the wording multiple times and even to change the policy to a full refund policy. Those suggestions fell on deaf ears and our patients would be left frustrated in the dark and often flock to our competition. Transparency with your customers means setting appropriate expectations for your product or service and not pulling a veil over their eyes during the sales process or strong-arming them. People deserve to be treated like people regardless of who they are, where they come from, or anything else. They never deserve to be treated as a number, a wallet, or a punching bag.It’s simple; treat people with respect and people will be more apt to respect you, regardless of who they are.
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