Empowering a Team Part 2 - Maintaining Trust with Transparency

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.

Empowering a Team Part 1 - Leading with Vision

We’ve been at this for a while and I’m in no way saying that we’ve become experts in leadership, but we’ve picked up a few things since we started this project a little over two years ago. So in effort to give back to the community, we’d like to share from our experience ways to boost productivity and team cohesion over a few separate blog posts. And like any project, what works for some, may not work for others so if you and your studio approaches this differently we’d love to hear from you in the comments!

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One thing I’ve personally learned through this is the benefit of leading with vision. You hear that phrase a lot in this entrepreneurial, small business world, but don’t dismiss it. It’s one of the most important tools any business owner has. Through vision you can inspire your team to be a lot more than you ever considered. For us this realization began with a book, “Start With Why” by Simon Sinek. It’s a fantastic read and something I recommend to anyone just getting started in a leadership role. It explains how much further your efforts can go with a simple question, “Why?”

So, why does GravTech exist? One word: Empowerment.

It pains me to see how video games are viewed outside of the community, and even within the community there has been a lot of negativity lately. We believe the biggest cause has been an imbalance of power within the industry. Many voices go unheard when the ones calling the shots think they can live off their past successes forever and many more voices go unheard when a debate turns into a shouting match and people are only listening to those who shout the loudest or say the most outrageous things.

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We decided that if we wanted to make a difference we weren’t going to be doing it alone. We need to empower a team to flex their creative muscles, to push beyond the status quo and reach for something beyond what we initially believed possible. We need to provide content that is engaging to players, something that stimulates the brain and makes you think about what you’re doing, as opposed to some mindless repetitive tasks. It’s time for games to evolve beyond fun toys and into something that can make you reflect just as much as any other work of art.

Once we established that vision, and pushed that vision through the studio, we began to see some subtle differences around the team. We began to have more vocal and energetic meetings. We saw artists, designers, and programmers critiquing each other more openly and ultimately bettering the project. My personal favorite change is how quickly new people become acclimated to the project. Usually a new person spends their first meeting just listening in, but by the second meeting they’re just as vocal as the veterans.

Eventually you’ll see the dynamic shift and you’ll smile to yourself when you hear a lead explain the vision to a new teammate and see how deeply they have embraced it. Let your vision speak through your actions and consistently refer to it when discussing the project or team. Trust me, you’ll be happily surprised with how far a common vision can take you!

So we’d like to hear from you! How do you empower and inspire your team? Tell us in the comments below!

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Kevin Gray

CEO and Co-Founder of GravTech Games