Officers' Quarters: How do we govern? Part 1
by Scott Andrews 
Aug 20th 2007 at 11:00AM
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.
All of you guild leaders out there, ask yourself this question: Is your management style most like
__Genghis Khan?
__Thomas Jefferson?
__Queen Elizabeth?
__Kim Jong-il?
__A council of elders?
__An inanimate carbon rod?
I started thinking about the many ways a guild can be managed after receiving the following e-mail. My apologies to Rodrigo in advance -- it was a very insightful, but very long e-mail, and I'm only including about half of it below.
Hey Scott,
First I want to congratulate you for adding such an interesting topic to the biggest WoW blog there is. Hope you keep up the good work!
I'm a civil engineer from the far country of Chile. Before BC came out I was the GM of the biggest Hispanic-talking guild in all the US servers, we had over 250 active accounts and 400 characters. Our only recruitment requisite was being able to talk Spanish . . .
[One of] the true keys to manage a guild this large and diverse was democracy. Officers vote for certain decisions. Guild members vote for certain officers.
I think this point would be a great topic for a blog discussion. For some reason today guilds are ran by their founders . . . The GM is usually the guy that started it all and officers are then elected using different arguments but what is certain is that they are never removed (unless he kinda quits the game). How do you tell your own officers that he isn't wanted by the majority of the guild or that he isn't cutting it? We had leadership elections every 5 months and it worked great . . . All the level 60s had the option to vote via a Web form for officers and officers would then elect the GM. This method automatically removes most of the causes that could eventually destroy the guild . . . like dictators, friendship influences, greedy people in charge, etc
As an engineer I've found that being a GM combines the two biggest challenges of any organizational leadership: Emotional Intelligence and Strategic Management.
Regards,
Rodrigo Jimenez
Riddance @ Smolderthorn-US
First of all, thanks for the awesome letter, Rodrigo! That's definitely the first all-Spanish-speaking guild I've heard of on American servers, though I'm sure there are others.
He also presents an interesting idea about guild management. You rarely hear about guilds holding elections for their leaders, but why not? So I started thinking that there are just as many ways to run a guild as there are to run a nation. Let's talk about a few here.
Dictatorship
By far the most common style of guild governance, there's nothing fair about a dictatorship. As your parents probably told you, "My house, my rules." Like the infamous leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-il, the dictator's word is law. He or she appoints all officers to be the eyes, ears, mouth, and various other anatomical parts of the one true leader. Loyalists are rewarded. Dissidents and undesirables disappear in the quiet hours of the morning.
Pros: Unified vision; stable leadership; no messy elections or trials; secret nuclear programs
Cons: Voiceless, disenfranchised citizens; may be parodied by South Park creators
Say what you will about it, it's a system that works for many guilds. What's the point of doing all the work and going through the hassle of being a GL if you can't run the guild the way you think it should be? A lot of GL's out there have a good deal of experience under their belts, both from WoW and other online games. Their members may not always like what they have to say, but the ones who have been doing it for a long time are right more often than not. Of course, there are plenty of exceptions. The flip side of the dictatorship coin (you know, the one with your august profile stamped on it) is that if you don't make good decisions, your guild will quickly tank. Unlike most countries governed like this, Warcraft players are free to vote in at least one way: If they don't like the way a guild is run, they can leave.
Constitutional Monarchy
I like to think of my own guild as such. Does that make me Queen Elizabeth? In a certain sense, yes. In this type of government, the monarch rules the kingdom, yet does not hold absolute power. A governing body deals with many of the day-to-day details of running the country. The monarch may exercise a prerogative over the government, but he or she must act according to existing constitutional laws and precedents. The monarch also serves as the symbolic representative of his or her kingdom and plays a large social role, among both the populace and other world leaders.
Pros: More representative than a dictatorship; leadership is stable but not godlike in power; it's good to be the king
Cons: Easy to become too symbolic and lose all voice in government; paparazzi
This style is a good choice for guild leaders who are willing to be more considerate of their members' wishes and opinions -- but who don't want to turn their guild over to just anyone who wanders in off the street and causes a fuss. It's a good compromise: You're sharing both the power and the responsibilities. However, you can't be dethroned on a whim. No one questions whose guild it is. At the same time, you're willing to listen to your "subjects" and magnanimously -- always magnanimously -- address their grievances. Don't forget to keep the family jewels polished!
Democratic Republic
A democratic republic is the place where "All men are created equal," according to Thomas Jefferson. I like to think that, had he lived in our time, he might have been a bit more p.c. with that statement. In this system, all leaders are democratically elected by the citizens (or their electors) and must be reelected on a regular basis in order to stay in power. They can be removed from power if they break the nation's laws. Citizens have rights to privacy, free speech, fair trials, and so on.
Pros: All citizens have a say in who will lead them; new leaders can bring a fresh point of view or a needed change in policy; comforting sense of smug superiority toward other counties' forms of government
Cons: Leadership can be unstable; citizens may choose ineffectual or corrupt leaders; Carrot Top
I'm intrigued by this idea. How many of you would be willing to hold an election for the GL and officer positions in your guild? How many of you think you would win? I think I'd win, but maybe I'm being naive. Or maybe no one else wants the job . . .
How would you implement a system like that? Private messages and in-game mail can be counterfeited. Web sites can be hacked. Votes in guild chat could get awfully messy -- and they'd be awfully public. It's fun to think about the possibility of guild members lining up to trade one impartial member either a Linen Cloth, a Copper Ore, or a Peacebloom to cast their vote.
And what happens when the current administration gets voted out? Do they stick around to advise the new incumbents, secretly hoping the whole operation will come crumbling down without their steady hand to guide it? Do they return to "civilian" life and join another guild as ordinary members, free from all cares and burdens?
Could it be set up like that drinking game (NSFW) we all played in college where the new "President" gets to make up just one new rule? As you can see, I'm very curious about this and I'd like to hear from other guilds who have tried this Great Experiment.
In the meantime, stay tuned for more forms of guild government in Part 2 next Monday!
/salute
Send Scott your guild-related questions, conundrums, ideas, and suggestions at scott.andrews@weblogsinc.com. You may find your question the subject of next week's Officers' Quarters!
Filed under: Officers' Quarters (Guild Leadership)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
robodex Aug 20th 2007 11:51AM
Largest US Spanish guild? If I recall correctly Los Exiliados on Hakkar had over 500 at its peak.
Then again, that's all hearsay.
tittapaFisken! Aug 20th 2007 11:54AM
very interesting topic, and also a very relevant one. way to often does one see raid leaders referring to raids as "my raid!", or GM's referring to guilds as "my guild". isnt it really every raid-members raid, and every guild-members guild?
I, for one, think that all rules, decisions etc in a guild should be made by the members, not the GM.
Slarti Aug 20th 2007 12:22PM
I am one of the current three GMs of a guild that's trying to do it the democratic way. We hold an election every 3 months to elect three GMs with equal power. Everyone in the guild can be a candidate for this election.
So far this has worked pretty well, the guild is still alive almost two years after it has been founded, the guild has seen several different GM councils during that time and our members have always elected leaders that were able to do the job.
Of course such a system can only function if the majority of the guild members (and especially those that get elected to be GMs) support it and want it to be that way. That saves us from problems like GMs which don't want to surrender their powers and similar stuff. In fact, we have created this guild with this democratic system after our old guild was being "terrorized" by a GM who liked the feeling of being the almighty leader, but didn't realize that it's the members who make up a guild, not its leader. In the end, those members (together with the officers that said GM appointed) showed him this fact by leaving the guild and creating a new one. And because we didn't want this new guild to die of the same reason like the old one someday, we decided to switch the system to a democracy. So far it has worked out well.
Chris Aug 20th 2007 12:52PM
Most of us would like to believe that guild members are interested in the development/growth of the guild. In my experience running multiple 100+ member guilds, this is very often not true.
It is easy to say something like:
[quote]all rules, decisions etc in a guild should be made by the members, not the GM.[/quote]
Unfortunately, it is most often the case that guild members simply choose not to participate. So...you have a handful of guild members who do participate. This handful winds up doing 95% of the work involved in guild upkeep and most likely becomes your officer core.
If, at some point, the officer core does bring the guild up to the point where there are more guildies interested in policy; would you then propose they allow the new folks to vote on whether they should be turned out?
It is a question I have asked myself many times. The conclusion I have reached is: although you would like to treat your guild as a democracy, it usually doesn't work in the MMORPG environment (most times, I see some have been able to do it successfully, and I applaud that).
So, what you wind up with is, effectively, an Oligarchy where, the small group of folks that have helped your guild develop are entrusted with most of the power. As is often seen in our own government, the illusion of Democracy is granted. But, in truth, the power is held by few, and most of the members are clueless that their vote means next to nothing.
Ana Aug 20th 2007 1:00PM
"Unfortunately, it is most often the case that guild members simply choose not to participate. So...you have a handful of guild members who do participate. This handful winds up doing 95% of the work involved in guild upkeep and most likely becomes your officer core."
Completely agreed. I'd step down tomorrow if I thought there were enough people with the enthusiasm and capability of running my guild. The only time I get to, say, read a book anymore is when I'm vacationing (no internets FTW).
I'm curious about how, exactly, Scott's guild is a Constitutional Monarchy. What specific power-sharing techniques do you use, and with whom do you use them in the guild? Do you have an actual Constitution? The description is rather too vague to be useful as it stands, I think.
Freehugz Aug 20th 2007 1:46PM
I don't get the constitutional monarchy either.
I think most guilds run off a dictatorship with a council behind the dictator. At least that's how my guild does things. On the surface it seems like there's 1 person making the decisions, but he runs all the improtant decisions by his council first. It works out quite nicely.
Candina@WH Aug 20th 2007 1:59PM
@4 This handful winds up doing 95% of the work involved in guild upkeep and most likely becomes your officer core.
This is the truth behind all not-for-profit / all volunteer organizaztions. Having been the 'Dictator' postion in a couple of IRL All Volunteer organizations, that's how it always works out.
You get an excited core, who does everything, burns out, and if your lucky, you have new! enthusiastic! members to step into their places. If not, the whole thing goes south.
All of you dictators out there, ask yourself - do you believe that this guild will die without you? If so, then your guild will die, regardless, because you have become too controlling and too exclusive in your ways.
The only way for the guild to become self sustaining is to involve everyone. Not just the chosen, proven few. Have a couple of newbs run the raid, who cares if you wipe. They get experience, and keep their own enthusiasm pointed at your guild. Eventually, when one of your 'core' members GAFITAs (Get away from it all), you will have a semi-experienced, enthusiastic leader to fill in.
my 2 coppers worth
Shiro Aug 20th 2007 2:14PM
I was actually in a Democratic/Despot guild at one point.
There was a GL who was in absolute power and ran the position of Raid Leader. His word was law with regards to the guild raids, and lewt, etc.
Beyond him, every other guild position was elected. There was a recruitment officer, an events officer, a donations officer, and a few others who I can't remember right now.
Basically, all the GL cared about was the raids. Everything else was up to the appropriate officer. Elections were every 2 months, and once in power you were welcome to change whatever you wanted with regards to your position. Elections were held via PMs on the Website.
The difficulty (as noted above) was that you had really wildly variant rules in place depending on the person in charge. We went from open recruitment (anyone who wants in is in) to a more strict recruitment (only classes we need for raiding allowed in), to social recruitment (only people we like are in), to referral only recruitment (only people we know, and have run stuff with). All of that occured over a 6 month period. :P Then after that, each new officer just picked the one of those that they liked the best and ran with it.
The positions seemed to flip a lot. Mostly because those who were dissatisfied were more likely to come and vote. The events position went from a social person (who made a lot of events that included everyone) to a progression person (events to help gear up members) to a leveling person (events to help level characters), and then back again. Again, most of this was because people just didn't like what was currently going on so they voted someone else in. Hardly anyone managed to please everyone in the guild. :(
Perrins Aug 20th 2007 2:24PM
VIVA LA REVOLUCION!!!!
PyroAmos Aug 20th 2007 5:05PM
best guild setup i've ever seen was high council run. 5 HC members all equal voted on everything. In the event one of them couldn't play as much as was required, he'd get voted down and a new council member was voted up, all by the high council. Keeps the power in the hands of the 5 (rotating leadership from guild-voting sounds like a bad idea IMO), and out of just 1 persons hand. There was a ton of thought that went behind who made high council, because they only made a new one when one of the others stepped down or was removed, so about once every 3 or 4 months someone new made HC, which means it brought alot more status, commanded alot more respect and involved alot more thought and discution than the standard promote ppl you feel would be good method i see alot of guilds using nowdays. Sadly that guild fell apart... unfortunatly blizzard makes you have a guild master, you can't demote yourself to high council, and you can't promote others to guild master, and the person who was holding it decided it should be a dictorship instead, which lead to him being voted out, guild reformed with everyone 'cept him (I was voted into replace him on HC), then he convinced a bunch of ppl that it was unfair, and split the guild.
Kinda sad, we proably would of done really well in BC if he hadn't.... we had solid 30 players, that were all really skilled and worked well together (we didn't open-reqruit... our reqruiting policy involved pugging with people, until we found someone we thought was really good, pugging with them a few more times, maybe pull them into ZG as 'filler pug', and if they performed well, offer them a spot. Which is why we only had 30 ppl lo.... our first time in MC though we had 33 people, only 2 of them had been in MC before and we cleared first 3 bosses in a night... we were good, and the perfect size for BC raiding... would of been perfect if the person who had guild master rank (Diftherya, I hate you) didn't go nuts.
regardless guild master run guilds (whether you call it monarchy or dictorship, its the same thing) work alot worst IMO, seen tons of guilds fall apart cause the guild master decided to transfer, stop playing, finds out his wife is cheating with him on vent, ect.
P.S> Monarchy is just the nice word for dictorship... look at your descriptions, they're the exact same thing, one worded negativly, one worded posativly.
Cads Aug 20th 2007 11:23PM
Personally I don't care that my vote means nothing, what matters to me is that with too many officers it becomes a cronyistic and exclusive social club where the officers trash talk members in /o chat and hang out in their own special forums that members can't access.
I was a "council member" for a while in a guild and /g chat was always silent but /o chat was nonstop, and I finally left for a guild that had 4 officers only cause I got sick of all the trash talking of members. Then that guild adopted a class lead system and suddenly 10+ people were in /o chat, same thing happened, and I'm gone again.
My ideal guild, and the one that I would run if I had such an inclination, would have as few officers as possible and only then it would be for administrative purposes. I would combat exclusion and elitism as much as possible because I know what these feelings will do to your best players.
OrionPaxt Aug 21st 2007 7:16AM
I am a Guild Leader. I refuse to use the term Guild "master". The position title is precepts which is latin for 1st among equals. All members in our guild are equal in that they have equal opportunty to the guild resourses and offices. The guild craftsmen and raid leaders are usually veterans and officers that serve the guild in some capacity. Any member can become an officer and all members have votes in policy making.
Kyane Aug 21st 2007 3:56PM
@4
Definitely knows what he's talking about.
Elysi Nov 12th 2007 10:20AM
I am the GL of a successful guild with about 70 members and 140 toons. We have a charter(constitution) that we follow. It GUIDES us, it does not bind us because we are all rational adults that can adapt to situations. We prefer that our officers make the decisions as a group on membership issues, loot rules, etc. Because we are very careful about who becomes an officer this works out nicely. It is nice to see that voting and changing leadership works well for some guilds, however we are mostly adults and I believe that steady leadership provides a constant that adults can count on (and saves on the drama). I would like to clarify something though about democracy. I am a US citizen and a lot of Americans think they live in a democracy (it's a representative republic) and they do not. Democracy: two wolves and one sheep voting on what's for dinner or "mob rule." If our guild were to ever change styles, my personal preference would be one where the members elect individuals to represent them. Beware leaving too many decisions up to the masses to decide or your guild may become the sheep!(casual-crusaders.net we are on Echo Isles)