Officers' Quarters: Two heads > one
by Scott Andrews 
Dec 17th 2007 at 11:00AM
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.I sometimes envy those two-headed ogres. Imagine if you could fill out your tax forms and play Warcraft at the same time. Hmm, has anyone actually done that? This week's e-mail comes from a pair of players who want to start a guild as co-leaders. Can a guild survive with two GL's running the show?
I have a question or two I'd like to ask you, oh great guild master guru. My friends (RL) are all going to reroll on another server because most of them are new, while I have two 70's already. My friends count a total of around 6, maybe a 7th if he decides to join us on retail instead of private servers. We will start a guild of course and one of my friends (who has a 70 already) and I will be the guild masters. I will be the raid leader and such and he will be the PvP leader. We came to this agreement mutually and have decided that we will be each other's counsel. A small system of checks and balances, if you will. Our main reason for choosing ourselves is because of our extensive experience and we get along together, not to mention work like a well-oiled machine in almost all situations. While this will be our first time actually leading the guild, we have both been officers in several different types of guilds and we have sort of an inkling as to what we need to do.
My question is: Is this bipartisan (excuse the loose word usage) leadership a good idea? And could you give us some tips on starting/leading a guild? Just the vital things! :D
Even though I've known all my real life friends for a long time and we rarely fight, I would hate it if something in-game would happen that would devastate a friendship, as I know thats happened before. My friends and I would love a drama-free community of active players, while it is close to impossible. But that's what we'll strive for.
Thanks for your time,
Katey 70 Paladin (Maelstrom <The Shadow Watch>)
Raymund 70 Druid (Silver Hand <Order of the Rose>)
Thank you for writing, Katey and Raymund. Your plan sounds like a great idea to me! Since you've both been officers in the past, I'm sure you know the amount of time and effort that can go into it. Sharing the load is never a bad thing. Also, since you both have your respective areas of expertise, you won't be stepping on each other's toes too much.
However, being co-leaders is very different from being officers. You'll have to make some difficult decisions sometimes. Without a single person in charge, it will be easy to pass the buck back and forth indefinitely until the issue blows up. So I recommend designating one of you to be the "official drama-solver." The other person should balance that out by taking on some of the other unpleasant assignments, like dealing with all the DKP stuff or setting up and maintaining the bank.
Another question to consider: What if the two of you disagree on an important issue? What's the tiebreaker? Do you put it to a vote among the other officers? Flip a coin? Duel for it? It seems like one of you would be the final decision-maker on PvE issues and the other on PvP issues. But not every problem can be divided into those categories. What if there's an applicant that one of you wants to invite but the other doesn't? Figure out your tiebreaker policy now and save yourselves some grief in the future.
Speaking of applicants, I assume you will be adding more members beyond the six or seven you know in real life. Prepare yourselves for friction between this RL crew and the members you only know from the game, particularly for the first few recruits. Joining a guild where 90% of the members know each other in real life is a bit like joining a fraternity/sorority. You feel like you have to prove yourself to this group. But in the meantime, you don't know how anyone is going to react to you right away. You don't know the inside jokes, so a lot of the social conversations are just baffling. So make an effort to integrate the new people and make them feel welcome.
Above all, avoid a scenario where the RL friends are their own elite clique. If want to minimize your drama, you won't favor them over the other members. There can be no special unspoken loot rules or auto-invites for raids just because they're a friend. Most importantly, you'll have to be fair and impartial when a dispute arises. As a friend, you'll want to support the people that you know and trust. But as the co-GL's, you have to put yourselves above that and resolve the argument without bias. Treating your friends like VIP's and everyone else like a second-class citizen is a surefire way to make sure no one but your friends remains in the guild for very long.
Your friends may be expecting to get a free pass to act like jerks because they're friends with the GL's. Make sure they all know from Day 1 that this won't be the case. If they know ahead of time that sometimes you'll have to wear your GL hat and make a tough decision for the good of the guild, hopefully they'll be more understanding when a problem comes up.
If you can avoid all these pitfalls, you will have a much better chance to succeed as a guild. I applaud you for taking on the responsibilities and providing your friends with a community where you can all have fun together. As for some tips on getting started, let me refer you to this column I wrote a few months ago about starting a new guild. If you're looking for logistics info, there's this handy FAQ on guild creation, courtesy of Ashling on Greymane. Good luck, you two!
/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), Guilds
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Buuty Dec 17th 2007 11:04AM
"Can a guild survive with two GL's running the show?"
As a general rule, the answer is no, just as in the real world with business partnership.
Each person needs to fill the role they are best at the the guild will thrive. Making it about who is leader and not what would make the best guild is a recipe for disaster.
Warship Dec 17th 2007 11:23AM
I don't see a problem with having two guild leaders in your situation. As long as you keep your roles separate and distinct ie. one of you in charge of PvP and one in charge of raiding, you shouldn't have any problems.
Providing you don't enroah upon the other person's territory and respect the decisions they make regarding their area of expertise.
Charlie Dec 18th 2007 12:16PM
i think that was what he was trying to say.
Having two guild "leaders" never works, but if you respect each other, and do what your good at, it works.
They way i run my guild similar. I am the guild "leader" but i only handle PR and internal drama, as well as im the webmaster. I have 3 officer, 1 recruiting, 1 main raid leader, and 1 pvp leader. After that i have class leads.
The 4 main officers (myself included) form a council. I only use my "GM" powers if there is a dispute we just cannot come to a conclusion.
Jay Dec 17th 2007 11:22AM
It can most definitely work. I was co-leader of a guild in a very similar situation, we had a very successful two year run prior to the two of us burning out and deciding it was time to turn over leadership and take a backseat role... Our starting base was a group of about 12 RL friends and family, and we are very good friends and co-workers in RL. The biggest difference is that we had NO experience leading a guild, raiding, etc., though we are both leaders in RL, we had to learn the specifics of leadership in an online world and the challenges when it comes to leading in a game... But we were greatly successful for two years.
Scott's advice is very sound in making sure you have dispute resolution in place and make sure the RL friends understand the need to be fair and impartial. In both cases, the best piece of advice I can offer, the one thing that made our lives easier, is to clearly document and publish the policies and processes ahead of time. Make sure you've agreed to the tiebreaker/dispute resolution process before it is needed, be sure the loot and raid invite rules and processes are documented and that everyone understands that they will be followed as documented, no one will be granted exceptions to the rules not the officers, not the RL friends.
If you are open, honest, upfront and have clearly defined rules and processes that you stick to it can work out quite well. Business partnerships work out well all the time, few successful organizations work where one person is the sole leader, but the key to the successful partnerships is clearly defined roles, the CEO and President share ownership and leadership, but clearly understand their role and agree on how things will operate.
A few other brief thoughts: make sure you include none RL friends in your officer cadre and make sure you avoid the pitfall of discussing changes in RL only then just posting the results of those discussions, it's fine to have RL discussions and have a solid sense of unity, but you need to have guild discussions that allow the non-RL membership to feel they aren't outsiders in your little fraternity.
SchmuseTigger Dec 22nd 2007 10:29AM
We heave 5 Leaders in our Raid.
Does work, but needs a lot of communication. Not only between the leaders but also the rest of the Raid.
Good Point is, we always have someone online and we always have somebody to lead the raid.
Bad Points, lots of discussions, everything takes time..
alex Dec 17th 2007 11:31AM
2 GM's can work in certain situations.
Married Couple
Friends in RL
Family in RL
2 GM's who don't know each other in rl will eventually fall apart.
faradhim Dec 17th 2007 11:34AM
I want add my 2 cents on running guild with real life friend. What it comes down to is the maturity level you exhibit. It will work if both of GMs have a laid back personality. Or if one is dominated while other is recessive. If both of you are hands on then another good way to go is clearly define each GM's area of responsibility (i.e. one take care of recruiting, promotion, another for guild bank, raid, etc). Since the rule of the game is clearly established ahead of the time there will be fewer area of contention.
Also, to have both GMs on the equal footing I strongly recommend that whoever want to do this go to a new realm or a new side you don't normally play on. This way both GM starts at level 1 again and they can contribute equally to advance guild's interest. You don't want pitty comments like "my level 70 character donated 1000 GP to the guild, what have you done?".
Running a guild together is like making a marriage work, you need to work together, be considerate and be mature.
Read our guild WOW blog at:
========================
http://doctorsofphilosophy.blogspot.com/
Jurarandonee Dec 17th 2007 1:25PM
I run a small guild on a PvP server with one of my alts, for family and friends that we know, mostly. Mainly we use it for comunication in game, finding each other, sharing items of value, and repairs but not for much else...yet... This article tells me maybe I better get some of this sorted out for the future...
It begs the question, what is a guild for? We made ours mainly for the reasons listed above, but also so that people wouldn't keep inviting us to THEIR guild, and so that our commitment to the game remained resonable... We're largely weekend gamers and folks who want to solo without being pestered to join a guild all the time.
Cheers,
Jurarandonee
Cheers,
Jurandonee
java Dec 17th 2007 3:19PM
As a general rule, its a really really bad idea. Co-Guild Leaders can be incredibly problematic.
Behind the scense disagreements can cause friction RL/In-Game friends or not.
To your guildies, confusions on conflict resolution can be an issue.
These are perspectives from a former G/L of a hardcore raiding guild. If you're intent is to be casual you may have better success.
My suggestion, flip a coin.. paper/rock/scissors - best 2 out of 3 or some other trivial RL way to settle it that will still leave you friends in RL if things dont work out the way you were hoping they would you can always look back and say - well if it hadn't been for the "rock" we'd still have a guild.
Regardless, whomever becomes the GL - its just a game and if it doesnt work out, again its just a game. Good Luck.
Milktub Dec 17th 2007 12:10PM
I wouldn't be worried by the co-leadership thing so much as a guild that seems to be splitting its focus into both PvP and PvE. I've seen guilds fall apart because people would rather arena/BG than gather raid consumables and visa versa.
But co-leadership can work as long as the two GLs really do agree on everything, or at least will support each other's decisions on guild matters 100%. Don't make it into a situation where if someone has a grievance they'll go to you and if they don't like your response they go to your friend. You'd end up then with a split guild -- those who support you and those who support your friend.
Jason Dec 17th 2007 12:20PM
I've got nothing new to say about two folks running one guild, but I have done my taxes while playing WoW. TurboTax online FTW!
Alenthor Dec 17th 2007 12:25PM
I think something really really important to note here is communication. Any decision made while the other isn't there should be posted in the forums, this is to prevent decisions to be made that go against each other, and also helps the other GL know what is going on.
Jason Sweeney Dec 17th 2007 1:11PM
Everyone sees it,
Generally Speaking doesn't a lot of Guild's end up being 2 or three Leaders?
Ive been in a few that Have a Mother and Father type or a Day and Night GL. As long as the policy on stuff like gear it usually works great, unless the probablem revolves its self around one of the GL's.
and yea my first guild, everyone came from a seperate game as a unit so a lot of the new recruits had no idea what we were talking about. But once teh first three got comfertable, it worked itself out. :)
-Nox
kenney Dec 17th 2007 1:32PM
As a player looking at guilds, I'd find co-leadership to be symptomatic of a guild that couldn't even resolve the first hard question- and 2 would be a bigger turn-off than 3. If the guild had accomplished some kind of progression, I'd be willing to be wrong.
If you are committed to this path, then I'd suggest you re-divide the labor along one of you being the Guild Leader, and the other being the Raid/Pvp Leader. What does the guild leader do? Handle the inter-guild drama. Handle the complaints about guild members. Handle the DKP and Guild bank. Basically, handle all the politics and infrastructure.
The Raid Leader would figure out what he wanted in terms of raid composition, and trust the guild leader to work on getting that for him. He would set progression objectives and coach his team into shape for acheiving those goals. He would determine the objectives of the DKP/loot system, and work with the GM to finalize the details to make sure that whatever loot distribution was in place would function to most empower the raids for success.
The co-gm model just seems way to susceptible to abuse by the guild. Whenever you wanted something, you'd go to the GM most likely to tell you what you wanted to hear. I think in the long term, this structure would REALLY encourage two factions in the guild to form, and make the guild susceptible to splitting.
I also think this would be very hard on your friendship, in ways you can't see unless you have ever run a business partnership with a friend.
Druid dude Dec 17th 2007 1:44PM
Co-Leadership of a guild is a proverbial double-edged sword. It is essentially leadership by committee. Issues with this arise by not having both a singular vision and methodology for attaining that vision. It can work if in theory if the two share nearly the exact same vision for the guild, and the ways of achieving that vision. It may sound simple, but in reality its almost impossible to pull off.
It sounds like you have a solid start though, by defining clear areas of responsibility. You will want to take that one step further, using some of the suggestions in this article. It will save you untold grief in the long run.
I have found that in running a guild, like a small business, the best chance for winning is by having a single person at the top who knows what he is doing, and has RL management experience, successful RL management experience. That person then needs to surround himself with highly competent people that can act as a sanity check and provide invaluable input, as well as take on some of the workload. In this scenario, the leader provides the big picture vision and goals, while that person's officers/advisers help with the details and implementation aspects of achieving the goals, all the while providing a much needed reality check for the leader. But at the end of the day, it has to come down to that one person leading, and being right about what needs to be done.
Shumina Dec 18th 2007 12:23PM
Running a guild is so fantastically difficult even with just one person at the helm. My oppinion: Can't hurt to try it with two leaders. What's great is that they're trying something different to solve issues that don't seem to go away.
Good luck you two!
sp Dec 17th 2007 10:05PM
Actually a council type of guild leadership is superior in many ways. Our guild consists of 5 council members(odd number for tiebreaker votes if we don't agree on something)
This eliminates the perception of a totalitarian dictatorship type of leadership structure for one and allows us to efficiently manage multiple tasks such as DKP, Recruiting, Raid focus, etc.
Make sure the people you pick for council are people you can get along with and trust, several groups of RL friends works extremely well as long as you are focused on the same objectives whether they be pvp or pve.
In addition to our council members we also have class leaders which allows us to be even more productive since we have build and gear checks covered.
superdx Dec 18th 2007 10:28AM
A guild leader doesn't need to be always one person. There is not one guild leader that I have talked to on 5 servers that has not burned out at least once. You need people to share the responsibility. One person making all the decisions is just breeding grounds for drama. The more input you have, the better decisions you can make.
The common analogy amongst airline captain training courses is don't be Kirk, be Picard. I'm sure a few of you who've watched Discovery Channel has seen this topic come up a few times.
While there will always be one or two voices that are very vocal in the guild and carry a lot of weight with it's members, it's important to maintain a balance. Guild level decisions need to be consulted by a group of officers which represent the guild. These can be class officers, or just officers in general. If you can get 5-7 people agreeing on a decision, it's easier to swallow rather than 1 person making a decision and having to defend it all by himself.
There are no GMs in my guild, we just have a council of officers. The rules are simple - anyone in the council can bring up a topic to vote on, and a majority vote will pass. A vote can take place in officer chat or in our forums, as long as a majority takes place. If it doesn't pass, well, obviously you need to discuss it more! In general, I find that there will actually be 1-2 people bringing up topics, while the rest simply vote.
It's a really good system IMO, and it prevents power abuse. Officers who do things on their own are penalized using a strike system. Each strike expires after 3 months, so it discourages the Kirk attitude that GMs tend to have to repeatedly do things on their own. Granted, there are cases where officers must immediately take action, and the council can vote on it later to see whether or not it was justified.
To be honest, guild management is not about making the right decision. It's preventing abuse of power. People make mistakes, but as long as you get enough people making a mistake with you, it's not as bad and won't kill the guild. As long as there's the attitude that there's trial and error, and that people accept that making a decision may not work, then you'll be 90% moving towards having a very stable foundation of officers.