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This is not a complaint blog post. I promise. Stick with me here for a moment.
So I'm sitting on the United flight back from the Digital Hollywood conference. Somewhere to the right of me someone has their iPod cranked up to 110 decibels. So loud that I can hear every word of Loggins and Messina's "Angry Eyes."
Nice song, but I like to choose when I listen to it. I am annoyed.
I'd drown it out with an airplane channel but the plane's audio system isn't working. I'd listen to air traffic control (reminds me of the old Microprose game) but with the system dead the 'phones hang useless around my neck.
We taxi out and they give the "Turn off everything" speech. The iPod continues to blare. Now it's playing Linda Ronstadt -- this person has a suicidal willingness to interfere with our plane's navigation and the entire NATO satellite system. I look over, can't see who it is, wonder why no one else seems to notice.
As we get ready to take off I once again take the airline headphones from around my neck and put them on. The left earpiece is still dead.
The right earpiece is blasting Linda Ronstadt.
The crew had reset the system -- thus changing the channel -- and re-started the audio. The 110 decibel passenger was a tinny speaker two inches from my ear.
I'd spent ten minutes blaming other people for something that was under my control. I felt pretty stupid.
So what does this have to do with game development?
We all have the ability to understand why we do things "our way." But people we don't know well... they're the idiots on the plane with their iPods turned up to 110 decibels!
"Don't they know how to place objects properly? I keep having to fix everything they touch!" (Because they're used to a different convention.)
"Have these Bozos ever done lighting before? They must have spent five whole minutes on this room!" (Because the Art Director told them to rough it in fast so she could look at it.)
"I go to the meeting every week and explain to them about conserving RAM and every week they check in assets that break all the rules!" (Because the Exec Producer reamed them for not meeting his quality standard.)
Our teams will mirror our attitudes.
If we as leaders are always complaining about Marketing, about that rival team in [Canada, China, Headquarters...] that gets all the resources, about that guy who ran the focus group and asked all the questions the wrong way, we feed this "the other guy is an idiot" mentality.
Because we're role modeling it.
And sometimes we're the ones who are the problem. The teams could get along fine. But they see the leaders playing the blame game and they follow our lead. What if we saw it differently? What if one of the major jobs of a team leader was to recognize that misunderstandings happen, search for them, and then resolve them in a no-blame way? What if during this next week you got people together from each group for a no-blame meeting? Started out something like, "We've had some misunderstandings here and we need to get everyone's input to find the right way to do things going forward." How long would that meeting take? How much time will be wasted on the issue if you don't bother to have the meeting? Is there an issue with another group where you could pick up the phone, call the appropriate manager and be the first to say, "Looks like we've got some different assumptions. When can we go to lunch and kick around the best way to be on the same page going forward?" Maybe you don't lead the group, you're just part of the team. Who could you invite to lunch where the topic could be brought up in a no-blame way? Who could help you start making things better without pointing fingers? Pick a small issue at first if you want. Just try it. But please don't tell anybody how I stupidly blamed half an airplane full of people for something I did myself! Copyright (c) 2008, Don Daglow.
Is there an issue where you already know that two groups within your team keep miscommunicating? And each thinks the other doesn't care?
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