Personalized Team Leadership august 2015

Personalized Team Leadership Summary

Jeffrey HouchensLeadership – GDN3101Full Sail UniversityAugust 28, 2015

ABSTRACT

The nine chapters of Seth Spaulding’s book, Team Leadership in the Game Industry, detail Seth's experience through conferences and interviews on how to be a effective leader. He explains a leader’s importance in a game studio and how it affects the rest of the company. In this presentation I will summarize each chapter with a simple one sentence citation. Afterwards, I will explain how the chapter has affected me in the past, currently and how I will use my developmental goals and what I’ve learned from the chapter in the future.

Chapter 1: How We Got Here (pg. 1-22)

• Growing companies need to consider issues with departmental and project leadership (Spaulding, 2009).

• In the past at my current employer, technicians got into confrontations with the current lead who had no to little training on how to be a lead

• I’ve realized over time how important it is for management to be involved in a company especially as a team changes or grows. Faceless management is a recipe for disaster: poor morale, employee turnover and low productivity

Current and Future Application

• It’s clear that technology will continue to advance, increasing the need for additional staff with the required skill sets.

• In light of my personal development goals, one skill I need to continue to work on is my idealized influence when I identify the talents of each team member and help them develop their skills.

Chapter 2: The Anatomy of a Game-Development Company (pg. 23-58)• “Leaders should work to maintain a single company

identity and foster an environment of mutual respect, open exchange, and support between projects and departments.” (Spaulding, 2009)

• At my current employer, Facilities and Operations used to have BBQs, Christmas dinners, and gathers together for our three buildings that are rough 2,000ft a part. Once we got merged with another company, all that stopped, ruining morale.

• As the company grew, management should have maintained that identity and maintained that open exchange and personalization.


• Establishing and maintaining a current organizational chart can promote transparency by giving employees a clear picture of the organizational structure. Management needs to always consider future growth and plan how they will manage each department after expansion

• Based on my developmental goals and as a future leader, I will continue to understand the importance of creating a community culture within an organization no matter how large it becomes. It’s also important to assess the organizational structure to ensure there is enough head count for the number of projects coming in.

Chapter 3: How Leaders are Chosen, are Supported, Perform, and Why (pg. 59-86)• “The goal is always to find the right person and match

them to the right role within the company.” (Spaulding, 2009)

• At my current employer, from what I’ve learned, I now see that the current lead was placed in his position because he was skilled at being a technician. The Manager supports him because he has a lot of knowledge about the job. He, however, does not have any leadership skills and should not have been promoted to the lead position. It has been apparent from the way he handles situations and conflicts poorly.


• As a leader currently, I need to understand each followers’ skill sets so I can determine which position or project task is best for them.

• When hiring new leads internally or externally, I will take the time to understand what skills the company needs so I can properly evaluate applicants.

• I will be weary of hiring applicants that have strong skills in production, but little to no leadership experience. If I do hire/promote them due to time constraints, I will mentor and monitor them closely.

Chapter 4: A Litmus Test for Leads (pg. 87-114)• “The critical thing for a new lead is to be able to make the

managerial transition successfully.” (Spaulding, 2009)

• In the past, I have been able to listen to co-workers to get an idea of what motivates them or what they value. I’ve used this information to change my communication methods with them.


• In the future and relating to my leadership development goals, in order to effectively communicate to my followers, I need to have an understanding of their personalities so I know how they will respond to feedback

• I need to be conscious of my behavior and set it as a model for others. As a positive model, morale will most likely be higher and followers will be more productive

Chapter 5: Leadership Types and Traits: Assessment Developments and Strategies (pg. 115-141)

• A deeper understand of a leader’s own motivations, desires, and competencies allows them to make better decisions and communicate with their team more effectively (Spaulding, 2009)

• In the past, I’ve had issues with conflict as a leader. I tend to try and avoid it as much as possible and I procrastinate with addressing it.


• In light of my leadership development goals, I currently need to analyze my personal motivations and competencies so I can better understand my strengths and weaknesses

• I also need to strengthen my incompetency's, such as my tendency to procrastinate with resolving conflict. I can then turn those weaknesses into strengths and become a better leader overall.

• In the future, if there is an area of the job that I’m not fully comfortable with, I may seek guidance from another lead to resolve an issue.

Chapter 6: The Project Team Leader: Roles and Responsibilities (pg. 143-180)• Leads for all disciples are expected to be vision holders for

the project (Spaulding, 2009)

• In the past at my current position, when we had multiple servers to rack and stack, I’ve had to be the positive influence to keep the rest of the team motivated

• I’ve accomplished being a positive influence by looking at the reasoning for the project from a company perspective and communicating that to other team members even though I wasn’t the lead


• In my current position, I try to ensure that other team members have all the information they need to understand a project scope and timeline it has to be completed.

• In the future as a leader, I also want to ensure that all team members have the tools needed to complete a project. I will distribute the project tasks evenly throughout the team and I will communicate the instructions to the team in a professional friendly manner.

Chapter 7: The Department Leader: Roles and Responsibilities (pg. 181-214)• “The department director presents and champions a vision

for how the department functions within the larger company and how members of the department function on each project team” (Spaulding, 2009)

• In the past, I’ve seen faceless management where projects and tasks go unnoticed. If the team didn’t take care of it independently, the manager wouldn’t have known there even was a project until the project was way behind schedule. This typically is a risky situation and can lead to poor results for the department and company


• Currently, I try to lead-up, lead-down and lead-across to keep everyone informed on what is going on in our office. I also pay attention to what others are doing. If I see that they are underperforming or doing something that may negatively affect their yearly reviews, I step in and try to help them

• In the future as a department leader, I will have frequent meetings with other leads to stay involved on what’s going on. I will lead by example and create a vision that each department can follow. For performance reviews, I will create a process that is fair and current for each position. The reviews will be unbiased and performance based according to the metrics I have previously created.

Chapter 8: Difficult Employees, Underperformers, and Bad Leads (pg. 215-242)• “…ineffective handling of poor performers can actually do every bit as much

damage as that wrought by the poor performers themselves…” (Spaulding, 2009)

• The lead at my current employer used to work over 60 hours each week. He got into the habit where he actually stayed at work several days of the week. The thing is, there was no work to do so there was no need for the overtime. Based on his badge reports, we estimate that he received over $100,000 in bogus overtime for the year and he did this for over three years. We brought it to the attention of management, but they told us to mind our own business. HR and the Vice President of Ops finally figured out there were issues with his overtime and made a drastic decision to stop all overtime in the entire company (over 10k employees). This affected both operations and facility management drastically, all because our manager didn’t act immediately or properly.


• In my current position, there isn’t much I can control when it comes to resolving issues with my current lead’s poor ethical behaviors without going over my manager’s head. The next step for me would be to whistle blow on everything that’s been going on, but that’s a hard step for any employee to take

• In the future as a leader and manager, I need to closely monitor those in my department so I can identify issues with underperformers and bad leaders quickly. Once identified, I need to address the issues or concerns immediately so that it has as little impact on the team as possible

Chapter 9: The Effects of Great Team Leadership (pg. 243-255)• “Great leaders encourage retention by demonstrating

competence, and they help build an environment of trust that people naturally want to be a part of.” (Spaulding, 2009)

• In my current position, the VP of Operations is micromanaging each data center, even though he has a Regional Director and site managers below him that should be doing it. The lack of trust has led to many site managers and employees quitting or looking elsewhere for employment. It has also caused additional stress on the sites due to the “walking on glass” influence the VP has with his surprise visits.


• Employee turnover is a major overall company cost. When someone leaves, the company needs to hire a recruiting firm or pay for position postings in local and national listings. Employee retention is very important and as a current leader I need to promote a sense of trust within my team even though I don’t have a lead title. I can build trust within the team by effectively listening and communicating with other team members, increasing morale and increasing retention

• In the future as a leader, I will understand that high retention is mostly due to open communication, clear company values and mission, and high morale within each team. I will do my best to be a positive role model and leader within my organization to reach these goals.

References

Spaulding, S. (2009). Team Leadership in the Game Industry. Cengage Learning, Boston, MA.

Personalized Team Leadership august 2015

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