Guild Conflicts

Managing a mmorpg online’s guild. Brilliant stuff.

I’ve got this from a friend not so long ago:

We’ve been experiencing some internal problems in our WoW guild since it was created 3 years ago, up to the point that we barely resemble the social group that we were back then. Those problems have not disappeared, nor solved, and I wonder if it is strictly particular to our guild.

Our guild was formed by friends who knew each other in real life, it was the dawn of our little brotherhood. I was slightly detached from the group, since I was still leveling up and the rest had reached lvl 60 (before BC) a while ago, so I was just a young night elf priest wandering around and killing murlocs here and there, knowing nothing about the life of a level 60 and the need of better gear.

However, every now and then there was someone who complained about something in the guild’s board. As a rule, the complaint often generated a big turmoil, pages and pages of discussing and arguing, and many times it ended with someone leaving the guild.

Nowadays, it keeps happening, and I believe it is on the guild’s leaders fault, or ultimately, it is their responsibility to solve it… or see the guild agonize or even die. “

Well, in my opinion, the guy is right. It doesn’t matter who’s fault it is, there is someone who decided to take the reins and lead the social group to certain goals. He and those designed by him are the ones in charge to solve anything that might prevent the group from reaching those goals, and there are many ways to do it.

This raises a common question for guilds: how should they be ruled in order to obtain the best results?

Well, as a matter of fact, there is not just one way to operate and obtain best results, but there is one that will allow the guild to exist as a healthy environment to evolve and obtain those results, eventually.

No matter how many (awful) wrong decisions you might take, they will be worth trying and people will be at your side if you have got the needed charisma in you. (Note: Yes, you will need a great load of charisma if you keep on making the wrong decisions, but still, you can overcompensate).

Knowing how to confront situations will help the leader to… lead, which in the end is what the job is about. Confronting people instead of situations will difficult the task and won’t really help anyone. This is what I would do, as a leader:

MANUAL FOR THE GOOD LEADERS

1) Find reliable people as officers, raid leaders and class leaders. You’re about to create a social structure, so you better find solid pillars to sustain your hierarchy.

2) Structure the work and share the weight with your men. Because even with solid pillars, the weight should be sustained equally or someone’s head is going to explode (probably yours).

3) Create an atmosphere of confidence, seed illusion in the hearts of your fellow guild members!! People want to believe that they are going somewhere in the same proportion that they want to be part of it, but they do not know how. The leader is responsible for this, you must give them illusion and make them move to your goals. Or that was what you stepped up for, in case that you didn’t know, pal.

4) Keep following rule 3 when things make a turn for the bad. Wipes and wrong tactics will come and then you’ll be asked for direction, but maybe they won’t be that polite in expressing themselves and will say something like: “did you really think that this would work, you asshole?”.

Don’t lose your temper, you’re the righteous hand of justice, the wise brain of… brainland, you can’t be disturbed by that, can you? Explain yourself calmly, try to learn from the experience and above all: show a detailed analysis of what happened and how to solve it. If you show intelligence and serenity, they will try to play along and discuss things in the same vein.

5) Sometimes people get pissed off no matter what. Take that as a critic, that’s brilliant stuff to improve.

Speak your mind intelligently, be fair, let them express themselves in an opinionated way, and stress out (politely) the fact that there’s no room for offensive language, in case that there is.

If you keep being calm, explaining yourself in a keen way, and they keep being pissed off in a destructive way, they will discredit themselves and no one will stick with them.

6) Accept constructive criticism, use other people’s ideas and take it in your own benefit. It helps your politics to accept other people’s ideas, they might be great ideas and you just have to use them to make your people feel that they are part of the success.

That’s pretty much it. Then, we can get down to particulars, but everything gravitates around these points. If you can’t manage to do this, maybe you have not what it takes to lead properly, and fights will arise every now and then.

It will be hard anyway, because it requires hard work and dedication, and you’re not paid for it.  So even if you’re doing great with the basics, you can get pissed off more often than you think. But once again, it was you who decided to step up and lead some people to conquer Azeroth.

Any other suggestions will be considered and discussed. Go ahead, people.