"Tact is just not saying true stuff. I'll pass"

10 points if you recognize the quote. 20 if you know the episode.

Being in a leadership position often requires a lot of lip biting (or backspacing). WoW is no different. You need to be able to tactfully tell someone how to improve. You need to be able to explain what they did wrong without hurting their feelings. And you have to stop yourself from lashing out at them for pissing you off--at least most of the time.

And frankly, it sucks.

There are days when I just want to tell it like it is. I want to be able to tell the whiny person that if they get off their ass and get some heroic gear they'd stand a much better chance of getting to raid. I want to be able to tell someone that their efforts to "help" aren't really all that helpful. And I want to be able to throw a hissy fit when things don't go as planned.

But I normally don't.

Because, despite the momentary satisfaction, the fallout is absolutely no fun at all. Having to apologize after blowing up at a guildy (who deserved it) is a lesson in humility I'd rather not have to endure again. Alienating people who help even a little just makes me feel guilty. And publicly freaking out over a botched pull, failed raid, or massive stupidity doesn't make the next pull, raid or stupid person any easier to deal with.

But I think it.

Snarky Tam is alive and well.

Who's the Boss?

In WoW there are many types of guilds. Many people join a leveling guild soon after beginning to play the game. Others have a group of friends who start a guild of their own. Some end up in twink guilds focused on lower-level PvP. Almost any aspect of the game can be the basis for the commonality needed to make a guild. Well, maybe not fishing. In my experience, raiding and end-game PvE content has led to the creation of the largest number of guilds. These guilds range from the casual to the hardcore and everything in between. And each one is run differently. Many are under the leadership of one person with a vision, but others, like mine, are run by a group of Officers who work together to handle the many responsibilities inherent in a raiding guild that also tries to be a pleasant place for all members.

I have read a few blog posts lately about guilds and how they illustrate how society works on a larger scale. What is expected of a member of a guild is what is expected in all societies--that they do their share to help the group accomplish a common goal. But who sets the goal? Who's the boss?

In some societies--and, by correllation, some guilds--the people at the top of the food chain decide what is important and everyone else falls into line. The people making these decisions are expected to focus on things that benefit the group as a whole, and as long as they do this--or have power over the group members--, they can make the decisions. If they stop making decisions that benefit everyone, they face the risk of revolution (or mass /gquit). In other cultures, the people themselves make their wishes known and do what the majority says. Still others have a combination of the two: a person or persons who lead the group, but who also listen to opinions about what should be done. But what happens when no agreement can be made? What do you do when some people really want to do one thing, others really don't, and the rest don't care enough to express much of an opinion either way?

Our guild is facing this kind of discussion at the moment. I don't want to call it a "problem," at least not yet. Right now we have a few people that really (and I mean vehemently) want to do all of the requirements for the achievement Heroic: Glory of the Raider. The 17 requirements for the Meta-Achievement include killing bosses with fewer than 21 people in the zone, changing strategies to make the fights more difficult, and keeping everyone alive on every boss fight. The reward for completing the achievement is a faster mount.

I'm not going to get into my own personal feelings about the achievement itself. Instead, I want to focus on who gets to make the decision about whether or not we adjust (and in some cases, break) our strategies to do achievements.

I can see both sides of the issue. I understand wanting to feel like you are part of the decision-making process whenever the choice affects you. (After all, that's exactly what I've been whining about in my work situation lately.) But I also know that sometimes decisions have to be made "without input from 30 different people." (Sigh, I seriously just quoted my boss. Don't you hate it when something happens to make you see the other side of the issue and then you find out you agree with the enemy?)

I guess you can figure out that I think the Officers and Raid Leaders should make the final decision about whether or not to switch things around in order to do the achievements. So I guess what I'm saying is we're the bosses. That doesn't diminish your own freedom, you are free to choose for yourselves whether or not to stay or leave, raid or not raid. But the decisions about what happens during a raid are the Officers' responsibility. And I'd appreciate you shutting up about it now.

Balance.

We all need it. And we all struggle to find it. In our families. With our friends. At work. In our guilds.

Marnas retracted a post about our guild and the way raid spots are filled. A friendly, if somewhat bumbling, melee dpser caught me tonight with some complaints. Other friends and guild members have expressed (sometimes vehemently) their feelings about raid invites. Not surprisingly, these conversations generally happen when they are not confirmed for a raid.

Why do they talk to me? Well, for one I am an Officer, and my name often shows up on our website as the one confirming people who have expressed interest in attending the raid. Although I am the one clicking the confirm box, not all the decisions are mine alone. In fact, I am usually in communication with at least one other Officer, sometimes two or three, as I click. Why else do they talk to me? Probably because I let them. I let them blow off steam, and I listen to their concerns. There may not be anything I can do about it, but I try to listen anyway.

So what do we look for when confirming people to raids? Balance. But not just a balance of classes, or even a balance of roles. We also have to balance the conflicting desires of the people in the guild and the entire guild as a whole.

In the Burning Crusade, we made the conscious decision to focus on progression, which changed a lot of how we did things. Those changes have carried over into Wrath. In vanilla WoW we were a casual guild that raided. Confirmations were made on a first come-first serve basis. It usually worked out that the dedicated and talented players signed up first, so they were confirmed, but if you forgot to sign up for Molten Core early, you were likely to sit out, no matter how dedicated and talented you were. In Burning Crusade, we tried to make that same system work, but with fewer people allowed in the raids and the difficulty amped up in the early encounters, we quickly found that that did not work. Since then, our confirmations have been based on more elusive things than signup order. And of course, this doesn't always make our decisions popular.

Skill. Dedication. Preparation. Reliability. Availability. Loyalty. These are easy to type, but not always as easy to measure...especially in oneself. It's easy to say, "Soandso's been to two raids this week and it's not fair!" It's harder to acknowledge that Soandso has quicker reflexes than you do and only needs a fight to be explained once. It doesn't always seem fair, and I'll admit that often it isn't, that someone who is hateful and annoying gets to raid because they do more damage than someone who is nice. But when the focus is progression, sometimes the abrasive but skilled win out over the friendly, but bumbling.

In addition to the idealistic qualities listed above, the truth is a raid confirmation may also hinge on who you know. I know that sounds bad. But it doesn't make it less true. I'm not saying that the entire raid roster will be filled with people getting special treatment because they are related to or friends with an Officer. But if a decent player has the ear of an Officer, he or she is more likely to get into raids than a decent player who doesn't. Maybe these are truths that I'm not supposed to share. Maybe I'm breaking some oath of confidentiality by telling it like it is, but honestly, that is how the world works. I've gotten my last three job interviews based almost exclusively on the recommendation of someone I already knew working there. My qualifications got me the job (or the offer of a job) but the word of someone the employer already trusted got me the interview.

I know we sometimes trip and fall, but for the most part, my fellow Officers and I try to keep a balance between people and progress, guildies and friends, the guild's casual atmosphere and getting things done. We're walking a tightrope. And we're doing the best we can.

Gold - Green

Several years ago, back when I was a fairly miserable teacher, I went to an in-service training where all the faculty took a quiz to determine our personality "color." The things I learned from this training both about my own outlook on life and how to deal with people of contrasting colors stuck with me. I remember taking the booklet home to my family and making them take the quiz as well. Everyone's color combination was spot on. And it gave me an insight into their minds that I had never had before.

For some reason, I started thinking about this in connection with my guild today. I searched around the internet until I found a site that gives a basic breakdown of the colors from that system. (Of course, the quiz booklet itself is not there because the trainers want to make money, too.)

There are four main color blocks: Blue, Orange, Gold and Green. Individuals can have traits from more than one color, but the dominant color will be apparent.

Here's a quick breakdown (the terms in parentheses are mine):

Blue: Nurturer (Touchy Feely)

• A people person.
• Sensitive to the needs of others.
• Sincere. Cooperative. Caring.
• Idealistic.

Orange: Adventurous (Rebel)

• An action person.
• Center of attention.
  
• Risk taker. Creative. Bold. Energetic.
• Spontaneous.

Gold: Traditional (Bossy)

• A rules oriented person.
• Sees things as right or wrong.
  
• Practical. Punctual. Helpful.
• Organized.

Green: Visionary (Smart Alec)

• An inquisitive person.
• Explores all angles before making a decision.
• Logical. Persistent. Systematic.
• Intellectual.

When I took the quiz, I was a combination of Gold and Green, so I guess I'm a bossy smart alec. Which, actually, isn't all that surprising.

What I like about the system is it helps me to remember that some actions aren't meant to infuriate me, but are simply part of the person's personality. When the raid leader becomes nitpicky about every little spellcast, he isn't really criticizing us, he's trying to understand what happened; he's just being Green. When the new girl feels the need to share intimate details about her life and all that is happening to her, she is just being Blue (too Blue...way too Blue). When I bug the other officers about scheduling or tweaking our Code of Conduct, I'm not being bossy, I'm being Gold (ok, Gold and bossy--I admit I'm bossy).

Remembering this doesn't always make the minor annoyances less annoying, but it can help me to deal with the people. I know that to motivate someone who is orange, I need to make it a challenge or a competition. I know that if someone is Blue, a smiley face may make their day, and being there to listen to them is important, even if I sometimes feel like I'd rather take a piece of sandpaper to my eye than chat about their latest love interest. The Green guy may be a number cruncher, and if he is, he'll be a great asset to have helping you plan out the attack. And the Gold people like me are worth our weight in, well gold, because a guild that lacks organization can't always meet its goals.

So the next time someone in my guild gets on my nerves, I'm going to try hard to just think of it in terms of color. They aren't really a jerk, they're just letting their Orange show.