This post is the introduction of a Leadership Series created by Jeff. Here he explains why it is needed.

This year's Jam Week presented an opportunity to start exploring how we approach leadership in our studio; a subject that I have wanted to examine deeper for years. While I have been given the opportunity to work with and mentor other team leads and producers, I wanted to take time to truly distill those parts of leadership that we find valuable as a creative studio and create a format that could be distributed to a wider audience. Since one of the production department's pillars is to facilitate clear communication, I didn't want to simply draw up a large white paper or write chapters into a book. The written word is generally one-directional, and I wanted to present this as a conversation. So, I started creating a seminar.

In my mind the best part about taking this approach is that I would get to talk about my two favorite topics. The first, leadership of creative projects and team, is something that I have been immersed in for my entire 16 years of game creation. I have worked under good and bad leadership, and can now intelligently relate the management traits I am uncomfortable with and the things that energized me. But the second subject, my own history, was really where I knew I would be most enthusiastic. To know me, as they say, is to know too much about me. The “pop-up book” that has been my professional life is where the seminar should draw its examples.

Which Topics to Include?

But I knew that just listening to fireside chats from “Old Man Outlaw”, while entertaining, did not necessarily mean it would be informative. I had to have information organized into practical areas of discussion for them to be useful. So what are the hallmarks of good creative team leadership? With some research, I settled on these topics:

• Psychological Safety
• Communications
• Confronting Conflicts
• Motivation
• Successful Critiquing
• Practical Project Processes
• Measuring Success

Each of these subjects are to be a talk of their own. That’s roughly seven hours of management training to digest, and only serves as a starting point to understanding good team leadership skills. And while I wanted to make sure all of the practical understanding was absorbed, I knew that without continued engagement throughout the series, the audience would be lost.

So I set out to keep the focus on me. Because, frankly, I’m fascinating.

Before Being a “Game-Maker”

I have not always been a game maker. I mentioned above that I have 16 years in the industry, the last seven of those as a project producer. But beyond that, I have been a game artist and animator, gallery artist, a cartoonist, a self-published author, a comic book author, a Navy veteran, a shoe salesman, a technical support mechanic, a world traveler… the list is endless. So while seven hours of process education might be a long, dull slog, seven hours of hearing where I made mistakes and learned lessons might help keep those listening engaged.

Allow me to start those of you who have read this far with the very first tale; what I learned from boot camp.

I entered the Navy in a slightly unorthodox way. I had already received my Bachelor’s degree, which can mean going into the service as an officer. I decided to instead enter in as enlisted sailor, surrounded by guys right out of high school or trade workers looking for some experience. For those not familiar, enlisted are the red shirts in Star Trek. Officers wear gold. I felt that I wanted to live the enlisted life so that I would be a better officer once the time came to switch tracks.

In boot camp, I was assigned the role of Yeoman. Of the four recruits that lead a company of 100, the Yeoman is the one to keep the schedule, perform roll call, assign watches, and sign documents using the Company Commander’s signature. It’s really like being the producer of the squad.

One duty that fell upon the Yeoman is to run, in boots, around the base ahead of their company to alert the destination that the rest of the company was on the way. I would run to the mess hall three times a day, run to the school house when we were heading to classes, run back to the barracks to alert the watch. In the high heat of that summer, I burned off a fair amount of sweat.

My “Cheat”

One thing that I did when I ran back to the barracks was enter the building before my company and get a long drink of water. I didn’t think anyone would notice or care, and I felt that it was something I had earned; because of my position and the extra work it entailed.

When boot camp ended and we had an afternoon to say goodbye to our company before shipping off to various bases and schools, I asked a few people what I might have done better as a leader of the company. One guy who I had got to know fairly well pointed out my ‘cheat’ to the water fountain before the rest of the group. He assured me that enough of the guys knew about it, and it tainted their view of me.

I didn’t always do things well, and I still don’t do everything correctly. But I now have information about about the nature of those mistakes and ways to do things better. The goal of our seminar is to get others to better understand how to lead creative teams and to build strong, communicative relationships in order to create fun and engaging products with people we like working with.

Stay tuned for part 2 of this series, Psychological Safety, and what that means to creative teams.