Player Associations Archive
Thread: PA Leader seeks advice
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joshbrem
Wed Jul 14, 2004 7:54 am
#1
Hello, I would like some advice on my PA. Recently we've grown to 108 members. There is no longer a military system as most of us broke off of our old guilds nearly 8 months ago because of that. The guild is ran by myself and my friend, who support the guild with mulitiple alts in armor, weapons, food, mayor and pvp.
We also have a high council consisting of 10 members to guide us and help us make important decisions. All of them are helpful but not always active ingame, more or less on our private forums.
I recently reinstated a policy announcement covering all issues a guild might run into, as far as recruiting, pvp, wars, crafters, doctors, jedi, guild events, etc etc. This is to clear up any issues and prevent people from leaving without talking with their leaders because they have problems with this and that, etc etc.
I have been losing some of my best friends, pvpers, and guild supporters due to a particular member that donates a lot of PVP time and organization to the guild. He recently self proclaimed his group of PVPers a title that made others in the guild feel excluded.
I'm not getting much feedback from my high council about this right now. How can I motivate my guild more? It seems many players are fighting with each other instead of taking out aggressions on the enemy. I have a three strikes policy for disasters that I enforce, but I would really like advice in team building.
Please incorporate RL experience into your suggestions if possible. I want my guild to come together more. I don't want to fall out myself because the guild would fall apart without me. Then my coleader would be very upset, and he's the one who makes free weapons and practically built the city in which we live.
benskywalker1
Wed Jul 14, 2004 11:54 am
#3
Josh welcome to the club of management.
There isn't much from the sounds of it that you can do. You have a high ranking officer who has just done something that makes the other members of the guild feel left out. Why do they feel left out? Do they feel left out because he did it for a band of PvPers and not for them? Do they feel left out because they don't have a special name? Granted you aren't going to make everyone happy...especially in a guild with 100+ members in it. At one time the guild that I am an officer of on Radiant had clear over 150 members on it and for a time ran smoothly.
Problems that we are facing right now in our guild are more problems associated with the game directly. PvP is lacking because Jedi are slaying everything they come across. Group hunts are lacking because people can do most everything solo with acception to DWB and Nightsister caves (and a few more). These are problems in the game that I see will be changing soon.
Keep the lines of communciation open. Communication is always important. Let everyone know what is going on. I would honestly say that if enough people are having a hard time with one of your high council member, then you need to approach him about it. He needs to know how they feel. If he is truely a good high council member he will try to do something to fix the issue. If not, he will just continue to do what he is doing.
Another suggestion is that maybe some of the guild members are feeling as if you are being unfair. From what I have read you haven't done anything to the Officer and that is what they expected as they would have expected it done to them. As a leader everyone is on a level playing field when it comes to reprimanding. Officers usually stand up for the guild and actively try to help smooth everything over that might become a problem.
Now I feel like I'm repeating myself so I'm just going to say this again.....Talk to the High Council Member. Find out from the members exactly why they feel left out. Then get with your other Council members and talk over a course of action to fix this issue. Just as a warning; if the High Council Member does not know then it is very possible that he himself will feel betrayed that the members could not come to him directly to speak about it.
Just my opinion. (We recently had a similar problem with communication)
Rothin
Wed Jul 14, 2004 5:22 pm
#4
Communication is the most vital aspect of maintaining a guild and alleviating problems when they arise. That is the thing I can tell you from my many years of online gaming and leading guilds through out every game I've played.
My guild had similiar issues as yours did at one point. We originally had a very militaristic structure, with a President, Vice President, Senate, Admiral, and so forth down the chain, with several other ranking divisions for other purposes. Over time and as we grew, the ranks ended up causing more friction and it did eventually cause a part of the guild to leave and form their own guild, much like you did in yours.
Shortly after this occured, I made the decision based on what happened to refine the way we operated and revamped our entire structure. It took time, but over all because I learned from the mistake and worked to correct it, we became a Council type structure and abolished the ranks, except for a few divisions for purely roleplaying purposes(Which I made sure everyone understood that it was not better than anything else, it was for 'roleplaying' only.)
It sounds to me that what is happening is being caused by a few different factors. Bensky touched on most of them and I'd like to reenforce his points as well.
One of the biggest factors that I gathered from your comments is the lack of a active council or leadership. Without a active leadership, especially with that many people the communication channels are going to be severely hampered and as you said, it's hard for you to push issues with the Council since they aren't active. What I would do if in your position, and this is just what I personally would do, is work with the other Co-Leader you have and recruit new active Council members.. perhaps by a guild vote to help enforce the fact that you are willing to listen to them and let them help decide the direction of the guild. It will hopefully motivate people to help the guild knowing that eventually they may be able to help lead it.
If you do that, you will also need to make it known that you are going to deal with the situation in the best possible manner. As a leader, it's your job afterall. You'll need to decide whether to allow the Officer to continue to keep his 'self named' division of sorts or to ask him to stop it for the betterment of the guild. If it is causing a big issue and dividing the guild and he is not willing to understand that and change it, then you will need to make a tough decision. Do you allow him to stay and to continue to segment the guild or do you remove him and allow those who want to be in his division to go with him? I hope it doesn't come down to that, but at times it will but you have to do what is best for your guild and it's continued growth.
One other important thing I have learned is.. people come and go. It's a natural process and vital for a guild to continue to grow. While you will always have a 'core set' of members, you will always need a fresh breath of air every now and again to keep things from being stale.
My over all advice, organize the leadership by replacing them if you have to, communicate with the guild as a whole on a regular basis, and deal with the Officer who is currently causing the strife in the means you have to.
I really hope that helps you in some way. Best of luck to you.
atat9619
Sat Jul 17, 2004 10:00 pm
#5
Ineed help getting more members my guild is to small and no one unguilded is interested in joining.
Rothin
Sun Jul 18, 2004 3:18 pm
#6
atat9619 wrote:
Ineed help getting more members my guild is to small and no one unguilded is interested in joining.
Some people who remain unguilded simply don't want to join a guild and wish to remain free of groups. There will always be people out there who do want to join, just sometimes they are hard to find and few and far between.
When you ask, how do you go about asking them? Do you get to know the person a little by playing with them a while or do you quickly just ask them to join?
It's been my experience that if you befriend someone before you try to ask them to join, it gives them a better sense of what the guild is all about. If you have tried this and they still don't want to join, then I'd just keep looking for other individuals, you'll eventually find more people. I would suggest never offering incentives for joining such as free houses, credits, weapons, armor, etc.. because then you'll get the bunch who are there for the freebies and when they get what they want they leave and find another guild offering free things.
Hopefully that helps a little.
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