Knowing when to step back

Initially after the appearance of doubt about us being able to run Kill Frenzy in both RIFT and WAR, things went a bit ropey. With KF-WAR down to about 3 people, I made the decision to close the guild in WAR and we focussed on RIFT. Since then as you know I have returned to WAR and KF-WAR is very much back, growing in strength and entertainment value. However the KF-RIFT guild is still extremely active. I’m only playing RIFT a little bit myself, but the guild is solid, continues to grow and the guys have started on the 10man raid scene, but are also focussed on getting everyone the Tier 2 expert gear they need to progress. As an aside, the key to success in PvE is in the preparation. Get people geared and while you should never order people to spec certain ways (unless you’re one of those prick ego guilds with no life or grip on reality) make sure that the specs/classes/roles in the raid have some synergy. Uhm, yeah… stopping this tangent before I go off on one.

The key to us keeping both guilds going was in me acknowledging that I was no longer in a position where it made sense for me to lead our KF-RIFT chapter. To progress in a PvE game you need a leader who is online a lot, is organising events and actively driving the guild forward. It takes more time and effort than I’ve got spare for RIFT. So I stepped back to my arch-overlord of the KF community role, focussed myself more on WAR and promoted an utter retard and morally suspect git called Filthiusia to guild leader of KF-RIFT, whilst giving him the support of the very keen and progress driven Lowtwo in an officer role. Of course alongside the existing KF-RIFT officers. With a bunch of old school KFers putting the time in at the helm, things are working out ok.

Giving up control can be a tough choice to make for a guild leader; you’re always worried about things drifting away from your core ideals or just the whole thing collapsing. Yet, in exactly the same way as management out in the real working world, if successful an organisation will grow to a point where it’s owner/MD/CEO/whatever’s time becomes sparse and for them to try and to run everything is to invite disaster. You have to know when and what to delegate. The when and what is often quite easy to recognise, the hardest bit is really in the act of handing things over.

Of course there is one other huge thing… who you choose to delegate to. As anyone that follows football (soccer, for those of you in hats), the result of that choice is the hardest bit to reliably predict. There are no foregone conclusions there, no matter what anyone says. That’s where as a guild leader you have to make a leap of faith.