Dormitories & Dragons
Before you can do that, though, everyone needs to be on board as to what the club is doing and how to do it. We've already discussed what it's doing in the last couple of months, but now we need to take a look at how it gets done. This is the hard part because while there are usually people who are in the leadership positions, I've seen that a large majority of gaming clubs suffer from a lack of motivation, which leads to dissolution of the club due to disinterest. Why is this? I've got a few theories as to why, and most clubs usually have several of these mixed together like loaner dice in a bag.
- RPGs, while they are played, are somewhat insular. Once the group is formed and the game starts, it's usually not easy for another person to walk in an hour later and say "Wow! That's neat! Can I try?" This is especially so when the game is a campaign, because there's a greater risk of the game being derailed by a newcomer. Many RPG clubs usually end up breaking into groups and staying in their own territory to play their game.
- Gaming is sedentary. This is a minor reason, but I've seen it come up in a few members every now and then. There's little reason to get up and move unless you're chasing a stray die or getting another pop. (Or playing Paranoia, where you have to do Mandatory Joyful Morning Calisthenics. But that's a minority.) Everything involved with running and maintaining a club, however, is not, and some gamers would really not have to bother with all that movement stuff.
- It competes with time for other reasons. Yes, we all want to game, but students who prioritize gaming over other activities, like going to class, studying, and participating in degree-related extracurriculars, end up not being students. If it comes down to helping the society man an information table for a couple of hours or going to class, the information table loses every time.
- It's one-off activity. Sure, everyone's willing to get together to game, but making flyers? Chalking sidewalks? Manning information tables? That falls under "Not Gaming," and lots of people don't want to take up their spare time doing stuff that isn't fun, even if it may result in more fun in the long run. This may be because...
- It's not going to help them in the long run. No one needs a gaming club--what they need is a gaming group, a bunch of friends to hang with and play games. A gaming club is nice insofar as it helps support and establish the group, but once the group is established, the club is really unnecessary. After all, you don't need their help to get together in a common area and run a game, do you?
Admittedly, there are a lot of people who don't fall into the above categories--I've met plenty of gaming club leaders who are well-motivated. But even if the leaders are motivated, the members usually aren't, and without volunteers and helpers, the club can collapse as all of the work gets put on the shoulders of one or two people. Since everyone in the club has other activities which are more important, this means that the officers of the club need to organize and motivate the people within so everyone has fun. This skill is broadly labeled as "leadership."
Leadership is one of those skills that everyone seems to want, and lots of people claim to have, but many people seem to fail at when put to the test. People who are noted for their strong leadership skills often have people under them that complain about their "bossiness" or feel that the leader favors some people over others. In a professional setting, this griping is common, but may not interfere too much with business because of the job situation--someone is the boss, and their job is to make sure the job gets done. Other people may not like the boss, but they put up with it because they get paid as well, and their job title isn't "Boss." But if no one is getting paid to put up with a boss, they're more likely to complain, leave, quit, or attempt to take control of the group if they don't like how business is being done. If they leave, well, that's their business, but sometimes the resentment can fester into a factional confrontation that can leave everyone sour on the idea of a gaming club, and that's something no one wants. Strong leadership skills can prevent a lot of that from happening, and can defuse a situation if it does progress to something more serious.
A lot of my experience with leadership comes from my time as a Boy Scout. You may not agree with their positions on issues (I know I don't,) but the Boy Scouts of America have spent a long time teaching leadership qualities to boys as well as adult leaders. They pride themselves on being able to teach these skills to their members, and have done so for many decades. The document I'm specifically referencing is Resources For Leadership: Sourcebook for Managers of Learning, Fifth Edition by Brian Phelps; the book is aimed at training adult leaders for the BSA, but the skills are obviously applicable to situations beyond the Scout troop. A PDF preview of the book, containing all of the text, can be found online for free at http://www.whitestag.org/white_stag_store/preview_resources.html
The book starts with an assumption that some people resist: leaders are taught, not born. While some people might lean towards good leadership techniques naturally, there is no reason a person can't become a good leader with proper training. According to Phelps, there are 11 core competencies of leadership. In the program, they are often taught in a specific order, but knowing what they are is the first step towards understanding leadership. We'll go through them and discuss how they apply to the gaming club.
1) Getting and Giving Information
This skill covers the ability to communicate within a group verbally and non-verbally. A leader needs to make sure that information is being understood clearly, but a leader also needs to make sure that he or she is listening to what others are trying to tell him or her. In a gaming club, this is important to make sure everyone understands their job, but being able to listen to others and understand what they are saying--or getting the information from them if they're not clear--is just as important. No club is a dictatorship, so feedback is necessary if the club members are going to feel like they have a say in what goes on. Just as important is the non-verbal communication; a leader needs to communicate ideas with their whole body. If someone has a great idea but mutters and shuffles around while presenting it, that doesn't give others a lot of confidence. A leader should be able to communicate and listen to the verbal and non-verbal messages.
2) Understanding the Needs and Characteristics of the Group
This isn't the larger group focus we discussed in May, but the ability to recognize the needs and characteristics of individual group members and address them so a goal can be achieved. Part of this is being able to understand the way members act, but a strong leader will go further, exploring the values and assumptions people carry with them as well. In a gaming club, this can be important for helping other members who are not used to group dynamics feel welcome and contribute constructively to the group.
I'm playing off of the "socially inept gamer" stereotype for a reason: they exist, and you need to be able to handle it. There are plenty of group members who won't be any problem, but the leader is tested in adversity, and a group member who isn't aware of (or doesn't care about) the social dynamics of a group can quickly tear the group apart. The leader needs to be able to make sure such a situation doesn't happen, and identifying the needs, characteristics, values and assumptions of group members helps a leader adapt and plan around potential problems.
3) Knowing and Using the Resources of the Group
Again, this isn't about figuring out how many dice you have on hand. It's about knowing who can do what and playing to strengths. If you think of it as a sports simile, you have to know what positions people play best at. In any sort of team sport, I know I'm best at playing a defender; I keep an eye out for incoming threats and I move to deal with them. As glamorous as it is to be the guy who scores all the points, I know that I'm not that good at those points, so I would assign people with good accuracy and skill to the scoring positions.
This skill becomes even more important when you have a long-term project that needs to be handled, since people who don't fit the positions their given are going to tire out and lose interest more easily than someone who does it well. Even menial jobs require skills--sitting at an information booth is something anyone can realistically do, but it's preferrable to have someone who is friendly and can communicate to others well sitting there. Likewise, it may seem trivial to cut out letters to put on a posterboard, but having someone who is creative visually and can cut a straight line is better than someone who views it as busywork.
4) Controlling Group Performance
Putting people in positions they're well suited for is only half the fight. The other half is making sure they do their job. Being able to motivate and get everyone working together is the job of the leader, and it requires a strong sense of human interaction. In a job, you can tell people to do something because they're the boss. In the gaming club, you need to use the carrot more than the stick to motivate people.
This also requires understanding how your own performance affects the group's behavior. This is where a lot of leaders fail, since we're used to seeing tough, strong leaders bark orders and have others do them. However, those "others" often do them because they have to for some reason. In a group like a gaming club, the way you interact with and react to the group affects the people you're supposed to lead. Part of this is all of that presentation stuff that your mother taught you--stand up straight, look people in the eye, speak in a clear voice, and so on. If people see you acting confident and professional, this will give them more confidence and inspire them to professionalism as well.
5) Counseling
As the leader, people will see you as the one to come with their problems. While you're not probably not a trained counselor, you still need to know how to deal with the problems people bring you. A lot of times, this is using basic active listening skills and giving feedback to the person. You may also find yourself need to perform the equivalent of "first aid," helping someone deal with a problem until they can get professional help.
Let me be very clear on my position about counseling others: I am not saying that you should do it as a practice, but you should be comfortable enough to deal with a big problem should it arise. If you haven't downloaded the Guidelines for Leadership by now, I would re-emphasize doing so and reading this section thoroughly. It's short, but it's very effective, and while you may not see a use for these techniques right now, you never know when some outcast kid feeling lonely and homesick his first semester in college will see you as the one person that will listen to him or her. Understanding these skills is like having a geiger counter handy; with luck, you'll never use it, but if you really do need one, you'll be glad you have it. Counseling skills work the same way.
6) Setting the Example
When I was learning to be a leader in the Boy Scouts, I remember my scoutmaster telling me that the biggest difference between a boss and a leader is how they set the example. A boss tells you what to do, and a leader shows you how it's done. Someone who is not willing to do the jobs they assign to others is just telling other people what to do. But no matter how loud or often they bark their orders, they will always be sending a different message with their attitude: I don't respect you enough to do your job if I had to. And people pick up on that all the time.
It's hard setting the example all the time. Sometimes you just want to goof off and kick back, play a game, and be one of the boys/girls. Maybe sometimes you can. But whenever you're supposed to function as the leader, you need to take that responsibility seriously, even if you're everyone's friend. The best leaders see themselves as constantly in the spotlight, and they act as though people are watching all the time. This is tiring, but it can also be very rewarding. I've struggled with this area myself--it's hard to always be positive when others don't care or are acting negative. However, when in a leadership position, you set the tone for the rest of the people, so pay attention to what message you're sending.
7) Representing the Group
All of the skills up until now have focused on intra-group skills. Representing the group specifically involves dealing with non-group members and how you present and represent the group and its interests to them. A lot of this is preparation; you should talk with your group ahead of time about the situations at hand before you represent them. Being able to judge their reactions and input is a key skill here, since you need to know how committed they are to a given action before you commit the group to others. It also involves a good deal of understanding how much room you have to maneuver as representative--under what conditions will their responses change? Do you have the authority to override their decision, and when?
Note that this role of leadership is less forceful than some people think or commonly associate with "leadership." That idea of leadership, though, often comes from television portrayal of business leaders. As the leader of a gaming club, you're not going to sit at the meeting table trying to negotiate a hostile takeover of the anime club. You're often going to be meeting with representatives of other groups--other clubs, student financing committees, the student activities administration--and working on problems or giving reports. You need to learn how to be assertive, yes, but you can't be a jerk, and that's a line lots of people don't learn how to make.
8) Problem-Solving
This is one of the big skills that people associate with leadership, and for good reason. After all, if there's a problem, someone has to deal with it, and chances are you're the designated someone. Resources for Leadership lists six phases for problem solving, all of which have you consider what you need to do and how you're going to do it. The list is fairly generic, but it's meant to be.
When most people hear "problem-solving," they usually think of problems that exist right now and need to be handled quickly. However, a good leader is going to try and anticipate problems as well. Using foresight to spot the short- and long-term problems is key to being an effective leader over time.
9) Evaluation
Without reflection, you can't build on your experiences. Evaluation is the ability to look at what you've done and understand what went well and what could improve. the whole group needs to be doing evaluating all the time; it's not a process that starts and stops, but is ongoing so you can make changes more quickly. The reason leaders must know it is because they are often the ones that spearhead the changes, so they need to understand
This is a deceptively hard skill to learn in a gaming club. For one, without previous guided experience, it's difficult to know when you're fooling yourself. It's also hard because you're often evaluating your friends, and you have to learn how to be able to be honest with their performance while at the same time not destroying your friendship. This can be counterbalanced by having everyone evaluate the situation and comparing notes.
10) Sharing Leadership
This is often referred to as "delegation," and it's a skill that requires understanding how the other leadership skills work before you can really being to see how and why it works. Without a good leadership foundation, delegation often becomes "passing the buck," which isn't effective leadership at all--it's just lazy.
Delegation is a hard skill to master because you have to avoid putting too much on other people. One reason is because delegating your tasks and responsibility leaves you looking like you're just lazy. The other reason is that your helpers are more likely to fail you if you load them down with too much. The trick is being able to use previously learned skills to figure out who should complete what task. Having clearly defined job descriptions for your officers and committees helps make this easier, but there will always be tasks that fall outside of any definitions, and your job is to figure out who can do this job the best in the given amount of time.
Leadership can be shared for any number of reasons, but the biggest is because one person simply can't be aware of everything. By delegating leadership among others, you increase the chances that everything gets the attention it needs in order to get done. Your job as leader is to keep on top of who's doing what and make sure the tasks are getting done. It also involves making sure the right kind of leadership style is used, and making sure the people who are leading understand how. This takes us to the last point...
11) Manager of Learning
It's not enough that people do their jobs; you also want to make sure that people are learning and improving their skills as well. As a leader, you need to help prepare others to become leaders as well, especially since your club will have a complete turnover in membership at least every five years. This is a large reason many clubs see a decline after a successful period of growth--the leaders responsible for such growth graduated or otherwise left, and the people left in charge aren't as competent as leaders than the previous leaders.
This is a very tricky skill to learn, and most people tend to ignore it in favor of strengthening their own skills. It's a tempting trade, but without the ability to teach and help others grow as leaders, you're not building your own base of competent people that you can rely on. Even if you're just in charge of a committee, helping others build their leadership skills helps you because then they know how to communicate and organize some of the work as well.
There are more specific instructions and details about the 11 points in Resources For Leadership than I can list here. But some people need help right now. What can you do to improve your leadership right now? Actually, it's pretty simple.
--Be aware of your resources. Your primary job is to make sure everything that needs to get done does. This doesn't mean doing it yourself, but it does mean knowing who's best at doing certain tasks. Likewise, you should make sure you know who knows what information. You don't need to memorize the group's finances; that's the treasurer's job. But you should be getting regular reports from the treasurer so you at least have a good idea as to what's going on.
In addition, make sure you know what channels you need to go through to get certain kinds of information. Chances are this is the Student Activities Office, so get to know what services they can offer. Never feel awkward about going to them, either. The university pays them to be there to help you out; take advantage of that as much as possible.
- Act like the role model you are. Set a good example for everyone by being the role model. Look people in the eye when you talk. Stand up straight. Come to meetings in clean clothes. Smile. Yeah, it sounds hokey, but people pick up on this.
- Be accessible. I know you want to play games, too, but make sure you say hello to everyone first. See how the members are doing. Talk to them a bit. No one wants to be Random Gamer #12; make them feel comfortable by acknowledging their presence and taking a bit of interest in them.
- Be open to comments. You're the face of the group, so people will be asking you questions and making suggestions for improvement. Listen politely, and make sure they understand you heard them. Even if you cant do anything about their comment now, at least they knew they got a fair shake.
- Be positive. Believe it or not, this is probably what will make or break you as a leader. Remember, as the leader, you set the tone of the group. If you're eager and happy, that attitude will rub off on your group members. If you're sarcastic and pessimistic, your group members will take that attitude as well. It may be difficult to be optimistic and energetic, but if the leaders of the group act that way, you'll find that your members are more likely to as well. A somber or cynical leader doesn't usually come across as a leader, but instead as a parent figure who says "No" to everyone.
New Leaders for Old Groups
The advice given so far doesn't change if you've already got a group that you're rebuilding. The difficulty for you is getting members who are used to the old way of conducting business. Hopefully, you have a group of officers that are eager to try new techniques and strengthen the club, but you may run into older members who simply don't want to change.
Fortunately, this problem can be somewhat self-correcting: give the older members a leadership responsibility. They can pass their experience onto younger members, and by giving them more of a role in the club, you can bring them over to your side once they see how effective these techniques are. Now, they may not do a good job, or they may not want a leadership position. That's fine, but make sure you make it clear that if they want to be able to do things their way, they need to step up and take responsibility, and that taking responsibility requires you do commit yourself to these points.
One point of business you will want to do that's different from a new group is that you'll want to sit down and compare past years with the goals of your club. It may help to bring a mediator in for this, because you don't want the meeting to become a two-hour long complaining session about how stupid X president was or how lazy Y secretary was. Focus on events and instances that something could have been done better, then discuss what the current group can do to help avoid those obstacles. By talking about this beforehand, you should be able to at least avoid the problems that have surfaced recently. Ideally, you should be able to identify the overall patterns and problems in behavior and be able to create ways to avoid them.
As we head into August, we'll discuss recruitment, especially as it relates to the organization fair and the new member meeting. Since lots of colleges start the new school year in August, you have to plan ahead and be ready to start being active the very first day. I'll show you some of the ways you can do that.
July Checklist:
--Have all of the club officers read through Resources For Leadership. Then have a group meeting where you can discuss and practice the 11 skills of leadership.
--If you're restarting a club, compare these 11 points to last year's club and determine how you can improve on that.
--Have the officers write down ways the 11 skills apply to their position.
--Check with your Student Organization Office to see what resources they have on leadership training.
See you next month! --Alec "Kid Twist" Fleschner
