I'm Sorry
Posted 10-25-2008 at 12:18 PM by veneretio
If there's one thing you learn in leading a raid for an entire expansion, it's people's complete lack of ability to say, "I'm Sorry". It's astounding how reluctant people are to say those simple words while also equally astounding how powerful their usage is. They'll solve virtual any problem.
In general, it's fairly amazing how much of raid leading is about the time you spend outside of the raid instead of the time you spend in. I can't say that I've ever made as much an impact during a raid as I have before it during invites or after it during analysis.
Which really makes me think about the parallels between leading a raid and running a business. I once read that you should, "Always do whatever you liked your bosses to do and never do what you hated your bosses doing."
In the heat of the moment, we can make a lot of rash decisions, we can say things we wished we hadn't said, we can be cruel.
And, we can solve that all with "I'm Sorry"
In general, it's fairly amazing how much of raid leading is about the time you spend outside of the raid instead of the time you spend in. I can't say that I've ever made as much an impact during a raid as I have before it during invites or after it during analysis.
Which really makes me think about the parallels between leading a raid and running a business. I once read that you should, "Always do whatever you liked your bosses to do and never do what you hated your bosses doing."
In the heat of the moment, we can make a lot of rash decisions, we can say things we wished we hadn't said, we can be cruel.
And, we can solve that all with "I'm Sorry"
Total Comments 11
Comments
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Not sure of that. If you lead a voluntary association, your interests and those of the members are aligned. You may make mistakes, which go against their interest, and are allowed to be sorry.
If you are leading a business, your interests and those of the staff are in conflict, if not in outright opposition. You will sometimes do things that are in their interests and sometimes against, sometimes deliberately and sometimes by mistake. In this relationship, you are not at liberty to be sorry.Posted 10-25-2008 at 12:46 PM by Machus 
- ill never say im sorry, but if i screw up and i know i screwed up, ill be like "ya i pulled to much" but i usually include "but since 3.0 you people need to learn to keep up, if im not pulling non stop i fail as a tank and you fail as a haeler"
if there is one thing i hate since 3.0 it is running with undergeared scrub healers who cant hack it and i have to blow shield wall or last stand every, single, pull. the wait for them to drink for 30 secondsPosted 10-25-2008 at 06:47 PM by Darksend - Sorry is as misused as the word hate.
Posted 10-26-2008 at 06:59 AM by Edgar -
In a broad sense, I agree. People often have a hard time taking reponsibility for thier actions. I've found more often than not, the wrong people willing to take the blame for someone else's screw up. We killed Kael yesterday and on the way there, someone ran right into a pack of trash. This player often does these sort of things, just not paying attention. We some how survived (I ran in and TC'd, other tanks peeled the mobs off and we got through)
I saw it happen. I saw a gnome rogue spamming his space bar and hopping around right into aggro range. 2 min later one of my friend's wife who tags along with those raids apologized for causing a non wipe. Problem is, she didn't do it.
Things that happen in a raid are cause and effect. You do not decurse, people die. You fail to pick up adds, they kill people. You don't run out when you're the bomb, you blow up the raid. Some of these things are obvious and indisputable. Some are a little more vague.
And yes, people in general have a hard time accepting appropriate responsibility in these situations and its maddening.
That said, I think in some cases, people know when they've done wrong but there is a strange rationalization that occurs and guilty of a mistake or not, they can get hyper sensitive and defensive.
This is where having volunteer raid assistant leader #14 chime in doesn't help.
My wife was decent on the healing meter yesterday, kept me alive when she was supposed to but lost her bearings once and got splattered by Thalodred. doh. The snotty know it all remark someone made didn't help things because sitting next to her IRL, I know she knew she screwed up. But that's a different discussion, about a disciplined raid that coorerpates and respects CoC boundries.
But we killed the prick in the end and I got a T5 chest out of it.Posted 10-26-2008 at 09:30 AM by Horacio - "If you are leading a business, your interests and those of the staff are in conflict, if not in outright opposition. You will sometimes do things that are in their interests and sometimes against, sometimes deliberately and sometimes by mistake. In this relationship, you are not at liberty to be sorry."
A good businessman's interests are not in conflict with his staff's. I just think this is completely wrong.
Anyways, yea, I agree - I think people are typically much too hesitant to apologize and accept responsibility. It's a sign of maturity. Personally, I prefer to bring people that are real to my raids: people that understand that other people are people too.Posted 10-26-2008 at 11:21 PM by Tenraiel - A business is a trading relationship between five parties: The management, the investors, the customers, the staff, and suppliers. Their interests are independent. They have a common interest in increasing the value of the trade but a conflict of interest when it comes to sharing the costs and rewards. As a manager you'll have a common interest with your immediate peers and maybe a party that you represent (e.g. investors, customers) but trade under conflict of interest with all the other parties.
The point of all this is that it's naive to expect the training that you get from a game or other voluntary activity to apply fully in business. The game provides great leadership training in a cosy environment with very little conflict of interest. Since there is only one living party (players) conflicts are based on scarcity (e.g. loot) and are addressed by fairness. In this environment you can make mistakes about efficiency or fairness, and be sorry about them. Veneretio says that you should take the opportunity and actually be sorry.
In a business, you will sometimes make mistakes that go against shared interest. You may regret this, but it is not helpful. What is helpful is to admit it and fix the mistake. More commonly, in a business you will deliberately do things that go against the interest of party A because you represent party B. In this situation there is nothing to regret. Since you are going to harm people's interests sometimes by mistake and sometimes deliberately, you don't get the opportunity to be sorry, as it will be dishonest and not well received.Posted 10-27-2008 at 06:12 AM by Machus - Interesting thoughts, while I've never thought about raiding or 5-mans in a business sense I guess can see how you could compare the two. But as far as people saying, "I'm sorry", I find alot of players can't or won't say it, even when mistakes or wipes are clearly their fault. But I also find 9 times out of 10 those same people have no trouble blaming others or making rude comments about others playing or actions. Not sure if that due to insecurity or they fell like they are better than everyone else.
For my part, as being a tank and raid leader I often find myself saying it. I have no issue with it, and I'm not afraid to admit to mistakes. Hell, how else can you learn, except to play and make some mistakes along the way? But back to the business side for a moment, business is accomplishing goals for the company or business you work for or own. Sure that goal is more than likely earning alot of money, but still you need a solid team of people to help you realize that goal, otherwise your likely to fail and the company go under. To that end, I can certainly apply it to WoW. So back to "I'm sorry", I think as a team, whether that be 5, 10 or 25 man, you sink or swim together. Alot of people don't get that. So saying, "I'm sorry" is not really being sorry as much as acknowledging, hey I made a mistake but I won't let it happen again.
I'd also like to briefly touch on a comment Horacio made above about some people taking the blame when it's really not their fault. I've often found myself doing that, even if it's just one person in the group dying. Saying I'm sorry I tried to get to you or pull that mob off of you. Even when they've done some bone headed move. To me being a tank carries with it a little more responsibility. I kind of view it similar to a platoon sargent, its my job to make sure all of my team knows their role, knows where to be positioned and most important gets out alive. So to me it's not a big deal to say two little words to smooth things over, even if I had nothing to do with that outcome.Posted 10-27-2008 at 07:07 AM by dirt -
Well to be fair Machus... I said parallels, I never said that the game = business. I also was talking specifically about leading raids. As a raid leader, I have to make unpopular decisions too, but when I'm talking about being sorry, I'm not talking about unpopular decisions... I'm talking about stupid decisions.
Just a few months ago, I had an old boss chastise an old co-worker of mine for taking maternity leave 2 weeks before her pregnancy. He said that his wife worked until the day her water broke and even then finished what she was talking about before going to the hospital.
There are things to be sorry about in business, I assure you.Posted 10-27-2008 at 09:56 AM by veneretio -
Honestly, "I'm sorry" can and can't work depending on who you're apologizing to, and for what.
Before my raid fell apart, there was a week where we had turned repairs on for the raid. At the end of the raid week they were disabled, but I forgot to disable them for the officers. A few officers got maybe 30G worth of repairs over the weekend. We had a raid meeting the following week where my error had been brought to my attention. I apologized for it, and even offered to compensate the raid. I assumed that my apology had been sufficient, but another 2 times during the meeting the issue with the officers and the repairs were brought up again. It was the same person each time, and he decided the issue was so important that he decided to talk over the one person in the raid who was trying to offer solutions on how to rebuild and keep the raid going.
So I'll agree that "I'm sorry" works most of the time. Except that one time where you're dealing with the greedy player who thinks it's the end of the world.Posted 10-27-2008 at 11:57 AM by Caulle - Hey Ven,
One thing that might help anyone who f's up a lot in your raids or others, is that saying "I Apologize" is much better and easier then saying "I'm Sorry" in almost every situation, try it out. One will eventually "Be Sorry" for just being themselves, and most of the time peoplereally aren't sorry (shocker), but it would be respectful of those people to still apologize for whatever happened (make sense?). It would be one of those "good habits" that maybe will help in life. I for one beleive in Karma, and what goes around comes around. So if you don't own up to your shit, Satan will comes rip your scrotum off.
Either way, those people should own up for their mistakes and actions by apologizing. If this means calling them out for an apology then so be it, but should not be forced from them. I think if one at fault is simply made aware that "we know you did it", and the issue is not forced from them, they will apologize eventually. If someone else takes resposibility for mistakes that are not theirs, like Horatio's wife did, then it becomes anyone and everyone's responsibility who witnessed it to maybe do something about that. It is not fair or healthy to her I would think for people to let that happen, as she is now the one saying "I'm Sorry".
As others have kinda said too, this is not work, and it really shouldn't be "brought home with you." I am a beleiver what you do at work stays there, and that your stress level does affect others, even through Ventrilo. IMO WoW is not worth a lot of personal time.
My examples: When leading a raid, I push the idea of making everything as simple as possible, and very short fight explanations, and a very casual-hardcore style. I do not like waiting around before raids so much as attempting fights/pulling mobs, so I typically could care less if I have all my buffs when clearing up to a boss. On bosses, wiping a couple times is better than trying to explain complex strategy (eg Kael) This kind of stuff I am never sorry for, but I may apologize for it if I make a mistake and die pulling too much.
Posted 10-27-2008 at 01:59 PM by Rootkitworm
Updated 10-27-2008 at 03:01 PM by Rootkitworm -
I halfway agree with Machus, but I think it's painting WoW guild leadership too cleanly to say that everyone's interests are aligned. That's not remotely true. As a guild or raid leader, you're constantly balancing out loot complaints and raid spots against the good of the guild or raid. For instance, I'd wager most guilds have seen a situation where a guildie was sidelined for a boss, and drama arose when that boss dropped something the player was looking for.Posted 10-28-2008 at 07:53 AM by Ciderhelm 
