If patience were my virtue...
Posted 05-26-2009 at 03:01 PM by veneretio
I'd have 1 more virtue than I have.
If there's something that I've learned over the years as a raid leader it's that patience is directly tied to expectations. I know I've talked about managing expectations here before, but I'm going to say it again.
Manage your Expectations.
Which isn't to say, don't dream big, but it is to say be realistic with what is acceptable. You'll not just be a happy raid leader, but also a much more effective one if you dream big, but expect very little.
Why is that?
Tone of Voice. What you say, but more importantly how you say it is massive. I can't emphasize it enough. Yesterday's raid, we walked into Hodir and we 2 shotted him in a less than pretty fashion. Let's take stock of this.
Was it a 1 shot? No.
Was it pretty? No.
Were we able to move on in a timely fashion? Yes.
Be happy.
We started our progression on Thorim25 which is all about the balancing act of the Gauntlet and Arena teams. Our Arena team really struggled and as the Gauntlet tank it was really frustrating as a leader.
If you're leading this encounter, do yourself a favour and tank in the arena. The Gauntlet is important and needs to be fast, but it doesn't require much management. The Arena is bloody chaos and trying to lead it without seeing it is an exercise in frustration. A recipe for bad expectations as you continually get so close to completing the gauntlet only to fail and then have inefficient information to fix it.
Which is where I failed
I realized early on that the challenge was in the arena, but my team's experience was with myself in the gauntlet and the other tanks in the arena so I put them there. That was a huge mistake.
Your raiders don't know what you're looking for as a leader. They don't have the same mindset as you in terms of what to watch for. They're doing their job. This means that if you don't put yourself in a position to gather the necessary information then you're destined for a frustrating night which is what I got.
And it's my own fault.
And it led to me losing my tone of voice and ultimately, realizing that I needed to call the run early. I've learned long ago that once my attitude gets bad and I get tired that there's a dozen other players in the raid that are just as annoyed and tired. It's true we could power through it and sometimes we do, but if I always try to push them then I'm just going to get depressed raiders not having any fun.
If you're in a "casual" guild that raids...
No Fun = No Attendance.
Where this all started...
...was during a trip down memory lane. I remember how much more patience I had on Gruul, in SSC, in TK, even in Hyjal. Or at least, I thought it was more patience, but it wasn't it was different expectations. In BT and Sunwell, I had different expectations and right now, I have different expectations too.
My assignment for myself and for any other old leader like me is to remember what your expectations were like before and learn to recapture that naive spirit. Because as naive as you and I once were, we also were really motivating too.
Beginners aren't lucky. They just have the right attitude and expectations. Attitude and Expectation are infectious.
If there's something that I've learned over the years as a raid leader it's that patience is directly tied to expectations. I know I've talked about managing expectations here before, but I'm going to say it again.
Manage your Expectations.
Which isn't to say, don't dream big, but it is to say be realistic with what is acceptable. You'll not just be a happy raid leader, but also a much more effective one if you dream big, but expect very little.
Why is that?
Tone of Voice. What you say, but more importantly how you say it is massive. I can't emphasize it enough. Yesterday's raid, we walked into Hodir and we 2 shotted him in a less than pretty fashion. Let's take stock of this.
Was it a 1 shot? No.
Was it pretty? No.
Were we able to move on in a timely fashion? Yes.
Be happy.
We started our progression on Thorim25 which is all about the balancing act of the Gauntlet and Arena teams. Our Arena team really struggled and as the Gauntlet tank it was really frustrating as a leader.
If you're leading this encounter, do yourself a favour and tank in the arena. The Gauntlet is important and needs to be fast, but it doesn't require much management. The Arena is bloody chaos and trying to lead it without seeing it is an exercise in frustration. A recipe for bad expectations as you continually get so close to completing the gauntlet only to fail and then have inefficient information to fix it.
Which is where I failed
I realized early on that the challenge was in the arena, but my team's experience was with myself in the gauntlet and the other tanks in the arena so I put them there. That was a huge mistake.
Your raiders don't know what you're looking for as a leader. They don't have the same mindset as you in terms of what to watch for. They're doing their job. This means that if you don't put yourself in a position to gather the necessary information then you're destined for a frustrating night which is what I got.
And it's my own fault.
And it led to me losing my tone of voice and ultimately, realizing that I needed to call the run early. I've learned long ago that once my attitude gets bad and I get tired that there's a dozen other players in the raid that are just as annoyed and tired. It's true we could power through it and sometimes we do, but if I always try to push them then I'm just going to get depressed raiders not having any fun.
If you're in a "casual" guild that raids...
No Fun = No Attendance.
Where this all started...
...was during a trip down memory lane. I remember how much more patience I had on Gruul, in SSC, in TK, even in Hyjal. Or at least, I thought it was more patience, but it wasn't it was different expectations. In BT and Sunwell, I had different expectations and right now, I have different expectations too.
My assignment for myself and for any other old leader like me is to remember what your expectations were like before and learn to recapture that naive spirit. Because as naive as you and I once were, we also were really motivating too.
Beginners aren't lucky. They just have the right attitude and expectations. Attitude and Expectation are infectious.
Total Comments 7
Comments
-
This is why you will find a lot of very good guilds consider previous raid leading experience a good quality in applicants. In my guild, there are several people that can tell us exactly what people were doing and what went wrong when the 'official' raid leaders weren't able to observe it. It benefits the guild leadership and it benefits the individuals because they still get to make helpful contributions to the raid improving, but don't have to deal with the added responsibility of actually leading the raid - which is a huge relief for many ex-RLs.Posted 05-26-2009 at 03:34 PM by Rak 
-
Amen, venny. Amen.Quote:My assignment for myself and for any other old leader like me is to remember what your expectations were like before and learn to recapture that naive spirit. Because as naive as you and I once were, we also were really motivating too.
I came to this same realization through a similar failure. It's amazing how true this is. You don't even have to be an "old" leader, or even a leader. Simply stepping from a known into an unknown - like the switch from farm content to new progression content - at any level, having an unrealistic expectation will hurt your performance.Posted 05-26-2009 at 03:58 PM by Alent -
Tone of Voice. What you say, but more importantly how you say it is massive. I can't emphasize it enough.
This is highly applicable to any real-life situation. As a certain satirist once said, "Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you ever regret." The same is true for intolerance, impatience and ingratitude. Know when to communicate your feelings and emotions about a situation and when to conceal them.Posted 05-26-2009 at 05:30 PM by Jalousie - Another grizzled veteran of raid leading reporting in.
I started my raid career being that annoying buzzing sound in the ear of our raid leader in classic. Whenever he went off about wipe #50bazillion on twins, I'd shoot him a tell saying "Now say something positive. They need to hear it" and he would without even skipping a beat. He also had a natural sort of way of being able to switch gears and make it sound authentic and not like it was forced.
Of course, I'd always get the tell back: "I hate you."
However, that kept me in the officer circle. Sortof a guild-therapist. I carefully monitored the morale of the group noticing it has a very very important effect on not only raid-pace, but raid membership and team building outside of raid.
With BC, I was also progressing in my minor in psychology, whereby I took many social psych courses, which taught me the goods and bads of how to pluck the strings of a social group like a well played harp. I took up the torch of recruiting as well as raid leadership, because I knew how to manipulate and 'poach' (which nowadays is the same thing I advocate against, because I know how slimey I was and can be. Consider it...atonement for my past sins) In such, I took on a raid leadership role until I just got burnt out. Refocused for school and left the game.
With LK, I'm done school, and in a casual group where I can/do only use my powers for good. To ensure I never assume that leadership role (and get burnt out again) I stay off the mic. However, I seem to be the most 'vocal' guildmember. Maybe I still kept some of my training because everyone stops when I have something to say (type.) The added bonus, I don't have the pressures of progression, however I would like to find a regular 25 raiding guild that I can tag along with (without changing guilds) just so that my inner raider is satiated.
----------------------
Given my history, I have some suggestions. How they work for others is pretty hit-and-miss, but it worked for me so that's why I suggest them. (They might not even be relevant now because they are based on my leadership experience in BC, and I have yet to find a guild that wants me for 25-man uld)
Make sure any raid you get into, you have someone who can take leadership from you. It helps if they're the same role as you (tank for tank, healer for healer) but not necessary in larger raids. It also is an asset if the alternate is more effective seperated from you (i.e. same class/spec or overwriting talents). That way, if ever you have to bisect the raid, you have someone that's capable of handling 'the other side' at a moment's notice. Not only does this work for say...Thorim, but it also works if you run into the problems of attitude/expectation issues.
Next, I work with ventrilo keybinds. I usually have that person on a seperate keybind to talk to. We just got in the habit of saying "Keybind" before we said our message. We also messed around with other features like mute so that you can hear that person (because general raiders will just assume that raid is quiet so they talk, so you're often talking over someone.)
Sometimes this has created a type of 4th-down, 4th-quarter, 2sec left rally for the game winning touchdown. However, you do run the risk of people starting to form a preference for your wingman leading raids. This just makes it important for you to realize when you're getting frustrated before other people notice. Though, from my experience with clever use of keybinds and sharing information, I've found that it's almost as effective as cloning. People start to see relatively little difference between leaders.
----------------
Now, all I can say about you Ven, is that it takes someone very wise to recognize their faults. It takes an even bigger person to try to change that.
My suggestions to those that are having trouble with expectations and raider morale: Designate someone - preferably someone you trust enough that you could lash out at and still maintain a friendship, to keep you balanced. To /tell you to say a kind word when it's needed, to keep morale up and bosses down. To keep your expectations in check, and to give you hell when you need it.
I guess in short, my 2c would be "Consider raid morale as important a consideration as skills and gear (at least 33% total value.) Know when it's time to delegate, and know what to delegate." Best of luck to ya.Posted 05-27-2009 at 09:54 AM by Conreeaght - This single statement is gold.Quote:Originally Posted by veneratioTone of Voice. What you say, but more importantly how you say it is massive. I can't emphasize it enough.
This is the first time I stumbled upon your blog Veneratio, and I must say your leadership blog describes everything I have been striving for to a T.
I help run a 25 man guild and primarily handle most of the raid leading responsibilities. The guild master also helps lead, as does the other Co-GM. We will constantly pickup on anything that the other leaves out and we have had some great success in our raid overall.
But when my GM takes over the reigns and leads, his tone even after a single mistake is devastating. It can create instant tension on vent and also still retains some of the demoralize your raiders type attitude. The more I write down the worse it now sounds but every time I try to address it, it gets better for about 1 fight and then just goes back down the tubes.
We have a highly skilled group of raiders who have done extremely well for us and been compliant both attendance wise and extremely receptive strategy wise to everything we have asked of them. Last night we cleared everything in 25 Ulduar (Minus Yogg.. Still working on P3) and wintergrasp by 11:30pm (Raid Starts promptly at 7:00pm)... Problem is it still felt like being a bit robbed due to the negativety and tone that got set about halfway through the run.
I know there wasnt much of a question, but any advice would be greatly appreciated.Posted 05-27-2009 at 11:26 AM by Tailsz - I led the raid, from the hallway side. What got us through it, was having someone I trusted completely tanking in the arena, and empowering them to propose/accept/deny any idea I had. They got what they needed, and we were victorious.
That said, I'll say that skipping CC and going 8-9 DPS (all casters, and one rogue) in the hallway is helping us tons. I've had to pause to not activate hardmode, actually - but the shorter time the arena has to stay alive is huge.Posted 05-28-2009 at 12:28 PM by Yakra - We're doing it the other way around. Massive DPS in the arena so make sure everything that enters, dies in a few seconds. Our tunnelteam is composed of only 6 ( Tank, Healer, 4 DPS ).
But ontopic: I've had the same issue when my guild was progressing Thorim, it's extremely hard to judge what is going on, and without knowing how could you properly plan the arena? Luckily I was lanning that day, so I had a 2nd monitor ( of one of my guildies/rlfriends ) which ment I could view the arena while doing the gauntlet.Posted 06-03-2009 at 12:52 AM by Lyco
