On this episode of “Ask a Guild Leader” we have a particularly hard question. This is one of those that has numerous right answers and even more wrong ones. I’ll do my best to provide some useful advice that will hopefully mitigate some of the issues our questioner is having. The question is, When you are dealing with a large mixed guild (40+ members), just how do you keep them all happy or at least help them? Our submitter, who we’ll call JS, goes into further detail. I was one of five officers in a huge guild and we had our own managerial problems on top of member problems when it came to choosing whether to raid or help a mid-level get some needed mats from an instance. Tough question JS! Let’s get to it.
One of the most challenging issues facing any guild officer is dealing with a mixed demographic guild. This gets even more sticky when the leadership consists of a mixed demographic as well. JS went further to explain that he was in that situation exactly. …but it was hard deciding which was more important… and then having all the leaders agree. The most important thing to realize here is that you will never please everyone in a guild all the time. Even if you have a single demographic, you will always make some decisions that upset someone. If you accept that fact it actually makes your life a little easier. That isn’t a cop out, however! As a guild leader you should always strive to break as few eggs as possible.
There are a few things you can do to ease your guild’s troubles. One of the most difficult options is to simply stand up and say, “We really have two (or three) guilds going on here and it might be better to split them off.” This will anger a lot of people in the short term but if you separate those demographics and include the appropriate officers, you might find your headache reduced greatly in the long run. That is an extreme thought and I recognize that most guilds don’t want to hear me say “break up!” Lets look at less drastic options.
It sounds like communication at the top level isn’t very good. It might be time to sit down and have an officers summit. Behind closed doors and without the influence of members you should talk about what each officer wants to achieve. Once you’ve done that you should combine the ones that are similar. If you have two officers that want to raid, two that want to PvP and one that wants to craft, you’ve got a solid 40/40/20 mix. With that ratio go ahead and set up a schedule and get everyone to agree. On Monday and Wednesday you’ll raid, Tuesday and Thursday you’ll PvP and on Friday you’ll craft. That is just an example but it will go a long way. If you get all the officers to agree and support each other, you should no longer have the issue of conflicting desires at a given time. If it is a “raid day,” you raid. Plain and simple.
See the idea to the members as well. Over time they’ll fall in behind you and like the lack of activity drama. What is most likely to happen is that PvP players won’t log in on raid days or they’ll go off and quietly do their own thing without expectations of the guild’s help. You’ll also have some folks who’ll outright hate it and be adverse to compromise. They may leave the guild but frankly you’re better off without them. Remember that this all boils down to compromise and communication. Take care of it in advance with the other officers and you’ll have less trouble down the road. Good luck!
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