Does your Team love its Product?

The year is 2008.

I am the Global Director of Human Resources at Europe's hottest video-games Company. Roughly 600 brilliant nerds working in 5 different global locations on Mission 'World Domination'. Our HR and Leadership Team is courageously pioneering truly amazing sh*t. A Peer-to-Peer Feedback Model to Develop Teams. A Bonus Model making everybody entrepreneurial accomplices. Autonomous Teams formed through a Peer-Commitment based Performance Approach. Transparent Budgets.

All of this way before the word "agile", "New pay" or "new work" were even invented. We just called it "treating People like Adults to create processor melting Games".

We were really ahead of the curve of "How" we worked. We even nailed the "Why" we worked - our Purpose. But then something weird happened.

It's Lunch break. The shutters are down, creating a dim twilight. I learnt that in the dark you can see the screen better. I am aimlessly wandering through our offices. Our gals and guys have been crunching for months on a game that was aptly called "Crysis 2". The successor to a critically acclaimed Open-World First Person Shooter. A lot of people sleep in the office. Only going home for a shower and a change of clothes. Others don't even do that anymore. Someone has built a hut around his desk made of empty Pizza Hut cartons. The floor smells like broken up relationships and expired fast food. A sad normality in this industry: Publishers give money and deadlines. Developers scramble.

But something was off.

"I NEED HELP!! SOMEONE!!"

"COMING BRO!!!"

"WATCH OUT!!! OH MY GOD THEY'RE COMING!!! HURRY!!!!"

Exhausted people screaming in excitement across their cubicles. There's a crescendo of cries and wails...then everyone quiets down.

I knew this part of the team was working on the multiplayer part of our game. Only they aren't playing OUR game. The are playing another game - 'Left 4 Dead'. 2008's smash hit game by our competitor VALVE. (Kinda like Fortnite's Grandfather). And I'd watched them play it for weeks, every chance they got. This wasn't R&D. This was R&R.

Finally, one player -Ferdi- drops his controller exasperated after his posse being killed by a Zombie horde.

"Hey Ferdi."

"What's up HR?"

"Why are you playing Left4Dead?"

"Why are you asking me Why I am playing Left4Dead?"*

*(You have to know that there was still a well-earned, base-level distrust of HR)

"Isn't it weird to play a competitor's product?"

"Why"

"It's kind like building your own all electric sports-car, but constantly driving a Porsche."

"Well, this one is more fun than ours to drive."

"Why don't we make ours more fun than theirs then?"

"That's up to the Creative Director, not us."

"Where is the Creative Director?"

Ferdi points at another guy, three aisles down playing Left4Dead.

"Huh."

I walk over to the Creative Director. A big dude in a Metallica Shirt and a Hat saying: 'No.'

"Hey."

"Mhmpf".

(That's Gamer-Speak for 'F*ck Off, HR.)

"Sorry for interrupting, I know you're super busy and I am just a N00b. I'm just wondering. All you guys are playing Left4Dead, even-though WE are making a multiplayer game, too. I mean, call me crazy...but shouldn't we play...well, like our own game more? "

The Creative Director looks up from his screen. For a moment I wonder if it's only to point his hat at me. His stare says go away.

I try again.

"Do YOU like our game?"

He points to his hat.

"Why don't WE make our game better?"

No answer. I get it. This is a game, too.

"Can YOU make our game better?"

He points to his hat.

"Who can...nevermind. Is there ANYONE who can make our game better."

A nod.

"Can you tell me WHO can make OUR game better?"

A nod.

"Can you point me in the general direction of HIM?"

He points up like to the heavens a God himself. Only he means our CEO, so not God, but like three seats from the center.

"It's his game. Not ours"

It speaks!

"Thank you!" I fold my hands in prayer and bow.

Wordlessly he turns back to his screen and re-starts Left4Dead.

*

I had many conversations with my Director peers and the founders themselves about this incident. Our CEO was pretty reflected about the whole dynamic. He had a clear vision in mind and felt it was his responsibility to see it through. The game team fell in line and executed. He DID actually love the game he envisioned. Only our team didn't. And they voted with their feet. Well, with their controllers as it were.

It's the hardest thing. To create a unique product usually requires a certain level of Genius and Maverickness. Think Jobs or Musk. These guys don't crowd-source their designs. Jobs famously said that Customers won't know what they want until he shows it to them. On the other side we also know that uncommitted teams do not deliver AAA products.

My lesson was this: If your team doesn't love its product, it will fail.

*

Fast forward. The year is 2020.

Now I am the CEO. And I love our product.

At Resourceful Humans we are invested even one level deeper than Crytek was. We are not only building, but also using the product we are selling. And what we are building has never been done before.

We are incorporating and perfecting many of the principles and processes we pioneered in Gaming. It's not really 'New Work'. The Network Organisation is more hard-core. More entrepreneurial. More timeless than what I see in the mainstream 'New Work' movement. The Network Enterprise is all about shifting responsibility for 'How Things get Done' into autonomous teams and them having to live with the consequences of their actions. What we are building is a unique Technological Platform to Run and Grow an Enterprise as a Network, rather than a Hierarchy. Our Product enables a Performance Culture that creates a high level of Clarity what each Team and each Individual contributes to the Priorities and the Purpose of the Organisation. We built the tech to help us grow and our Customers. We eat our own dogfood.

In essence we are building the train and laying the tracks while driving towards an unknown destination. If MY team did not believe in our product, if they did not truly LOVE our product, there'd be no way we could succeed.

None.

So with the lessons learnt in Gaming, I have my ears on the track all the time. I watch and inquiry to see if anyone is using other tools outside our own. To learn and engage why they are using them. If we should discard, integrate it or adapt those key designs into our own. My lesson is this. You need a WHY. A guiding North Star. A Purpose. You also need an innovative HOW. The way you work needs to give your people the power to create the environment to unleash their full potential. But that's all for the bin, if WHAT you make doesn't get them excited. If they do not feel WHAT you make is meaningful, if they do not feel that they own WHAT they make and that WHAT they make has no value to them...your Company is left for dead. Just ask Quibi.

It boils down to this.

If the team feels that you are the only one required to love the product. It's over.

If you loose the connection to the team's true attitude on your product. It's over.

If the team doesn't fight passionately for their product. It's over.

So you have to find ways to address that.

That's why I gave our product a soul.

Someone to fall in love with.

But that's another story.

*