Running a Fed: Lesson 3 - Staff, Assemble!

[Mongo the Destroyer]

Staff, Assemble!

Dang, I really wanted to make an Avengers reference there that didn’t suck. The reason why is because today’s lesson might be one of the most important ones we have. Let’s talk about building your staff.

“But wait!” You interrupt, “Do I need a staff?” There’s a loaded question and I’m afraid my answer might not sit well with everyone. Do you need a staff? Maybe not. But I’d probably say that if you want your fed to get big then you almost certainly need a staff. By “big” I mean for it to have a lot of people and last a long time. Are there exceptions? Sure. Kira has run SSS/JROK essentially by himself for years now- but he also only has one fully written show per month (and sometimes those matches are short/summarized). The commitment level is really low in his fed and so a one-man crew isn’t all difficult. Swann and Mad Dog are able to run extremely successful feds by themselves- but keep in mind that they’re seasonal. TGK took a multi-year break between season 1 and 2, lol. And I’d argue that at this point Destiny Wrestling has at least one (Armageddon) if not multiple unofficial staffers who help Van to manage parts of it. It’s nothing to be ashamed of- I am big on staff. So let’s take a look at the importance of staff and how to pick up good staff.

Why is Having Staff Important?

As already noted, I’m real big on the importance of having staff in your fed. There are a few reasons for this. The first is the simplest: it’s less work you need to do. Obviously if you’ve got multiple people handling various tasks then the workload is being spread out. This makes running a fed immensely easier and opens up opportunities for you to produce either more or better content as the fed continues to grow. One of the things I’ve loved since we’ve added Dylan and Vastrix to the staff is that as a five-man team we’ve got lots of ideas and more resources to do things like run OOC games for folks on the board, participate in other games and discussions, and even run bonus shows. Since we’re not bogged down in the stuff we need to do we’re able to contribute even more to the community and that makes the XHF Network more fun for everyone. Rockin, right?

Another important reason why staff is great to have is that you’re probably not good at everything. Staffers fill in where you lack. Are you bad at graphics? Get a staffer who’s good at them. Are you a poor match writer? Get a great match writer (but do keep writing matches if you need to, don’t put them all on one guy). Are you bad at people skills? Don’t run a fe- I mean get a popular guy (who’s also loyal). It’s important to consider where your fed needs help and get guys who can fill those needs. BUT- AND THIS IS SUPER IMPORTANT- give credit where it’s due. Without the XHF Network admins (and anyone else who helps us) the Network wouldn’t work. And I try my best to make sure that all you folks know that they’re the ones who are doing a lot of the work and deserve a lot of the credit. One of my best skills is delegating- so I’m doing that but the guys behind all the cool stuff are often DT, Kanyon, Vastrix, and Dylan (as of this writing- and hopefully forever, lol). I’ve seen feds where the owners will get secret help from writers and then try to take all the credit for themselves. That’s a douche move and I’d advise those writers to look elsewhere. If your staff is holding the together then they deserve all the accolades that come with that.

The other big reason that’s on the top of my head right now calls back to the introduction. So you’re just starting out and want to make your fed big right? By having a staff even when you only have a few members you’re setting up that infrastructure for later- but there’s an even more useful reason to have staff for a small fed: dedicated members. Think about it, if you’ve got a three-man team (the bare minimum I usually recommend) for a fed of like maybe eight guys total, if that; then you’ve got you and your two staffers covering the workload (which is probably pretty easy) so all three of you can get characters moving in the fed and since you guys want it to succeed you’ll do your best. As feds grow there are other staff opportunities too and if somebody is contributing behind the scenes of your fed then it’s likely they’ll have vested interest in wanting to make the in-character side look as good and be as fun as possible.

What are Staffers?

Staffers fill several roles and these can be either official or unofficial depending on how you run things. And on top of that, depending on the size of your staff, it’s likely that you and your staff will be wearing multiple hats and also working together on various roles. But here are the roles that end up getting covered between you and your staff:

Bookers: From a public relations standpoint, this is a really important reason to get staff. If you’re booking a show by yourself then when mistakes are made it’s all on you. But when you’ve got like a group of 3 or more dudes voting on matches, it’s a lot easier to get the “right” booking. It’s not guaranteed, but it is more reliable than one man pushing what he wants. The other bonus of this is that you can bow out of booking your own matches since your staff can do it- then instead of insta-jobbing (as a good boss) you actually might win!

Writers: From a practical standpoint, this is probably the most important reason to get staff. The more people you have sharing writing duties the higher the match quality will hopefully be and the more content you can generate before people get burned out. It’s a logical move and I’d absolutely suggest that when looking at potential staff members (no matter what level your fed is) to consider if people are willing to write matches regularly or not.

Graphics Guys: Like it or not, people respond to pretty pictures. I’m a visual guy and I love when things look nice. Although less necessary, it’s definitely a big help if somebody between you or your staff can be a dedicated graphics guy. It’s not super needed, but it absolutely does help to sell the fed to newcomers.

Security: Straight up, you won’t be awake enough to manage everything on the fed. Now Network feds doesn’t really need to worry about this as much since the Network Admins are on security watch most of the time. But it’s always helpful to have somebody who’ll be on when you aren’t, just in case a spammer or some other ne’er-do-well shows up.

Role-Fillers: This is sort of a catch-all term; sorry I don’t want the list to be exhaustive, lol. Basically it comes down to this: if there’s something that isn’t getting covered then you probably need somebody to cover it. It seems simple but you’d be surprised. Back in the old XHF I noticed that the admins were getting reamed by angry members even when they were booking really well and it was dragging folks down. I was a garbage booker and wasn’t writing so instead I moved into a PR-based role and started handling communication with the members. In the Network we wanted to build a stand-alone tag division but realized that too many chefs in the kitchen would confuse it so we made that a stand-alone role (held by Vastrix at the time of writing). That’s not to say that the role-fillers don’t help in other areas (Vastrix touches pretty much everything)- but sometimes it helps to have a guy you can send people to when there are issues in a certain area.

How do I Pick Up Staff? The Practical Side

Alright, so this is an important lesson and I’m going to put up a disclaimer right away: I have been hella blessed by the luxury of being able to choose most of my staffers. With that in mind I do have a system in which to both organize staff and choose administrators for your fed.

This is what we did in the XHF. So we had a power 3-5 man team working as fed admins. Fed admins were bookers, writers, graphics, show-runners- etc. I don’t need to tell you everything again because I wrote it above. But how did we choose admins? We looked at our writers. See this is why I’m big on letting people volunteer to write matches. I’ve seen prideful fed owners who think that constantly begging for help with writing makes them look weak- and I get that. But on the other side of the coin, writing for the shows is a great way for a member to 1. Show interest in doing more behind the scenes and 2. Develop their skill in writing in general. Generally speaking, good match writers are good at rping too. That’s not always the case and I’ve seen exceptions on both sides. But generally speaking a good writer is a good writer.

So what we’d do in the XHF is every show we’d put up a writer’s card and note who claimed which matches. Usually each admin would take a match or two and there’d be a couple matches left for volunteers to grab. I prefer this method to seeking out people quietly because it gives random folk you wouldn’t expect an opportunity to throw their hat in the ring (so to speak) and it also works as a credits list for that show (since their names are clearly on the writer’s card). The only caveat to this I’d add is that I’m not real big on people writing their own matches. I consider that an emergency-only situation. The reason is that even subconsciously a guy might want to put their character over better and it might accidently be at the degradation of the other guy in the match. So it’s less of an overt-bias issue and more of quality control. There are obvious exceptions (angled matches are one) and how your fed does it is up to you.

From that match-writer pool is almost always where we’d grab our staff from in the XHF. This made our job easier because if somebody is already helping, they’re likely interested in getting more responsibility. So there isn’t any need to shop around your members looking for somebody who maybe seems talented enough. That’s why I’d suggest feds use the volunteer writing card system and why I strongly suggest members try their hands at matches when those cards are posted. We’ve got a whole section for you to post writers cards- but you can do it in your own fed area too if you’d prefer that way.

Where do I get my staff from now? The XHF Network staff are chosen from the pool of former fed admin/owners. DT and Kanyon are former XHF admins (and great ones at that). Dylan was the co-owner of AXW and Vastrix was the owner of RSW (and has been a big volunteer helper at other feds). So if you want a Network Admin position you better impress me as a fed admin/owner first, lol.

How do I Pick Up Staff? Understanding the Vision

This is where I’ve probably been the most blessed as an owner. While you’re vetting staffers from the various volunteers or whatnot it’s important that you pick up guys who “get it” in terms of what you want to present. I’m not saying guys who’ll be yes men to what you want or who won’t ever call you out if you’re wrong. What I’m saying is that you want guys whose vision matches your own. I’ll give a great example of this. After AWF started, there were questions from Kuroi if he would ever be considered for an XHF Network staff position. At the time I politely gave him a hard no- because what he was trying to do was way different than what I wanted for the Network and him and I had different thoughts on what I’d consider key issues. Since he’s gained more experience, I feel like maybe it’s different but at that time Kuroi wouldn’t have been a good fit. There’s some really talented guys on the Network that I would not want to be an XHF Network Admin. That’s not an insult to them- they could run extremely successful feds (in the Network) and do a great job, it’s just not what I want for my staff.

How do you figure out where somebody lands in terms of the vision though? Well, from the perspective of a fedhead within the Network, I’d take a look at how they participate OOC. Are they pitching ideas? Are they interacting with people? Are they busy in the discord chat? Look at how they act outside of character and see how that aligns with yourself. Even in the XHF we had a nightly AIM chat, and people say what they want in chatty environments. So it’s much easier to pick up people whose vision aligns with your own. Some people want to make major changes- and while I respect that, I feel like they’d be better served running their own place. That way they aren’t feeling creatively stifled as the you and your staff constantly vote down their ideas. Having said that, you do want people with ideas- just ideas that align with what you’re envisioning. All of the current Network admins have pitched ideas that I’ve loved and we’ve used them at various points. These are smart guys who have good ideas. We don’t need to turn everything over for one guy and no guy is getting shouted down. It’s an important aspect that I’ve seen cause problems in other feds.

Having said that though, I’ve been blessed with the luxury of choice. Even now we’ve got four really stable staffers so I’m able to keep my shortlist of future Network Admins incredibly short. You might not have that as a fed owner, especially early on. And within your staff pool you might have conflict. It happens.

Resolving Staff Conflicts

Staff fights occur sometimes- sometimes staff fight against you. What do you do then? If the issue is one of clashing personalities, the best thing I’ve found is to give them roles that keep them away from each other; because if they’re overlapping on parts they’re more likely to get territorial about ideas. I remember one of the feds here had a big issue with two of the staffers arguing and my suggestion (it wasn’t taken) was that they switch to a two-show system and each one takes charge of the show. This advice wasn’t taken and eventually both quit their staff positions. It happens. And it’s happened in the XHF too. Sometimes one of the guys just isn’t a good fit, and rather than constantly try to make them fit, it’s better to let them go. Now, if everyone is disagreeing with you- well then you’ve got a real issue. Either you’ve picked up staff that don’t “get it”- or you don’t “get it” anymore.

Wait, a fed owner can lose sight of his own vision? I mean, that is an illogical thought, but yes, it happens. Feds can grow into large, unwieldy creatures, and if the owner is still thinking in terms of how things were when they started they can easily get left behind. As an owner you need to be able to adapt to the changing world you’ve created and roll with how the members want to go. Sometimes you’re wrong. I thought the X*Crown was a terrible idea when Ishnari pitched it; now it’s the top title in the XHF Network so I’m glad I acquiesced to my staff, lol.

At the same time, you need to know when to put your foot down. As the owner you should have an idea of the core components of your fed, what makes it special and what helps to shape the in-character world. Sometimes you’ll get ideas that people like that don’t jive with that and you need to know when to say “Ehhhh, let’s not do that.” Or maybe try to figure out an alternative that helps people feel like their ideas are listened to, but are adjusted to work within your fed’s setting. As a generality I defer to my staff if I’m outvoted. But that’s because in the XHF I was a terrible owner who’d mentally check-out for months to play EWR- literally, that’s not a joke. I learned to depend on my staff to run things when I couldn’t be bothered to do it so even now I give them a high level of trust and independence. Do I think that’s how every fed should be run? Probably not, it really depends on what you want things to look like. But I will say that having enough guys on staff to vote-out any issues is usually the fastest way to resolve stuff. Is that a fix-all? Absolutely not, but it is a start.

The other important part of conflict resolution is basic: Keep yourself open. That means to keep an open mind in debates between staffers and to keep yourself available to talk with guys as they need it. Sometimes a staffer’s frustration might just be a need to vent- and when they’re done they’ll feel so good they don’t even want to make any changes, lol. But if people know you’re willing to listen it’s likely to bring inter-staff quarrels down to a minimum.

Concluding Thoughts

I said this in another lesson and it’ll probably be a continual thought: You set the pace. An active owner shows his members his heart and his vision. If you’re doing a good job of conveying your vision to your members, then the members who really get into it are likely to want to help in an OOC setting. From those members willing to help you can get an idea of how much use they provide practically and from there you can draw future staffers. Obviously when you’re first starting it’s more like “Here’s what we’re making, who wants to help?” but that works too sometimes, lol. Your staff is an extension of yourself- often more useful than you once they outnumber you. You need to be open to letting them get some independence and responsibility but you should also expect from them to do their best when put in positions of power. Don’t be afraid to get help, it may end up being the deciding factor on your fed growing or closing. And I wanted to shout out all the amazing people who’ve held the XHF/XHF Network together while I’ve gotten way more credit than I have ever deserved. You guys have made this your own in a way that others can aspire to and the loyalty you’ve shown- even after a 6 year hiatus- is extremely moving. Thank you guys so very much for making this vision a reality. Keep it Xtreme, guys!