8.8 KiB
Session 2: Shared Purpose and Alignment
Welcome - 5 min
- Slide: Tag Yourself
- Slide review: What we've learned so far
- we've learned the history of cooperatives, the principles, and how we each know these practices from our own lineages
- we've identified our personal values and started mapping them as teams
Intro - 10 min
"Patience for the pace of trust."
- Ruth Łchav'aya K'isen Miller (Dena'ina Athabaskan, Curyung Tribe), co-founder of Smokehouse Collective
Ruth Łchav'aya K'isen Miller, "An Alaska Native mutual aid network tackles the climate crisis," High Country News, 2024.
via Burton, Antoinette. “Moving at the Speed of Trust”? Course Correction Needed
VISIBLE Magazine, 5 Dec. 2024
There is no set pace or speed at which this work should happen. Resisting external time pressures can cost opportunities or just make you feel an anxious sense of FOMO. But taking the time to move in concert with your collaborators, building shared understanding and purpose, will set the foundation for work that lasts and relationships that can hold complexity.
The industry normalizes crunch, exploitation, and toxic competition as "just how games are made." These practices are in perfect opposition to those that ensure the stability and long-term sustainability of a studio. They are also the main failure point of the industry, destroying amazing teams and causing a ripple effect of harm.
Many indies assume that because they are friends (or share political values) that they'll naturally work well together. But being pals and being aligned politically does not mean you share work values, decision-making styles, or financial expectations. Without putting intentional time and effort into alignment, even the closest relationships can crumble when those difficult conversations inevitably come up.
In a cooperative, instead of a boss solving problems through their authority, democracy becomes everyone's responsibility. Liberating? Terrifying? Yes. Why? Because most of us were never taught the skills required to work collectively.
This session will focus on moving slowly and with intention to create the conditions where disagreement can arise without destruction. We will look at some practical skills to guide conversations you might have with your actual collaborators.
Agenda
Check-in - 10 min
Two prompts:
- from your team's values mapping: what's one thing you learned about where your team aligns or diverges
- what's one assumption you've made about working with others that turned out to be wrong?
Share in the chat or unmute if you’re comfortable.
The alignment challenge - 15 min
We often assume we know the main goals for our projects, or think we have common language to describe scale and pace. We don't realize we may not be equally committed, or that we have different boundaries.
A big red flag is this attitude: "We're all friends, we never fight, we'll just figure it out as we go." More than friendship is required to set a foundation of true trust and solidarity in a cooperative. We have seen more studios fail due to interpersonal/values conflicts than lack of funding or creative/technical issues.
Once you start to do this work, you may realize you are not as aligned as you thought you were, and that's okay! However, try to examine why there is disagreement or how organizational power may be playing a role.
- In traditional studios, the boss decides when there's disagreement.
- In cooperatives, unresolved misalignment can become paralysis.
Common pitfalls
- "We all just want to make good games" - don't we all! Too vague.
- assuming shared politics = shared work values (activism != cooperative governance)
- rushing past uncomfortable conversations like money and centralized power
- defaulting to traditional studio roles
Creating safety for hard conversations
- not everyone needs identical commitment levels - you can all be different!!
- better to get conflicts out in the open early than let them fester, even if it feels scary
- focus on systems
Alignment != agreement
Alignment - Shared understanding of direction, even with different motivations
False consensus - Agreeing to avoid conflict (recipe for resentment)
Healthy disagreement - Different perspectives within shared values framework
Today we'll practice three core conversations…
Activity: "The Talk" - 35 min
Adapted from "The Talk: A Tool for Putting Values and Real Lives at the Forefront of Work" by Deen Rawlins (Obvious Agency), with modifications by Daniel Park
In your studio channels, with your Peer Support, practice these conversations.
Facilitation setup
You've each thought about these questions individually (Session 1 homework). Now you're sharing with your team. The goal isn't to solve everything today - it's to get the conversation started. You'll keep picking up these threads in your Peer Support sessions.
- When someone is speaking, listen. Hold responses until discussion time.
- There are no wrong answers
- Don't try to avoid discomfort. That's the good stuff.
Format for each round:
- Each person answers in turn (1.5-2 min each)
- Use the Miro timer
- After everyone answers, brief open discussion
- Then move to next round
You won't come to a conclusion today. You'll have a chance to talk about these topics with us and your Peer Supports throughout the program.
Round 1: Financial reality - 8 min
- How much do you need to make monthly to participate?
- What's your current financial capacity to contribute?
- How important is immediate income vs. long-term equity?
[FACIL-01: See facilitator guide for observation notes]
Round 2: Time & availability - 8 min
- What's your actual time availability?
- What are your non-negotiable boundaries?
- How do you handle competing priorities?
[FACIL-02: See facilitator guide for observation notes]
Round 3: Skills & contributions - 8 min
- what do you excel at vs. what drains you?
- where do you want to grow vs. where you're already expert?
- how do you prefer to contribute when you're overwhelmed?
[FACIL-03: See facilitator guide for observation notes]
Round 4: Decision-making styles - 6 min
- How do you prefer to make decisions under pressure?
- When do you need more information vs. when do you trust your gut?
- How do you handle disagreement?
[FACIL-04: See facilitator guide for observation notes]
Debrief - 5 min
[FACIL-05: See facilitator guide]
What surprised you? Where did you notice alignment? Where did you notice difference/divergence?
You probably noticed that a lot came up – and that's okay! We're going to keep talking about each of these areas as we go. All we did today is get the convo going. There's lots more work to do.
Remember: success for your studio is defined by your needs and values, not the industry's.
Closing - 5 min
Reflect (can share or just think):
- what are some of the tension points that came up during The Talk?
- what's one conversation you now realize you need to have with your collaborators?
- how might you redefine success to fit the needs of your studio?
Next session, we'll take the values you've identified and turn principles into practices you can actually use when decisions get hard.
Homework
-
Continue "The Talk" in your PS session – Go deeper on whichever round brought up the most tension or uncertainty.
-
Reflect individually on tension points – Write down:
- something that surprised you about a teammate's answer
- one place where you felt tension but didn't say anything
- a question you wish you'd asked but didn't
Bring these to your PS session. You don't have to share them with your full team yet.
-
Think through scale and pace individually – Before your next PS session, take some time to think through where you see your studio in 1/3/5 years. How many people on the team? One game? Multiple? What platforms? What are your goals – sustainability? Growth? Other measures of success?
Then ground it in reality: who are your players? (Do you know?) What's your revenue model? (Game sales? Services? Grants? Mix?) Can this sustain you? For how long?
We're not here to kill dreams. Just like any business, a cooperative needs a viable revenue plan. A studio that is not economically viable isn't sustainable, no matter how good the values are. Because if you don't have that, you don't have anything else.
Bring your notes to your PS session. You'll use these as a starting point for ongoing conversations about shared language and alignment around scale, pace, and what success looks like for your studio.