作者：Christian Nutt

在欧洲GDC的深入谈话中，Sproing联合创始人Harald Riegler坦白谈及塑造能够赢得尊重及带来成功的企业文化的挑战性及优点。

Riegler（游戏邦注：他管理一家65人的奥地利公司，公司主要制作免费游戏和主机游戏）表示，“正确的企业文化能够激发员工出乎意料的优点。”

Harald Riegler from futurezone.at

他表示，遗憾的是，塑造正确的企业文化是项艰巨挑战——但塑造这一文化非常重要，每位团队成员都要清楚这点。

Riegler表示，“这一文化将决定工作室或团队的成败。糟糕的企业文化甚至会摧毁整个团队。”

虽然“近来的销量上百万管理方式”书籍给出许多建议，但Riegler对于趋势和技巧不屑一顾。他表示，“真正重要的是，着眼于人际互动、人类特性及其行为。”

“良好的企业文化是建立在若干持久原则基础上——原则对我来说不只是系列规则，它是你生活及行动方式的基础。”

但他表示，“完善企业文化需要经久不息的投入，”所以请做好进行改变的准备。

如下是他总结的原则：

尊重

Riegler表示，“要领导团队，你必须对他们怀有内在的尊重之情。”若你不尊重和你共事的人士，“那你从一开始就注定要失败。”

他表示，“若你觉得自己高人一等，”对方会感觉得到。“肢体语言是我们的主要沟通方式。”

Riegler表示，“尊重会带来相互信任的环境，信任非常重要，因为只有在相互信任的环境中，你才能够应对复杂问题。你可以公开谈论大家不想谈论的话题。”

以身作则

Riegler表示，“各种书籍都纷纷表示，如果你希望自己的孩子动手，那就自己亲自示范。”这也适用于公司环境中。

Riegler表示，反过来亦成立：“若你不希望大家这么做，那你也不要这么做。己所不欲，勿施于人。”

责任感

Riegler表示，“这点着实有些棘手。”

他表示，“要让下属变得富有责任感有些伤脑筋。”但作为经理，“我觉得唯一的方式就是，将自己变得富有责任感，进而将此引入企业文化中。”

你要怎么做？他表示，“你得告诉大家，你要着手做什么。你要愿意评估自己。”最后，“你要公开描述自己取得多少成就，这并不简单，因为你很少能够做到事事顺利。”

成熟

“成熟并不意味着你非常有经验，你是个行业元老。在我看来，成熟是指能够自我反思，清楚自己的优缺点，知道自己该做什么，该朝何处前进。”

他表示，遗憾的是，“鲜少有人能够做到这点，因为这需要诚实思考自己的性格，这会让人觉得不舒服。”

但他表示，记住，“优秀参与者通常非常清楚团队所面临的挑战”，自我诚实和自我反思在此是关键——这不仅只是完善自我以及更有眼界；它给团队及公司业务带来深远影响。

他还表示，总是会掺杂爱出风头的人士、阴险小人及强势角色。Riegler表示，“注意所有这些角色，他们非常危险。”

乐趣

他表示，“我觉得乐趣非常重要。”大家可以转投其他不那么有趣的行业，赚取更多收益，因此在游戏行业，趣味是关键。

但他表示，这并不是个不专业或松懈的行业。Riegler表示，“有时这被看作是松懈的行业——年轻人通常将乐趣和缺乏严肃性及雄心壮志混淆。”所以不妨进行你的桌上足球比赛，但要确保公司的目标保持清晰。

另一方面，“成熟和疯狂并不矛盾”（游戏邦注：怪异在游戏行业的文化中不可避免，所以不妨保持开放态度）。

自由

Riegler表示，“自由决定如何解决某任务”非常关键——“而不是采用事无巨细的微观管理方式。”

Rigeler 表示，“享有弹性上班时间，能抽出时间处理家庭问题等”非常重要。“自由给予所有成员较多自主性，互相信任的环境能够有效创造自主性，而自主性能够促使成员倍受鼓舞。”

诚实

这是最重要的元素之一，同时也是最具挑战性的一点原则。“若是犯了错误，不妨大胆承认。不要害怕。在你所处的文化中，承认失败是能够被接受的。”

他表示，缺乏可行性的环境是“怪罪文化”。“在此文化中，很多重要元素就不会公开呈现出来。”

成员们为什么不想保持诚实？他表示，“这都是因为他们害怕应对失败。”但你必须承认，“我们偶尔总是会出错。”

若所处的是倡导公开及诚实沟通的文化，“聪明的团队成员就会发现你出错了，他们会向你指出，防止你铸成大错。”

但他有个提醒：若成员总是诚实指出出错地方，“你可能会陷入吹毛求疵的误区中，”这会带来悲观主义。“但你不能丧失信心。”

认知

Riegler表示，“大家的普遍认知是，文化非常重要，我们的互动方式能够塑造带来成功的文化，这非常重要。”换而言之，“所有人都要清楚这些原则，严格遵循它们。”

你需要承认的是，“大家都能够有所改善。”但“你不能直接告诉他人要进行改善。这不是实际运作模式。这是个缓慢过程。”

后果

Riegler表示，“这些原则若没有得到执行，它们就没有什么意义。”这是自下而上的过程。

他表示，“若你容忍成员忽视公司原则，那你脱离这些原则意味着什么？大家会觉得这些不是真正的原则，这将带来严重危害。”

最后思考

他表示，在没有开放文化的公司中，“很多时候大家会对在会议上指出‘这出错了’的成员印象深刻，你很好奇他们如何做到这点，因为企业文化让我们很难直接指出这些地方。”但若你塑造的是基于相互信任、责任感和互相沟通的文化，“更多成员就可以这么做，公司将得到显著改善。”

他表示，“你能够反思你的优缺点，这会让你变得非常有价值。你需要找到志同道合的伙伴，你可以创建能够顺利存活下来的团队。”（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

The keys to a company culture that works

by Christian Nutt

In a heartfelt talk at GDC Europe, Harald Riegler, co-founder of Sproing, frankly discussed the challenges and advantages of shaping a company culture that leads to respect and success.

“The right company culture will bring really good things out of people where you didn’t expect they existed,” says Riegler, who manages a company of 65 that works on free-to-play and console games in Austria.

Unfortunately, he says, forging the right company culture is a challenge — but it’s crucial to shape it, and that every team member understand it.

“That culture will largely decide the success of the studio or team,” says Riegler. “A bad company culture can even destroy teams completely.”

While “the latest million-selling management style” books offer advice, Riegler was dismissive of trends and tricks. “The really important thing is… that it’s entirely about human interaction, the characters of the humans, and their behavior,” he says.

“A good company culture is built on some lasting principles — principles, to me, means more than a set of rules, it’s a foundation on how you live and how you act,” he says.

“Working at it day by day, week by week, year by year is required to improve your company culture,” he says, however, so be prepared to commit fully to change.

Here are his principles:

Respect

“To lead any group of people, you need an innate respect for people,” says Riegler. If you don’t respect everyone you work with, he says, “I feel you’re doomed to fail from the outset.”

“If you feel superior to people,” he says, that comes across. “Body language is most of our communication.”

“Such respect leads to an environment of trust, and trust is really important because only in an environment of trust can you address tricky things. You can bring stuff out into the open that nobody wants to talk about,” says Riegler.

Lead by Example

“Every [parenting] book says that if you want your children to do something, you do it yourself,” says Riegler. This applies to companies, too, he says.

And the reverse is true, too: “If you don’t want somebody to do something, don’t do it yourself,” Riegler says. “Never ask anybody to do something you’re not prepared to do yourself.”

Accountability

“This is where it gets really tricky,” says Riegler.

“It’s often confused for just holding your subordinates accountable,” he says. But as a manger, Riegler says, “the only way, in my opinion — and that’s something I absolutely believe in — you an introduce accountability into organizations by making yourself accountable first.”

How do you do it? “You have to tell people what you’re setting out to do,” he says. “You have to be willing to benchmark yourself.” And then finally, “you have to be prepared to stand there and say just how successful you have been, which isn’t easy, because rarely do you achieve everything you set out to do.”

Maturity

“Maturity does not mean that you’re super-experienced, that you’re an elder statesman,” Riegler says. “Maturity to me is the ability to self-reflect and have a clear understanding of what your strengths and weaknesses are, and what you should be working on, and where you should grow.”

Unfortunately, he says, “a lot of people don’t really do well here, because it requires an honest reflection on your personality, and that can be uncomfortable.”

However, he says, bear in mind that “the best contributors can understand the challenges your team is up against,” and having that self-honesty and self-reflection is key for that — it’s not just about improving oneself and having a better outlook; it has a meaningful effect on the team and the business.

Then again, he says, there are divas, backstabbers, and power players. “Beware of all these kinds of characters; they’re very damaging,” Riegler says.

Fun

“I think fun is really important,” he says. People could probably work in other, less interesting industries for more money, he says, so in the game industry, fun is key.

It isn’t, however, an environment that isn’t professional, or one that’s lax, he maintains. “Sometimes it’s perceived as laxness — young people confuse fun with a lack of seriousness or ambition,” Riegler says. So have your foosball tournament, but make sure the goals of the company are clear, too.

On the other hand, “maturity does not contradict with being crazy” — being weird is part and parcel with the culture of the game industry, he argues, so be open to it.

Freedom

“Freedom to decide how to solve a task,” Riegler says, is key — “not being micromanaged.”

“To come and go at flexible hours, to take some time off to deal with family issues and what have you,” is very important. “Freedom leads to a lot of autonomy of every person, and an environment of trust supports such an autonomy, and autonomy leads to motivated people,” Rigeler points out.

Honesty

This is one of the most important elements, but also one of the most challenging. “If something went wrong, admit it. Don’t be afraid,” Riegler says. “You have to a culture where admitting failure is accepted.”

What won’t work, he says, is “a blame culture.” When you have one of those, “a lot of stuff that is important will not come out in the open,” Riegler says.

Why don’t people want to be honest? “It’s all because people are so afraid to deal with failure,” he says. But you have to recognize that “we all screw up every once in a while.”

If there’s a culture of open and honest communication, “people on the team who are smart will spot you are screwing up, and they will point it out and they will stop you from costly mistakes.”

But he did have one warning: if people are always brutally honest about what’s not working, “you may fall into the trap of becoming hypercritical,” which leads to pessimism. “But you can’t lose faith.”

Awareness

“The common awareness in every person that the culture is important and the way we interact sets the culture for success is really important,” says Riegler. In other words, “Everybody has to understand these principles and live by them.”

What you have to recognize is that “everybody has the ability to improve.” However, he says, “You can’t just go out there and tell people to improve… that’s not how it works. It’s a really slow process.”

Consequence

“These principles are not worth much if they are not enforced by everyone,” says Riegler. This is from the bottom to the top of the organization.

“If you tolerate someone ignoring the principles in the organization, what does that mean, that you can get away with that? Then people will understand they are not really principles, and that will be very harmful,” he says.

Final Thoughts

At companies without an open culture, he says, “a lot of times people are impressed by people who speak out in a meeting and say ‘This is going wrong,’ and you wonder how they do it, and that’s because the culture makes this stuff hard to bring out into the open,” he says. But if you shape a culture built on mutual respect, accountability, and communication, “more people can do that, and everything improves.”

“Your ability to self-reflect on what your strengths and weaknesses are will make you really valuable,” he says. “You need to find like-minded people and you can build teams that can survive in our day and age.”（Source：gamasutra）