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To me personally, as a current guild leader, I think it’s both stability and structure but throwing those two out the window, the most important things you must instill within a guild is a sense of engagement, purpose, motivation, and culture. Yes, stability and structure are indeed important but the sense of who you’re as a guild will formulate the most important asset there is in a guild, which is the people who are in it. Human capital is the most valuable asset in any company making up 70% of any organization, that goes the same for a guild. If you put the right type of people in for the culture scheme and fit your trying to create; then everything else will come. The right people create the right identity you want to be as a guild whether it’s a combat guild, social/casual, try-hard etc. It’s important to really nail that because building that human capital makes the difference between a successful guild and one that fades away within a couple weeks. Of course, I don’t think all guilds will last forever, hell; if my own guild lasts more then a year or two, I’ll be damn impressed. It’s not easy to build one over a game and I’m sure tons of guild leaders will say it’s quite the challenge to maintain one and to keep the human capital inside of it from turning over during some point and time. What’s important is that if you do have turnover is to make sure your top performers (I.E officers, senior members) and those that contribute to the organization stay or turnover much less then your average guild member because those folks are the ones to keep the train running. In reality; losing a valuable employee will cost an organization 2 times their salary, not including recruiting, training, and onboarding costs. The same can be applied to a guild because that person you trained to do certain tasks for you is no longer there and does the leader or others who trained that person to do a certain “skilled” task motivated enough to train folks again?
These are the types of things that really build stability and structure which all stems from engagement. If a guildie is engaged, then they’re motivated, and if they’re motivated, then they’re productive and with productivity comes efficiency (I.E the amount of enjoyment they’re having in a guild)If you can nail the engagement part right and delegate work efficiently, then you will 100% be in the right place when it comes to structure and stability. The folks who help you manage things know what they’re doing, can do it right, and are happy to do it for you and the guild are really the three keys to nailing structure. As for stability, if the structure is right then the stability will come to as long as your guildmates are engaged, motivated, and find purpose in what they do for the guild and what type of fun they’re having within the guild that correlates with them on an emotional level.
Are your guildies having fun? Awesome, that means they’re engaged.
Are your guildies happy to be in your guild and can really resonate with the other folks in it? Great, that means they’re engaged
Do your guildies log in to play the game or to play the game with your guild? If they log in to play the game, you’re more likely than not to lose them to another guild, become guildless, or just quit the game altogether. On the other hand, if they log in to play with your guild; then you know for sure they’re motivated to play with your folks.
Do your guild mates find purpose in being in your guild, do they have a place in your culture, do they fit the scheme, can they get along with everyone and what is their role? If a guildie can say yes to do all those things or most of those things, it’s more likely then not that they have a purpose for being in your guild.
Purpose, engagement, culture, and motivation are the foundation for structure and stability as I mentioned earlier but in terms of the inner workings and nailing down what that structure should be and what stability looks like really depends on the guild leader and the guild itself!
For instance, my guild is 100% social/casual, we enjoy just hanging out with each other, unlike a combat guild who has more fun doing things related to combat! It really depends on your purpose and what your sought-out end goal is as a guild. For my folks, talking to others and just having a good time being social fulfills one of their emotional needs and having events that are more social then combat, music, life skill related, and etc is more meaningful to them in the long run. Of course, finding the right people to fit the scheme is the key but if a guild knows who they’re, what they’re and their end-game purpose (A sense of identity) you will find the right folks who fit the culture scheme and everything else will come.
I would get into more on the recruiting side of this but that’s a story for another day! Hopefully, everything I wrote helps!
