One of our company’s values is “Greatness”…. Simply put it means to us that we strive to make great over good at all times and at all costs. In games, we believe that players reward “Great” with their time and ultimately their money and so it simply makes for good business. Striving for great outcomes in the games that we make may sound obvious but in practice it’s hard to achieve, so how can we accomplish it consistently?
We’re trying to find as many 10x people as possible.
The 10x Person
People make projects, and 10x people make 10x better projects — maybe not in a single dimension, but across capability, communication, decision making, leadership, cultural benefit, work ethic, output or hiring they have the potential on balance to make ten times the impact.
Steve Jobs said “A players hire A players, but B players hire C players and C players hire D players. It doesn’t take long to get to Z players. The trickle down effect causes bozo explosions in companies.”
Steve Job’s A-Players, are our 10x-ers.
An organization filled with 10x-ers is then smaller, more effective, more efficient, easier to manage and more fun & inspiring to be a part of — so why strive for anything other than finding 10x people and avoid the inevitable “bozo explosion”?
As it’s so hard to vet and understand who is, or has the potential to be a 10x-er, I thought I’d share 3 traits of a 10x-er, that we look for…
3 traits of the 10x-er
There are three common traits that I’ve found in the 10x-ers that I’ve had the good fortune to work with here at N3TWORK and in my past life at ngmoco, DeNA, Electronic Arts & Virgin.
1. High Standards
10x-ers have inherently high standards on an absolute basis. As humans we tend to conform to the surrounding normal. That often means that we measure ourselves against the local maxima when pursuing what we think is greatness. Usually, the best person on a team dictates the high watermark for performance, but on an absolute basis, if this person is only mediocre, that means we’re aspiring for that same low standard. The 10x-er anchors themselves accountable to greatness by having high absolute standards and because every action that they take is filtered through this lens, they tend to leave greatness in their wake and raise the caliber of those around them.
2. Undying Curiosity
10x-ers always wonder how something works, why something is the way it is and whether there is a better way to do it. They are life-long learners, always trying to develop their understanding of the area of their life that they are a 10x-er in.
This relentless pursuit of knowledge means that they know that there’s always something new to be learned or discovered and, I’ve observed, that it means that they rarely believe that the old way was the best way, which in turn helps them seek the very best solution, whether from inside or outside of the company, to solve a problem.
3. Yes if…
A basic tenet of improv comedy is known as “Yes, and…” that allows for anything to happen — No matter what your fellow actors present to you, instead of negating or disagreeing with it, your job is to say “Yes, and…”. When done well, the result is awesome.
As we think about making games, the collaborative and dynamic nature of our process requires something that’s not a million miles from the improv protocol of “Yes, and…”. For us, this process is “Yes if…” and the 10x-er naturally excels at it. If everyone is “Yes if”-ing, then every problem is tackled positively, but with sensical constraints or requirements in order to solve it — “Can we do this? Yes, if we can do X, Y or Z”.
The inherent “Yes if….” capability of the 10x-er means that the organizations that they are a part of have the opportunity to be positively focused, but with a rational basis for problem solving.
Helpful?
I hope that this brief post was interesting and helpful to you.
Of course, If you’re a 10x-er, we’d love to talk with you.
If you, like us, are trying to build a great company, that makes great products or games, I hope that you’ve got some extra thoughts on the importance of 10x people in helping you achieve that and how to spot them.
Neil Young.
neil@n3twork.com | @ncyoung | @n3tworkco
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