And whilst all that is the stuff of dreams it's also the stuff of safety. We’ve all got the battle scars and the stories to tell of the failed games, the poor management decisions and the lack of fairness. We all have our own perception of the good and a collective view, perhaps of the not so good. But it's here we stay stuck. Safeguarding the companies we build and the success we drive for. Protecting our studios against the odds from the corporate fat cat. And in doing so we remain friends with our employees and team, safely placing ourselves in a position of "not like them" and leaving the perception of poor decision making at the doors of the corporations and HR.

Except that’s not how it plays out in reality. Leadership is hard, it's definitely isolating and absolutely brutal but being friends with your team is not for them, it's for you. As a leader you have to make decisions about your business that affect your team and in doing so that immediately separates you from being one of them. Because in the cold light of day there are decisions you’ll be making all the time, which are not always favourable to the team.

So why do you dislike "corporate" and what in turn are you avoiding and not dealing with?

The chances are that corporate feels too formal and structured, too much process aimed at targets to please the money gods and ultimately more work. Over the last few years there have been headline cases in all kinds of industries of unfairness in corporates so why would you want to be like that? Instead you choose to avoid the structure, relying on the "we’re friends, we trust each other, right" tropes. In a small team that works well and we don’t need structures in the same way but we do still need to be fair and lawful. As we scale, the need to create fairness in the process is greater. Whilst the foundations of lawfulness should always underpin how you operate, process is also a key test.

These days, employees check out this stuff way before joining; they ask their friends and network, check Glassdoor, LinkedIn or Twitter. They want to know who you are. And at the other end of their journey, where they feel aggrieved, they take to AI to be their de facto solicitor (For more on this read our blog here). Where once a settlement could resolve issues, that is no longer so simple. 

As leadership, the tools that used to be so useful - settlements, NDA’s, not recognising unions, no need for performance management - have changed. Now we’re seeing the lack of these play out in the courts and indeed in our clients.

It's time to ditch the "we’re not corporate" for "we care deeply about our employee experience" and then lead into being curious about how we can do that well.

There is plenty of research into all this, from fairness, engagement, motivation and psychological safety. The most powerful of which is the work of Amy Edmonson on Psychological Safety that really explores our role in creating a safe environment. 

What’s important here is that we’re not safe where we’re not following process, legal guidance and leaning into expertise from our People & Culture team. To be more commercial in today’s world we have to face the fact we are now dealing with big serious people challenges. When we choose to all be friends together, we need to ask ourselves are we a friend or are we scared?  Afterall a good friend looks after the relationship and does the right thing by each other. Avoiding corporate isn’t being a good friend, it's leading you to potential risk and ultimately much harder darker decision making later down the line. 

We have to now face the fact that this industry needs to show compassion to our teams and learn a little bit more about how to be lawful. The cost of not doing so in the face of the new Employment laws could be in the millions.