Culture driving productivity

[Music] I think this is my seventh Pocket Gamer or something like that so it feels like home now very happy that you guys came this early hopefully you will wake up this is gonna energize you a little bit or slow down the headache from the migraine or the kind of hangover you have from last night so let's see what happens but um I want to talk a little bit about culture and in teams and how does that affect the way I work or my experience and the way we do things so basically that's me I am a senior producer at King have you heard of that I love that people smile like okay well good I have I'm from

Brazil I have worked in six different countries worked and lived in six different countries in three different languages and that's why I'm gonna talk about culture because I've learned a lot by moving around and working with different people different sizes of team and I'm gonna kind of share some tips so how can you boost your productivity and is that okay yeah okay good so basically I was thinking when Patti invited me to talk about and open the culture track which was a big deal I think I wanted to think about what culture is so let's start reading a lot about culture and it's very ambiguous right because everyone has their own interpretation of what that means or what that is but pretty much it's what surrounds us all the time and how does that we apply that so I was reading some some articles and I came up with this quote which I'm gonna read because I think it's important workplace culture is the

shared values belief systems and the set of assumptions that people in a workplace share and I was thinking about myself not in a selfish way but I was thinking about myself if it's a shared value belief system instead of assumptions how do we come about that like I came back that we grew up in different places and we grew up with different things and we learn different in probably different languages so me as a producer in charge of a team how do I create a set of share things if we all come from different places if we believe in different things and if we think in different ways and and how do you overcome that challenge to align them and why do you want to align them why is that needed and then the video game industry is also very interesting so I wasn't born in the video game industry I used to be an English teacher before but

when I in Brazil you know when this English is actually okay not here where I don't even know the words properly but basically when I came to the video game industry I came up with different crafts so in the team you have completely different talents and different ways of working in different ways of thinking and you put an artist sounds like a joker a developer and hardest and a producer entered a meeting room and everything is different there so I was thinking how do you accomplish and how do you get through that not only to give this talk but then to be a better professional what I do and then I I try to go back and say okay if you're thinking about culture outside work right it's shaped by your upbringing your social context and your cultural context so to avoid the hate I would tell you right now when I grew up I never had a console and I didn't play video games get over the hate out of your system now do that I watched the

Star Wars when I was 21 so also get that out of your system the first one but number four well the four C's see but get it out of your system I'm a nice person you will see but that was not part of my cultural upbringing I played Mario when I was 25 right but I did okay and now I have it at home but when I joined the industry everyone was like what what are you doing here why are you here because it was different I didn't have access to that believe it or not I just I didn't do it because I didn't have it I didn't know existed so then if this is culture and people have different interests and they are exposed to different things how do you how do you put that together in a workplace I learned that throughout my entire career one of the main things that shape positive culture is leadership and

management that is key how here is in a leadership position and your team yeah so you guys are very responsible for this it's yours carrying your shoulder because basically it influences not only your little team or your project but the entirety culture of your studio or even your company you are a role model and a shape and it's shaped by you and this sounds like just lingo but positive team culture has lots of impact so if you have a positive culture in your team or in your company or in your studio or whatever that is in general hopefully at home too people are gonna be more motivated to work people are gonna be more committed but everyone knows that right this is just okay everyone knows that yeah everybody should be positive well how do you get there and why so I went to some numbers I also learned throughout my career that

if you want people to believe you you prove and not buy this like this is fine but you go and you search with people that you know do this kind of stuff so a company called Deloitte which hopefully you've heard about did a research on team culture and it's they came up to 84 percent of employees believe that a distinct culture is important to success so that's that's a very big number 76 percent of people believe that a clearly defined business strategy helps create a positive culture now I'm from the game industry I really like developing games and clearly defined business strategy is very business for me so and and for my team to be honest if I sit down in a 101 with both my QA analyst and I said oh let's define a business clearly strategy what the word what's the order and they'll be like okay so my job is also to understand that and make sure that this translates to something that everyone relates to so let's get to the chase so how do you

create a positive work culture is that a recipe does anyone have a recipe like two spoons of this is a hard crowd basically there is no right answer so this is not this is my experience in what I believe in what I read and what I put in my teams it could be the people that work at the same company do things differently this is what worked for me so far and why so first and foremost I remember when we said a clear direction is something that people care so let's think what people care create goals and values for your team so there are several ways of doing that and all the examples I'm giving is based on my experience so I used to work for a company before when I lived in Germany and they had really clear goals make money oh you guys want to make money right I I want to make money in my life to be honest because you know I want to

be able to be in London live inland is very expensive but they want that their goal was to make money but they make this beet meeting with everyone in this tender company was about a thousand people and they said our strategy for this year has to make money sounds great how do I hate what how do I do that and to be honest we didn't really feel like we were part of that you don't need to make your team or your entire company to decide what the strategy is you should know that but being part of it is very important evolving people to make clear goals and define the values of your team or your company or it's super important it's not just convincing them that that's the right way to go there is a part of that of course but it's about involving them and how do you achieve how do we get there what do we need to do to get there so if we want to develop a game and this game is

gonna be the best I'm gonna say match three game in the world no pun intended how do we get there what do we need to do together if we do that we got a commitment from the team you get the buy-in and then of course you have to walk the walk right so you said the goals but then you need to act like it if you create a set of values or a vision you need to do that you need to work towards that and when someone worked towards that or to take a step toward that direction I should recognize and celebrate because in that way let's say we all define the value and I say that this lovely gentleman here hidin he actually made something today that goes to that direction so we should recognize and give him a round of applause nice job basically now she was like oh I

should do that too I mean that's how that's what we agreed and that's positive and that's celebrated and I'm committed to do this and it becomes something natural the second step is about fostering collaboration and communication in order so basically one of the another really hard thing that I learned is feedback honest communication where I come from do I have any Brazilians besides Patti here amazing so maybe you will relate to this so in Brazil well you are kind of honest with each other but we also like want you to like us you know we want you to think we're interesting and and they're nice and charming so sometimes we're not really honest you know we don't want to admit that we have flaws so we kind of

hide and everything's fine it's always fine we're always happy we're always not really dancing but we're always happy hoping an honest communication is something really hard to achieve but it's something really important constructive feedback is something really important as well and it's really difficult in the beginning especially if you're a new company or your new team or like many of us you're doing it in a second language I forget it's hard and this talk would be so much more interesting my native language I believe they believe me but that's the thing to achieve that is to create a safe environment in which people can be honest with each other and there are different ways of giving feedback right so see I'm gonna give you some feedback this leather jack is cool what does he do I'm not entirely sure but I just gave you some feedback okay and especially if it was the other way

around I actually don't really like it so what are you what does he do with that nothing the way I say I can still say the same things and wow the material of this is great and follow up with it giving feedback on things in the game or in the team like oh I don't really like your attitude there's a really help you change he's horrible person doesn't help you change anything you know maybe you could work on your style of communication maybe you could listen more or why don't you do this I learned a lot from the Brits they're great at this a lot of key words that help you get there but the truth is you should create an environment that will encourage feedback and the recurrent improvement and it's okay if people get upset in the beginning but you need to align that it's okay the second part of it is unconscious bias so remember when I said that culture is your upbringing and what you're exposing everything so

there are some predetermined things in our minds that we need to break there are you cannot you mean I've had a lot of people coming to me after talks and said Oh interesting I don't have unconscious bias just the fact you said that means you do okay just sorry to break it but in my head I grew up in Sao Paulo and I'm the second woman in my entire country to work with video games take it out of your system yeah I met actually at the Berlin Museum but that's a different conversation so I grew up in an environment which I was always the only woman always so whenever my friends girls or my cousin's women came to me and said oh I don't know what I'm gonna work with video games never crossed my mind to come to a girl and say why don't you study coding never because I I didn't think about it I mean there was a bunch of men which is

flowing but I never never crossed my mind to incentivize them to go to that pass this is a true story though so police I remember I was interviewing for King my first two interviews weren't with women and that had never happened before ever and one of them was a head of studio I can do that I can be that so it broke to me that the video game is a boy thing I know I'm doing a very simple example but we all have unconscious bias and in the team and in communication we should be able to try to break that I remember many many times receiving the feedback I'm very passionate very strong yeah because that's part of my culture we I don't know any other way this is this is this is how it happened there do

I lived abroad and I was exposed to different cultures for sweets I lived in Sweden and they got this there or you know even here sometimes it's a bit like well but it happens and instead of trying to change people and try to you know make them fit I need to break and see if and that's just not how they are and in that bridge we need to create an inclusive environment so yes it's kind of comfortable for me to come here in front of you I'm a latinum women I'm gay there you go I got all the minority tics yes great if you you know from there we're already very diverse but basically that versity and inclusion is not just about gender or orientation or is about craft as well it's very easy for me to sit with a bunch of producers and we just like agile that's how we work by the way PowerPoint number spreadsheets but when we are doing a team meeting we have to be inclusive of other crafts I

have to be inclusive of other languages we have to be inclusive of many many things diversity and inclusion is now so let's just hire some women and now we're cool let's make a headline there's not only about that it's about maintaining them it's about creating an environment that's safe for them to be who they are it's about asking for help and which is what I did many many times there's a lot going on right now and I don't know many things but I need to go and learn about it I need to go and ask for help I didn't know that in Germany people didn't kiss hello all right kiss hello hi kiss not on the lips that's disgusting yeah I'm not gonna go there but I didn't know that huh and then in the US like you shake your hand but is it the right or the left and then one do I hug what if I'm thankful I just ask what I'm saying you should do the head work respect people but it's just an example that it's okay if you don't know

how to be with someone how to treat them but just ask them to tell you and this is the last one we're goals and rewards for a team you want to keep a team if you have fun right if they're good make it clear for them what their next steps are how do they progress where do they go from here how do they get there and then how are they doing don't be afraid of difficult conversations but a lining is gonna make your life much easier and it's not only about promotion is how do I get better at my own craft but what's my next challenge if you want a team to have a positive culture and buy into this and keep themselves motivated that's key it's key for them to align their own expectations of what you want from them and what they should expect here and it's okay if it doesn't fit it's better to know before it's like relationships it's better to know before

my conclusion in my career is that a positive culture comes from pride and an ownership inside the team it's about you wanting to be part of that when that happens it becomes easier working in the video game industry is already in my opinion fun it's a pleasure we do creative things we solve complicated problems and we have really huge challenges we bring joy to people and having a team that kind of believes in that and it's part of the I ski people are key to get whatever you are it's not I mean a good idea goes nowhere without the right people to execute on it bottom line it's based a lot on management and leadership it's amazing a lot of avenues that you provide from put to go and that's it thank you question yeah do I

have a question I'm very yeah no it's just that I was super clear and they get it they agree and they just like they're living this every day so I like your jacket let me see is it real leather okay there you go so maybe you can just keep it to me at the end thank you everyone I hope you have a great day [Music]