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**KTG17**

Kind of stumbled on GW's career page which I hadnt seen before, and clicked it out of curiosity, and was really surprised to see this: http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?aId=10500181a

The key to our culture is that we always put the business first. We have no time for politics, private agendas, or petty behaviour. Leave your ego at home. We expect all staff to spend their time at work helping to improve Games Workshop both commercially and socially. We also expect you continually to work on improving yourself.

Strong cultures require some getting used to. Some people, perfectly naturally, will find ours too much for them, or not to their taste. We accept and acknowledge this fact. This is why we are so concerned to get a good fit between Games Workshop's personality and those of all the staff. People who don't fit or who 'play' at fitting, will be unhappy. We are pretty tolerant and you may be able to get away with it for a while, but you will still be unhappy.

I've always thought that to encourage the best talent you can hire, you should be really positive in the job description. To me, most of what is on that page goes without saying, but still comes across as pretty negative to me. I dont know if GW has a history of dealing with a lot of egos and petty behavior, but I am sure just about all companies have, and this kind of comes across to me like frustration. I would never expect to see something like this on a fortune 500 career site. Being in IT, I've had my share of job searching, and I would never apply to a job with a description including most of what is written there unless I was super desperate, which up to this point I havent been. I honestly do not get petty nor let my ego sabotage a career. But how can you know if you'll fit in until you are actually in?

I really dont know anything about GW's culture either, and you would be right that would be something someone should research before interviewing, but not sure how you would know where to do to find answers.

Just stuck me as odd this morning. Then I thought about what I heard about Andy Chambers exit from GW years ago lol.

**wowsmash**

GW wrought the book on petty behavior. .its just

and its digital download only.

**Azreal13**

You are talking about the company whose own CEO publicly described it's own staff as the single greatest threat to it's long term success (or words to that effect) to it's own shareholders.

GW treats frontline staff like a Guard player treats Guardsmen, so I guess, in a perverse way, they should get some sort of credit for being honest and upfront about it!

**CthuluIsSpy**

I believe my last sig might be relevant in this case.

**Haight**

At least they come out and openly say it. You know what you're getting into.

Most companies have a really swell sounding set of "Guiding Principles" or "Core Values" or "mission statement".

It's all a bunch of bs. The first time the bottom line is not where the CEO or the board wants it to be, watch those core values fly right out the window (right after the layoffs, ofc.).

I actually kind of respect the fact that they flat out come out and say "Listen, if you're faking drinking the cool aid, you're going to hate it here. The Company comes first, everything else after. You'll have fun if you live, breath, and die games (workshop), if not, you're not going to like it here. "

Because it's at least honest, and frankly, it's the same thing that every other for profit company says (and most non-profits too) between the lines. At least this is plain English instead of just dressed up in more or less in well tailored fancy prose.

**KTG17**

azreal13 wrote:
You are talking about the company whose own CEO publicly described it's own staff as the single greatest threat to it's long term success (or words to that effect) to it's own shareholders.

What the heck why would he say that? Seems like a slap in the face to the guys that made GW popular in the first place.

I have to be honest I havent kept up with the internal politics of GW or announcements anyone working there really made.

This guy is no longer around, right?

**Medium of Death**

It's a somewhat aggressive stance to put forward when you're meant to attracting people.

**Trondheim**

Damn...... GW I am impressed by your low standars! Well done

**Azreal13**

KTG17 wrote:
azreal13 wrote:
You are talking about the company whose own CEO publicly described it's own staff as the single greatest threat to it's long term success (or words to that effect) to it's own shareholders.

What the heck why would he say that? Seems like a slap in the face to the guys that made GW popular in the first place.

I have to be honest I havent kept up with the internal politics of GW or announcements anyone working there really made.

This guy is no longer around, right?

It was Tom Kirby, in either this years or lasts years financial statement.

He is very much still around.

**mattyrm**

azreal13 wrote:
You are talking about the company whose own CEO publicly described it's own staff as the single greatest threat to it's long term success (or words to that effect) to it's own shareholders.

GW treats frontline staff like a Guard player treats Guardsmen, so I guess, in a perverse way, they should get some sort of credit for being honest and upfront about it!

Yeah at least they are honest about being a nest of vipers.

Credit where its due, with that ad they will only attract other pricks to work for them, so at least militant sales types will apply, it would be unfair if they attracted nice pleasant people who thought it would be all about playing and painting. I can imagine the internal staff meeting at GW being something akin to Boiler Room.

**Azazelx**

azreal13 wrote:
You are talking about the company whose own CEO publicly described it's own staff as the single greatest threat to it's long term success (or words to that effect) to it's own shareholders.

Quote, please. Sounds fascinating.

**Kanluwen**

IIRC, Kirby more or less talked about how "employees when happy and in line with the Games Workshop Hobby are great for sales figures but when upset or displeased with the Games Workshop Hobby can be damaging to the sales figures as they drive potential customers away".

**CthuluIsSpy**

Azazelx wrote:
azreal13 wrote:
You are talking about the company whose own CEO publicly described it's own staff as the single greatest threat to it's long term success (or words to that effect) to it's own shareholders.

Quote, please. Sounds fascinating.

It cropped up somewhere here.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/543013.page

I will try to pinpoint the exact location.

EDIT: FOUND IT! It's on the bottom of the fourth page.

Original Source of Article:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/10211193/Games-Workshop-Tom-Kirby.html

By Harriet Dennys1:10PM BST 30 Jul 2013CommentsComment
Posting preliminary figures today, chairman and acting chief executive Tom Kirby uses his introduction to inform the market of his aim to “continue to make the best fantasy miniatures in the world and sell them at a profit”.
And how does he plan to do this? “We run a tight ship, and do our damnedest to get more sales,” he says. “Everything else is just whistling Dixie.”

Games Workshop, which makes and sells fantasy games such as Warhammer and Lord of the Rings and model figures with which to play them, posted pre-tax profits of £19.5m for the 53 weeks to June 3 2012. But royalty income from licences sold to computer games companies fell £2.5m to £1.0m.
“We expected a significant decline,” says Mr Kirby, who says the traditional computer games industry has been “changed utterly and permanently” by the arrival of smartphones and iPads.
“We switched as fast as we could,” he confesses. “But [we] were limited by the constraints of the deals we already had in place.”

Games Workshop may have adapted but Mr Kirby hasn't quite kept up referring to a one new product as "Warhammer Quest for iOS (Apple stuff). Buy it now! Good fun."
He also goes back to basics as runs through the company's performance. "Sales," Mr Kirby explains, "is all the money we take in and we quantify by counting it."
Such ideas are not "mysterious" he admits.

On the subject overheads he is equally pithy: "With overheads we try to have them not grow at all. Easy to say. Hard to do."
Mr Kirby also tells investors in the London-listed business to take next year’s capital investment numbers “with a pinch of salt”.
“We think it many be £9.3m,” he says, before referencing the 19th century German military strategist Helmuth von Moltke. “But remember that, as von Moltke said, ‘No plan survives contact with the enemy’.”
However, he says the biggest threat to the company is internal – its own staff. This is why Mr Kirby will only hire employees who understand that Games Workshop’s business ethic is modelled on inventor Thomas Edison’s methodology.
Mr Kirby explains the modus operandi: “After 10,000 attempts to make an incandescent lightbulb, [Edison] was asked about the 9,999 failures. ‘They weren’t failures, he said. I now know 9,999 ways it won’t work’.”

But if Games Workshop’s factory burns down, the company is “well insured”. In fact, says Mr Kirby, it could be back into full-scale production “within 12 months”.
Mr Kirby has a policy of never giving interviews or speaking to the press, leaving his “CEO’s Commentary” to do the talking for him.
He is part of a tradition of plain-speaking business leaders that includes Andrew Perloff, the outspoken chairman of Panther Securities, whose bi-annual “ramblings” have become more of a media event than the financial performance of his property investment company.
Although, of course, that may be the intention.

**Sidstyler**

Games Workshop’s business ethic is modelled on inventor Thomas Edison’s methodology.

Well that's no surprise. They must be doing a good job because both Edison and GW will go down in history as being colossal fething dicks whose best ideas were stolen from other people.

**prplehippo**

The only problem with making statements like having to "Fit in to out corporate culture" is that many employees do fit in with the culture, they just don't fit in with the "employee culture" that develops in companies.

When I say "employee culture" I mean the way that many people these days confuse "getting along with your coworkers to get the job done" with "being friends and buddies with your coworkers"

You can be a perfectly good fit with GW the company, but if a few staff or a manager doesn't like you then your days are numbered. It's become more important that you are friends with your coworkers then how good you are at your job or how much you "love the hobby or company".

I've seen this happen many, many times even at GW. Really great staff who are very experienced and love working there losing their jobs because a few employees don't like them as a person. I've heard all kinds of complaints at GW from "He didn't say hello in the morning to me" to "She never sits with us at lunch".

Many people really don't mature much at all when they get out of high-school. A large part of my work-week at GW was dealing with ridiculous complaints and the immaturity of the staff (managers included).

Usually the people that complain are the ones you hired to do what we call in the USA "monkey work" and aren't into gaming at all. It's just a paycheck to them, they only care about the company so far as they continue to get a paycheck. This includes most of the managers I worked with in Memphis. Baltimore had a much larger number of staff who were gamers, Memphis not so much.

I think in that respect Kirby may have been somewhat right, that GW's own staff are their own worst enemy, just not for the reasons he thinks.

**Azreal13**

Azazelx wrote:
azreal13 wrote:
You are talking about the company whose own CEO publicly described it's own staff as the single greatest threat to it's long term success (or words to that effect) to it's own shareholders.

Quote, please. Sounds fascinating.

Can't cut and paste from a PDF on my ipad for some reason, but the link to the annual report is here..

http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Games-Workshop-Group-13-combined-FINAL-without-title-page.pdf

Check out the chairmans preamble.

**Medium of Death**

So everybody can read it

CHAIRMAN’S PREAMBLE

During the year Mark Wells left Games Workshop. After more than ten years, five as chief executive, he has gone to graze in pastures new.
His tenure as CEO saw our return on capital increase from around 10% to over 50%. He is a man who truly understands about shareholder
value and put that understanding into good practice. Thank you Mark, and good luck.

We have also had a shift in the balance of our owners. For three entirely different reasons each of our largest holders has done some
selling. This has allowed those who have wanted to own us for a while the opportunity to buy. The fact that we have been paying a lot of
surplus cash out as dividends hasn’t put them off! We’ll see what happens when we have a bad year and stop.

I have written a great deal over the years about the ‘greatest danger’ facing Games Workshop. It has usually been in response to the
expression of some fear of imminent doom. When will the world tire of miniatures? (It won’t; these are not fashion items, they are hobby
collectibles.) Won’t all your customers move on to computer games instead? (They didn’t; most of our current customers weren’t born
when the Atari ST came out.) How about other games like Pokémon or role-playing games? (Who can remember them, now?). The
evidence is there for all to see, but when it wasn’t I was seen as complacent in the face of these real dangers. I don’t think that was
complacency, it’s just that we here all make a living from serving collectors and we understand them and their needs. These are paper tiger
dangers. The real danger is us.

The world will not tire of miniatures, nor fantasy. The world can and does play computer games, online and on phones now, not old-style
computers. Other people will produce great games and products.

The dangers lie not in these realities, but whether we keep making fantastic models and providing great services, in our management skills
and just as night follows day, in our ability to find the right people to carry the business forward. This is why we put so much energy into
our management training programmes and in particular how we recruit.

Put at its bluntest: we recruit for attitude, not for skills.

It makes for a lot of hard work. First every manager in the business has to take personal responsibility for the recruitment process. All of it,
from start to finish. No handing it off to Human Resources, outside agencies, or anyone else. Then they have to prepare a job specification.
What value does this job bring to the business? Not what is nice about it, but exactly how does it help us sell more or spend less? Then it
describes what kind of person is likely to be successful at the job. That’s right. What kind of person. It is centred on their character, on
their attitudes and on the behaviour we expect to see. Then it lists the top few things they have to achieve in order to be successful at it.
And that’s it. No qualifications, no degrees, no reference to experience.

This is hard to do, and impossible alone. We spend hours on it, in groups, working at getting to the heart of the issue.

Then we advertise using that job specification as a template. All jobs, always. No ‘appointments’, no patronage. And we ask the applicants
to write us a letter saying why they want this job. CV optional (but we won’t look at it if the letter is pants).

The knee-jerk response from outsiders is nearly always either you are doing it wrong or you will fail. Neither is true. Companies who seek
out skills at the expense of attitude are destroying culture, continuity and morale and thereby shareholder value. That is wrong. And our
way works well.

The effort put in rewards us in knowing who we want and why, knowing how to ask for that person, how to recognise them when we see
them, and how to check that they are being successful. Win, win, win, win. Sadly it takes effort, so don’t expect to see our ways being
adopted universally any time soon.

Risks. Management succession. Effort. I’ve managed to get all the key words in. Maybe the last of these is the most important.

Hard work. Accept no substitutes.

Tom Kirby
Chairman and Acting CEO
29 July 2013

It's not as bad as saying it's their own staff that are the threat. It's potentially having people that don't "drive the business" in the direction he wants it to go in. I don't think GW as a "hard sell" business is a good idea personally but then again I've never ran a company. If GW keeps up the hard sell with their excellent customer service then they will still have a relatively good reputation. I'm just afraid that the more cut-throat employees they appear to be looking for will only be interested in their own short term financial gain and when you are only interested in your own narrow corner of the business you loose track of the bigger picture. The kind of people he wants don't care if GW last for another 30 years or 30 months. You can't grow a business if everybody is looking out for themselves.

**SagesStone**

Sidstyler wrote:
Games Workshop’s business ethic is modelled on inventor Thomas Edison’s methodology.

Well that's no surprise. They must be doing a good job because both Edison and GW will go down in history as being colossal fething dicks whose best ideas were stolen from other people.

I like to think that this was a subconscious slip up of his.

**CthuluIsSpy**

azreal13 wrote:
Azazelx wrote:
azreal13 wrote:
You are talking about the company whose own CEO publicly described it's own staff as the single greatest threat to it's long term success (or words to that effect) to it's own shareholders.

Quote, please. Sounds fascinating.

Can't cut and paste from a PDF on my ipad for some reason, but the link to the annual report is here..

http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Games-Workshop-Group-13-combined-FINAL-without-title-page.pdf

Check out the chairmans preamble.

Actually, it's not in the preamble. I posted where he says it above.

**Azreal13**

CthuluIsSpy wrote:
azreal13 wrote:
Azazelx wrote:
azreal13 wrote:
You are talking about the company whose own CEO publicly described it's own staff as the single greatest threat to it's long term success (or words to that effect) to it's own shareholders.

Quote, please. Sounds fascinating.

Can't cut and paste from a PDF on my ipad for some reason, but the link to the annual report is here..

http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Games-Workshop-Group-13-combined-FINAL-without-title-page.pdf

Check out the chairmans preamble.

Actually, it's not in the preamble. I posted where he says it above.

You quoted a commentary on the document I linked to, although yes, that might be where my original phrasing came from, it is a secondary source, and the journalist's own phrasing, not a quote.

**Azazelx**

Thanks guys - all that stuff is awesome reading.

**Peregrine**

Mr Kirby explains the modus operandi: “After 10,000 attempts to make an incandescent lightbulb, [Edison] was asked about the 9,999 failures. ‘They weren’t failures, he said. I now know 9,999 ways it won’t work’.”

Well, that explains a lot. GW's primary goal is to discover all the bad ways to run a company!

How about other games like Pokémon or role-playing games? (Who can remember them, now?).

And this never ceases to amuse me. How can someone be so delusional that they'd say "who can remember them now" about a game that almost matches GW's entire annual revenue in 48 hours (4 million copies at $30+ each)?

**agnosto**

Because Hasbro is absolutely broke......

i.e. Hasbro owns Wizards of the Coast which means D&D which means an RPG... up .67/share today to $53.16/share...how's GW doing again? 705 pence per share down 12.50 today. Sad little panda face.

I own stock in both oddly enough. Kirby's a tool. If I held enough stock, he'd be out on the street. I sold about half my holdings in GW when it hit around 800/share because that's pretty much the ceiling for GW.

**Kilkrazy**

I don’t think Kirby’s idea is ridiculous.

The “attitude is more important than skills” mantra probably doesn’t apply to project managers, lawyers, accountants, or any relatively senior staff in any area.

Most of the staff that GW hire are customer facing retail people. They need to be true believers or they could not sell the stuff with a straight face. It doesn't take a lot to train up such people. I worked at Selfridges once, and got the training in a week. It was more complicated in those days (30 years ago) because nothing was automatic.

**jonolikespie**

While you can look at it that way, and yes at face value its not a bad thing, but the problem is that the 'attitude' they want is not enthusiastic about the hobby, its blind obedience.

**Balance**

This sounds like a HR specialist's suggested preamble for recruiting... Basically they're shooting for team players, not 'rock stars' which is a perfectly reasonable goal, especially in a large company where job descriptions are probably pretty rigidly defined.

**Kilkrazy**

Job descriptions are pretty loose in many large companies.

However everyone recruits for team players. Nearly all companies are made of teams.

**Hivefleet Oblivion**

Kirby is simply saying it's hard getting the right staff. This is from a feature extolling his virtues as a straight-talking businessman.

**Grot 6**

KTG17 wrote:
Kind of stumbled on GW's career page which I hadnt seen before, and clicked it out of curiosity, and was really surprised to see this: http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?aId=10500181a

The key to our culture is that we always put the business first. We have no time for politics, private agendas, or petty behaviour. Leave your ego at home. We expect all staff to spend their time at work helping to improve Games Workshop both commercially and socially. We also expect you continually to work on improving yourself.

Strong cultures require some getting used to. Some people, perfectly naturally, will find ours too much for them, or not to their taste. We accept and acknowledge this fact. This is why we are so concerned to get a good fit between Games Workshop's personality and those of all the staff. People who don't fit or who 'play' at fitting, will be unhappy. We are pretty tolerant and you may be able to get away with it for a while, but you will still be unhappy.

I've always thought that to encourage the best talent you can hire, you should be really positive in the job description. To me, most of what is on that page goes without saying, but still comes across as pretty negative to me. I dont know if GW has a history of dealing with a lot of egos and petty behavior, but I am sure just about all companies have, and this kind of comes across to me like frustration. I would never expect to see something like this on a fortune 500 career site. Being in IT, I've had my share of job searching, and I would never apply to a job with a description including most of what is written there unless I was super desperate, which up to this point I havent been. I honestly do not get petty nor let my ego sabotage a career. But how can you know if you'll fit in until you are actually in?

I really dont know anything about GW's culture either, and you would be right that would be something someone should research before interviewing, but not sure how you would know where to do to find answers.

Just stuck me as odd this morning. Then I thought about what I heard about Andy Chambers exit from GW years ago lol.

Yes and No.

I've got a sneaking suspicion that Kirby is a moron who surrounds himself with syccophants. As for "dealing with egos in the past," He pretty much drove off the talent, what you have left is the third and fourth string, sans lack of quality control, anymore. Look across the spectrum of other game companies for the list of lost talent from GW.

As to the stores, They run them the way they THINK they should be run, not nessesarily how they are best run for the market.

As to "hiring the best," thats a matter of open opinion.

Best as in, best to make a sales, little red book style? I/E Do what we tell you or we're going to crush your skull? Then yes, "We are looking for people who tow the line, run the shops between this left and right limit, and do what we want done in the stores.Then we can say that we have "Hobby Centers/ shops/ etc... whatever the FOTM term is for them.

A GOOD thing about this is that the shops ARE Mckey D's for miniatures. You go in one shop, it is as if you go in another. I've spoken about this a few times, and its pretty much the same.

The best thing they can do in the current economy is try to be pretty consistant. At least they are telling you up front that they want yes men, not serious gamers. That way they keep goal oriented sharks in the tank to gouge the hell out of you when you walk in the door, instead of being run off by some johnny the gamer saying something like "There are better games out there then this GW stuff, you won't even need HALF of the figures, and you can easily get such and such from this place over here.... 50% cheaper."

Serious salesmen want the sale, and as the old saying goes, you might like GW as a hobby, but for working for them, you are going to have to give up more then a little of your soul to "Fit in", so to speak.

Thier biggest issue to me is the Leadership. They are pretty much on the level that they will sell you out in a second if they can get a buck out of it, so at least they are consistant. Not a matter of if, its a matter of when.

Shame too, because there are some great managers out there believe it or not, and they are all on the chopping block if thier areas don't cut the mustard in sales.

**prplehippo**

Grot 6 wrote:
I've got a sneaking suspicion that Kirby is a moron who surrounds himself with syccophants.

BINGO!

You pretty much hit the nail on the head, except I don't think Kirkby is a moron. He just isn't as "business savvy" as he thinks. He's good, but not that good. I'm not sure what the word is to describe it, because he's obviously successful and makes a boatload of cash each year so he must be doing something right.

Grot 6 wrote:
As for "dealing with egos in the past, He pretty much drove off the talent, what you have left is the third and fourth string, sans lack of quality control, anymore.

It wasn't him that drove away the talented, experienced staff. It was the ass-kissing sycophants that were made managers. When someone popped up that was a threat to them or "made them look bad" they would get rid of them. There are a lot of managers at GW with agendas of their own, ones that probably aren't in the best interest of GW, but are in the interest of the individual.