We say it is essential to build diverse teams for innovation, creativity, and performance. Diversity of individuals sounds great on paper, but how do we make it work as a team in practice? How do you make people who avoid confrontation collaborate with confrontational people? How do you lead a team in an egalitarian way while most of what they've known is hierarchical leadership? ---- Thank you to our sponsor! Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠go.solsten.io⁠⁠⁠⁠ and mention Rise x Play for a demo and receive a free feature, theme, and art style study included with your Navigator purchase, a $20,000 value. Offer valid through 8/31/23! ---- In this episode, we deconstruct with Jen Donahoe (Game Marketing and Growth Leader, co-host for Deconstructor Of Fun) The Culture Map book by Erin Meyer, and how we applied the 8 cultural dimensions with teams in our career: Communicating: Low vs High Context Evaluating: Direct negative feedback vs Indirect negative feedback Persuading: Principles- first or Applications-first Leading: Egalitarian or Hierarchical Deciding: Consensual or Top-Down Trusting: Task-based or Relationship-based Disagreeing: confrontational or non-confrontational Scheduling: Linear or Flexible Time No matter where you live or grew up, you need to be intentional about where you stand on the cultural spectrum as a leader and communicate it well to your team. It is not about cultural differences only, but also personality and cognitive differences where the same frameworks apply! We are taking a break with the podcast and will come back in September with a new series on Change Management! Don't forget to subscribe to Rise and Play for further news: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.riseandplay.io/blog⁠⁠ If you enjoyed today's episode make sure to rate it on Spotify, leave a review on Apple Podcasts, or simply share it with a friend. 

"There's a whole bunch of leaders out there who wake up every morning and put on a mask. They transform into their work selves, playing a role they think they're supposed to play. It's like they're living a double life. But let me tell you, it's not easy to keep up this charade. Behind that mask, these leaders face some serious challenges. They can't catch a decent night's sleep, and anxiety weighs them down day in and day out. Their energy levels go up and down like a yo-yo, and they feel exhausted most of the time..." Steve Cuss. ---- Thank you to our sponsor! Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠go.solsten.io⁠⁠⁠⁠ and mention Rise x Play for a demo and receive a free feature, theme, and art style study included with your Navigator purchase, a $20,000 value. Offer valid through 8/31/23. ---- In this episode, I am talking to Steve Cuss, who has an extensive background in the video games industry, starting his journey in 1994 as a programmer at Intelligent Games and quickly rose through the ranks, eventually becoming the Development Director and co-owner after a successful management buyout. Steve later spent 20 years in leadership roles at EA and then Criterion, leading the development of notable titles including Black, the Burnout series, Star Wars Battlefront, and latterly focusing on the Need for Speed series. In 2023, Steve decided to take his learnings outside of EA by founding The GamePlan Consultancy to help other leaders be their authentic selves with what he calls Liberated Leadership. Steve has also authored a book titled “Liberated Leadership: Lessons Learned from 20 Years Producing Video Games at EA,” which is scheduled to be published in the summer of 2023. Stay tuned! If you enjoyed today's episode make sure to rate it on Spotify, leave a review on Apple Podcasts, or simply share it with a friend. Don't forget to subscribe to Rise and Play: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.riseandplay.io/blog

You just inherited or built a new team. You've made a mistake of judgment, communication, or decision with the team. Now, the team doesn't like you or trust you but you still need to achieve an outcome together. What do you do? How do you come back from that situation and rebuild trust? It is unfortunately a common leadership story in everyday business. ---- Thank you to our sponsor! Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠go.solsten.io⁠⁠⁠⁠ and mention Rise x Play for a demo and receive a free feature, theme, and art style study included with your Navigator purchase, a $20,000 value. Offer valid through 8/31/23. ---- In this episode, we go through ⁠Jen Donahoe's⁠ 20 years of career and leadership learnings at Disney, Mattel, EA, Zynga, Scopely, and Riot Games as a Growth and Marketing Executive. Moving from one company culture to another is a transition, and you will inevitably make cultural mistakes. Jen and I will share how we used the Trust triangle framework to rebuild trust with our teams, sharing personal and professional anecdotes. The 3 pillars to rebuild trust are Empathy, Logic, and Authenticity. Check Francis Frei's video for the full framework: https://www.ted.com/talks/frances_frei_how_to_build_and_rebuild_trust If you enjoyed today's episode make sure to rate it on Spotify, leave a review on Apple Podcasts, or simply share it with a friend. Don't forget to subscribe to Rise and Play: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.riseandplay.io/blog

In this episode, we deconstruct with Marina Barthélémy how to make sound financial decisions for your company when things are going well, instead of making those decisions when things are going wrong. Marina has an impressive track record in gaming and finance. She previously worked as the CFO at Amplitude Studios, which SEGA later acquired in 2016. Marina and her co-founder Arthur, recently launched their own gaming fund PixCapital, to support premium studios. ---- Thank you to our sponsor! Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠go.solsten.io⁠⁠⁠⁠ and mention Rise x Play for a demo and receive a free feature, theme, and art style study included with your Navigator purchase, a $20,000 value. Offer valid through 8/31/23. ---- We will cover in this episode how to prepare your company for an exit or funding, how to evaluate the right funding partner, and how to get your team ready for funding with a strong vision, culture, playable, and scope. Those principles apply to any business model in gaming (F2P, premium, web3) when money is less available. Related episode on Why We Need More Women As Investors: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/riseandplay/episodes/39--Why-We-Need-More-Women-As-Investors---with-Salone-Sehgal-e1lv318/a-a8c2lb2 If you enjoyed today's episode make sure to rate it on Spotify, leave a review on Apple Podcasts, or simply share it with a friend. Don't forget to subscribe to Rise and Play: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.riseandplay.io/blog

Today is a special episode as we're witnessing an intimate leadership conversation between Maria Sayans and Daniel Gray, respectively CEO and Chief Creative Officer at Ustwo Games. What is it to be a leader at Ustwo Games? ---- Thank you to our sponsor! Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠go.solsten.io⁠⁠⁠⁠ and mention Rise x Play for a demo and receive a free feature, theme, and art style study included with your Navigator purchase, a $20,000 value. Offer valid through 8/31/23. ---- Maria will share her leadership evolution from the McKinsey days to CCP Games to later becoming the CEO at Ustwo Games. The key transformation for her was to find her authentic style of leadership beyond the motherly expected leadership style. We previously recorded this single episode with Maria, if you want to hear more about the company culture at Ustwo Games: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/riseandplay/episodes/42--Making-Games-With-Impact-At-Ustwo-Games---with-Maria-Sayans-e1nn9cs/a-a8h028l We will also hear from Daniel and how he grew from being a QA manager at Kuju, to being a producer at Lionhead, to later becoming the Chief Creative Officer at Ustwo Games. Daniel contributed to the success of iconic titles such as Monument Valley. If you enjoyed today's episode make sure to rate it on Spotify, leave a review on Apple Podcasts, or simply share it with a friend. Don't forget to subscribe to Rise and Play: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.riseandplay.io/blog

How do you build the perfect teams based on psychological and motivational traits? How do you create those magical teams at different stages of growth of a company? The people who brought you from 0 to 1 may not be the same ones who help you bring the company from 1 to 10. How do you update your human systems while scaling your company? We will deconstruct in this episode those questions with Bastian Bergmann, co-founder at Solsten, using the human psychological lens on teams, processes, and culture. You can find additional resources on the topic with this HBR article written by Bastian and Joe, his co-founder: https://hbr.org/2016/07/a-data-driven-approach-to-group-creativity ---- Thank you to our sponsor! Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠go.solsten.io⁠⁠⁠⁠ and mention Rise x Play for a demo and receive a free feature, theme, and art style study included with your Navigator purchase, a $20,000 value. Offer valid through 8/31/23. ---- If you enjoyed today's episode make sure to rate it on Spotify, leave a review on Apple Podcasts, or simply share it with a friend. Don't forget to subscribe to Rise and Play: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.riseandplay.io/blog

It is difficult to launch and scale a new casual game these days. However, a few studios found a way to survive the turbulences of the market and become antifragile. Hear the business success story of FunCraft, a lean and small casual studio founded in 2019 by ex-EA and Zynga Product Leader Michael Martinez and his co-founder Jason McGuirk. Learn how after failing their first startup Juicebox, the two co-founders came back together to try again, taking the key learnings from the past: focus on rapid development and testing with a lean and experienced team, a discipline and commitment to investing only in the game with the best metrics. ---- Thank you to our sponsor! Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠go.solsten.io⁠⁠⁠⁠ and mention Rise x Play for a demo and receive a free feature, theme, and art style study included with your Navigator purchase, a $20,000 value. Offer valid through 8/31/23. ---- If you don't know yet about this studio, check out their awesome social Word games at https://www.funcraft.com/ If you enjoyed today's episode make sure to rate it on Spotify, leave a review on Apple Podcasts, or simply share it with a friend. Don't forget to subscribe to Rise and Play: ⁠⁠https://www.riseandplay.io/blog

How often do we look back and share openly what led to a studio's closing? While we can learn from success, we can learn as much from failures. And we should, especially given how many studios are unfortunately closing these days. In this episode, we go back to the story of Skunkworks Games, the makers of Merge Friends, a notable successful merge game released in 2019 during the rise of other new merge games. ---- Thank you to our sponsor! Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠go.solsten.io⁠⁠⁠⁠ and mention Rise x Play for a demo and receive a free feature, theme, and art style study included with your Navigator purchase, a $20,000 value. Offer valid through 8/31/23. ---- A few years later in 2022, we hear the company is shutting down and filing for bankruptcy. The game is no longer running, the whole team has to go and find a new job. What happened? What can we learn from this story to not repeat similar stories?  Learn from Collin Foss, ex-CPO at Skunkworks Games on the key lessons and postmortem of the studio. As the management, how do you close a company when you know this is the end? How do you communicate it to the team, when and how? If you enjoyed today's episode make sure to rate it on Spotify, leave a review on Apple Podcasts, or simply share it with a friend. Don't forget to subscribe to Rise and Play: ⁠⁠https://www.riseandplay.io/blog

In this episode previously streamed on 27.04 in partnership with Evolution Nordics, I will share my expertise on the principles of non-violent communication and how they can be applied in a leadership role. Watch the full online workshop here: https://youtu.be/GDRPJL5Sm30 ---- Thank you to our sponsor! Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠go.solsten.io⁠⁠⁠⁠ and mention Rise x Play for a demo and receive a free feature, theme, and art style study included with your Navigator purchase, a $20,000 value. Offer valid through 8/31/23. ----We will delve into the fundamentals of non-violent communication (framework from Marshall Rosenberg), exploring how it can promote understanding, compassion, and empathy in a leadership context. We will also discuss how leaders can utilize these principles to build stronger relationships with their teams, manage conflicts more effectively, and promote a culture of open and honest communication. Whether you're a seasoned leader or just starting, learning the NVC framework will help you immediately enhance your communication and leadership skills! If you enjoyed today's episode make sure to rate it on Spotify, leave a review on Apple Podcasts, or simply share it with a friend. Don't forget to subscribe to Rise and Play: ⁠⁠https://www.riseandplay.io/blog

We are following up on the previous episode recorded with Miska Katkoff (How To Become A Stoic Leader And Control Your Emotions) to continue our applications of Stoicism to leadership and business. We invited this time, Arseny Lebedev, co-founder and CEO of Original Games and ex-Head of Studio at Machine Zone to talk about applying Stoic principles to business decisions. We all have our internal model to make decisions, but is it always reliable? Video of the episode: https://youtu.be/j8l9IY5q6ZY ---- Thank you to our sponsor! Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠go.solsten.io⁠⁠⁠⁠ and mention Rise x Play for a demo and receive a free feature, theme, and art style study included with your Navigator purchase, a $20,000 value. Offer valid through 8/31/23. ---- We will cover the 4 principles of Stoic philosophy: Justice, Bravery, Temperance, and Wisdom, and how you can apply those in the everyday life business. Arseny will share the case that led him to decide to relocate his whole company from Russia to Portugal when the war in Ukraine hit. Those business decisions always have pros and cons in the long term, but how to avoid the worse decisions? That's where a bit of Stoic thinking can help you! If you enjoyed today's episode make sure to rate it on Spotify, leave a review on Apple Podcasts, or simply share it with a friend. Don't forget to subscribe to Rise and Play: ⁠⁠https://www.riseandplay.io/blog