Game Republic Affiliate Natalie Griffith from Identity Spark will be leading a webinar for Game Republic members on 14th January at 12 noon entitled Tuning your Teams in Turbulent Times. In advance of the session, she has kindly shared this article on how to ‘fly right’ in turbulent times.
Natalie Griffith has over three decades of business experience in games and tech, mostly in marketing and business strategy is now a specialist career coach for leaders in games and tech. She’s worked with all sizes of organisation from solo startups to Meta’s global VR marketing team, but is driven by a desire to help all businesses, teams and creative tech professionals thrive in a way that’s underpinned by their passions, values and creativity.
Have a read and Natalie will be covering more of this in her webinar with tangible insights from her own experience and research so you can better manage teams in the current climate. This online event forms part of the Game Republic’s 2026 event programme supported our Official Partners Red Kite Games, Xsolla and Double Eleven.
Straighten Up and Fly Right: tuning teams through turbulence
by Natalie Griffith
If there’s one thing we can be certain about in tech, it’s uncertainty. It’s trite but it’s true. They call it VUCA in corporate and military circles (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) – if that doesn’t describe the history of your average games business I don’t know what does.
For decades we’ve lived through endless cycles of rapid growth and painful contraction, but somehow we often still end up becoming either headless chickens or ostriches when the guano hits the fan.
But don’t worry – I’ve got three other birds you can embody instead to keep your team flying high.
Eagle eyes – seeing the big picture
The most critical thing you can do is understand the fundamental principles of how individuals and organisations react to change of any type. This is where you need to be an eagle.
For individuals, the best reference is often the Kübler-Ross Change Curve. It’s important to recognise that everyone in your team will be going through these stages at different times and speeds (and sometimes in a different order) as they react to whatever’s happening, while also carrying whatever else is going on in their lives too. This might not be your first restructuring rodeo but it could be a colleague’s. Rushing them to the right of the graph just because you’ve seen the outcome before is never going to work, or help.
© Elizabeth Kübler-Ross Foundation
Change will always impact team performance too, even if it’s ‘positive’ change. A hiring spree or massive project signing can be just as disruptive to team effectiveness as a downsizing or cancellation.
The simplest way to visualise this is via Timothy Gallwey’s ‘The Inner Game of Work’ performance equation below:
Performance = Potential – Interference
When change interferes with existing team dynamics, personal and group reactions can quickly grind productivity to a halt. As each person tries to adapt, they often collectively fuel each other’s concerns, getting in the way of the group adjusting too, especially if they’re a strong team with history. The longer people have spent building a shared vision and purpose together, the tougher it can be to course-correct when you need to.
As with individuals, demonstrating patience, compassion and understanding is vital to managing this constructively, without suppressing concerns or undoing any existing trust and cohesion.
Wisdom works – uncovering the facts
“Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.”
Foundational understanding of change is great, but unless you understand exactly what’s at play in your team and with your people, it’s meaningless.
Now it’s time to channel your inner owl.
What you see and hear is more important than what you say at this stage. Don’t assume you know what the issues are, based on past experience or what one person has said – it’s vital to take the temperature of the whole team to find out what’s really going on.
Pick an info-gathering approach that suits your people and culture, but whatever you choose, allow for a degree of anonymity to ensure that you get honest and meaningful feedback. When people feel rattled and vulnerable they can be tempted to tell you what you want to hear, or even underplay how they feel so as to not put more pressure on you. Make it safe to be honest.
Listen with an open mind then compare all the input you’ve collected without overly ‘weighting’ what you got from the squeakiest wheel.
Parrot power – bringing it into land
I’m reliably informed by the internet that African Grey Parrots are often considered the most intelligent bird species. Apparently they can learn and use hundreds of words contextually, and demonstrate advanced problem-solving skills and social intelligence.
As I’ve never knowingly under-tortured a metaphor, I’m going to offer this little guy as your go-to for the final stage of this – taking meaningful action.
You’ll often find when reviewing staff feedback that you can solve a lot of problems simply with better communication. Maybe something you thought you’d communicated well got lost in translation, and clarifying it will instantly make everyone feel better.
But it’s rarely that simple.
Either way, once you know what’s concerning the team most (and therefore having the biggest impact on getting stuff done), you can compare that to what the business needs to achieve to create meaningful next steps.
An approach that works well with teams is a common coaching model called OSKAR. It’ll give you a framework to focus everyone on getting through the current situation, but is also a great tool to consistently keep the whole team invested and on-track.
Image © Lifely
- O – OUTCOME: clearly establish the desired change or goal, preferably making it ‘SMART’
- S – SITUATION (or SCALE): Agree a scale that ‘rates’ the level of the current situation and allows you to measure progress in future
- K – KNOW-HOW: Identify (and acknowledge) the existing strengths, skills and resources in your team that you can leverage for success
- A – ACTION: Develop a detailed action plan for next steps then get started
- R – REVIEW: Regularly evaluate progress (against the scale you created) and adjust the plan as needed
After any period of turbulence there’ll always be pieces to pick up, things to adapt, and new opportunities to grasp, but with an awareness of the people at the heart of your organisation and a willingness to work with them to regroup, you’ll be lifting off again before you know it, as well as being better prepared for next time too.
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