Klaas Kersting, CEO of flaregames, discusses how to keep a company asshole-free. He explains that assholes can lower productivity and cause harm in startups where everything is interdependent. To avoid assholes, flaregames focuses on personality over skills in hiring, looks for red flags early on, and works to build an open and inclusive culture.

1. All content in this presentation © flaregames GmbH
Keeping a company asshole-free!
[Klaas Kersting, CEO, flaregames]

2. Who‘s talking?
Some context about Klaas

4. And flaregames is…
… a focused team of industry veterans and fresh talent.
… creative, chaotic, sometimes loud, but always communicative, very
transparent und approachable.
… 35 dedicated people with a common goal.

6. We create mobile games:
… 2 games out, 4 in production, more to come.
… free to play, high production value, made with passion
WORK IN PROGRES

7. Why asshole-free?
We can‘t all be nice guys all the
time, can‘t we?

8. Well, there seems to be…
…a market for asshole counter-
measures

9. Surrounded by jerks!

10. Why be asshole-free?
I know any number of
successful assholes.

11. Why be asshole-free?
I know any number of
successful assholes.

12. In short: assholes lower the output of
quality product of a company. Look:
Boss
Office Product
Dev PR IT

13. In a big company, a single asshole may
easily be ignored (except in his dept).
Boss
Office Product
Dev PR IT

14. In a startup, everything is interdependent.
A single asshole may cause much harm.
Mkt
Dev
Product
IT

15. Told you. Broken.
Mkt
Dev
Product
IT

16. Who‘s an asshole?
Sutton defined the dirty dozen of unpleasant behaviours:
The list was compiled mostly with mobbing in mind.

17. Who else?
But there‘s more, far more types of asshole:
The Exploiter (“can you do it for me?”)
The Ego (“I made this! Look! Look! Me! Me!”)
The Suit (“let’s have meeting first”)
The gossiper (“did you hear, X said…”)
The Black Hole (“Huh? Did I not tell you that?”)
Et cetera.

18. How to avoid them?
1. Don‘t hire them in the first place
2. Create an atmosphere that‘s asshole-toxic
3. Don‘t be one yourself (it‘ll rub off)

19. Scare them off:
flaregames‘ recruiting formula:
personality is worth more than skill

20. Recognize them early:
1. they badmouth
2. they drain energy
3. they say I a lot
4. they get angry easily
5. they don‘t take critizism well

21. Hire carefully
This is how we hire somebody:
1. Meet her informally, for a beer
2. Meet her formally in the office
3. Give her a very hard task to perform
4. Have her present the results before the task
5. Have the team vote on her

22. Think about the atmosphere
1. Be open, always
2. Don‘t reward bootlicking
3. Give people a chance to speak up
4. Don‘t incentize with money
5. Don‘t build circles („us“ vs. „them“)

23. Questions, please

24. Contact us!
Klaas Kersting, Founder
CEO
flaregames GmbH, Kaiserstr. 146-148, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany
flaregames.com | twitter.com/flaregames | facebook.com/flaregames
pr@flaregames.com