Insomniac's Ted Price explains why trust in your team is so important

"Trust is the glue that holds our world together... So why wouldn't I trust that the people I hire can do their jobs?" At the DICE Conference today, Insomniac Games CEO and founder Ted Price explained why he believes trust is a key element in any video game studio, no matter how big or small. Everything we do in life centers around trust, he argues. When you fly on a plane, you trust the pilot to take you to your destination safely. When you drop your kids at school, you trust the teachers will treat them well. So when it comes to your own game studio, you have to show that same level of trust to everyone you hire. Everyone on your team has a lot more to lose than the management does, he notes, so they always deserve your trust. He says that he began to realize this after the release of Resistance: Fall of Man for the PlayStation 3. After the game shipped, the creative director approached Price and bluntly told him that he had been a big bottleneck on the game. The CEO quickly came to realize what the director meant. "I'd make comments to the team about what I thought the game should be, and what I didn't realize was that I was stripping away creative authority over others," he admitted. Then, during a heated debate with another creative director, he was told, "I don't care any more... Just tell me what you want me to do." This really hit Price hard, and made him realize that he was disenfranchising his creative leads by overruling them on their own projects. "I had to be comfortable with letting go of the reins, and trusting others," he said -- and he notes that once he learned to step back, the studio's games got better. "It takes trust after delegating," he says. "I had to fight my own desire to be the center of the creative storm. It doesn't mean I can't suggest solutions, but it doesn't work if those in charge are actually in charge." "One of the not so obvious roadblocks is distrust," he adds. "When you have distrust, it can lead to bitterness, fear, and eventually failure. You have to build trust in your team. It means creating transparency, fostering honest communication, and allowing mistakes." Hitting these three key points, Price first explains how transparency works at Insomniac. All projects are available to the whole team, he says, and all decisions on each game are broadcast to everyone. Anyone can offer input on any game, and face-to-face communication is a big deal at the company. Fostering honest communication is another key point at Insomniac. It's all about making sure you really know what people are saying at your studio -- are people being polite, and just telling you what you want to hear? Because that's clearly not useful to anyone. And finally, it's about allowing mistakes. A culture where mistakes are frowned upon, is a culture where creativity is crushed, argues the CEO. Admitting your own mistakes is a good way to help others feel safe, and give them the idea: "You have permission to fail."