WotC Greg Tito On Leaving WotC: 'It feels good to do something that doesn't just line the pockets of *****'

We reported earlier that WotC's communications director Greg Tito had left his 9-year stint managing the Dungeons & Dragons brand for a political appointment as Deputy Director of External Affairs for the Washington secretary of state's office.

Greg Tito Leaves Wizards of the Coast

Greg Tito, formerly the communications manager in charge of overseeing messaging for the Dungeons & Dragons brand, is departing Wizards of the Coast for a career in the public sector. Tito announced that he would be joining the Washington secretary of state's office starting this week, ending an...

www.enworld.org

In a surprising turn of events, Tito criticized his former employers, saying "It feels good to do something that doesn't just line the pockets of a**holes." He later went on to clarify "Sorry. I meant "shareholders".

Tito is now Deputy Director of External Affairs for the Washington Secretary of State office in Olympia, WA.

 

[Umbran]

Folks,

Question for you to ask yourselves - Is this going somewhere good? Or is it just going to stay devolved into trash-talking each other? Because if the latter, I can just close this now.

 

[SteveC]

It is really interesting to me how this turned into a discussion of "should I go on blast for former employers on social media?" My advice, coming from someone who was in the room where we discussed candidates and sometimes looked at social media, is absolutely not.

I worked for a tech company that turned into a call center. It was not the best place to work near the end, and I was eventually laid off just after a meeting where management said "everything is fine." I said nothing on social media about it, but could have said a lot. Recently the site manager, who I was friendly with and did some work to help with their own projects, contacted me after 20+ years. He needed someone to help with the tech needs for his sector of the business, which had grown to include all of Asia. If I wasn't married with a kiddo, this would have been a fantastic opportunity for me. It came, in part, because I never burned a bridge that I really wanted to burn.

But as to things relative to gaming, this speaks to unhappiness in WotC that I think a lot of us who aren't fans of them at the moment have suspected for a long time. There is a divide between the people who make the game I love and the people who manage the brand. I did a stint as a manager for several years, and was very successful at it. The thing I did was to manage by not managing. My team knew what they were expected to do and had deliverables. As long as they hit them, I did my best to develop their careers and stay out of their way as much. To listen to their suggestions and implement them where I could. I suggest that WotC would be successful with that strategy. They have a great product that millions of people love. Get out of the way of people who want to make it better.

 

[zedturtle]

But as to things relative to gaming, this speaks to unhappiness in WotC that I think a lot of us who aren't fans of them at the moment have suspected for a long time. There is a divide between the people who make the game I love and the people who manage the brand. I did a stint as a manager for several years, and was very successful at it. The thing I did was to manage by not managing. My team knew what they were expected to do and had deliverables. As long as they hit them, I did my best to develop their careers and stay out of their way as much. To listen to their suggestions and implement them where I could. I suggest that WotC would be successful with that strategy. They have a great product that millions of people love. Get out of the way of people who want to make it better.

The challenge is that, for the person who went to college for business administration (and the crazy parties), doing that doesn't feel like "working", micro-managing people and squeezing another 0.1% out of the turnip is working.

It is a damn shame.

 

[MacDhomnuill]

Wow. Okay.

 

[Shardstone]

Working for most corportions freaking sucks. Tito isnt wrong for this tweet, and Im sure hasbro is pretty stressful and annoying to work with.

 

[Umbran]

here is a divide between the people who make the game I love and the people who manage the brand. I did a stint as a manager for several years, and was very successful at it. The thing I did was to manage by not managing. My team knew what they were expected to do and had deliverables. As long as they hit them, I did my best to develop their careers and stay out of their way as much. To listen to their suggestions and implement them where I could. I suggest that WotC would be successful with that strategy. They have a great product that millions of people love. Get out of the way of people who want to make it better.

While I do agree that WotC has many things they could do better, I also want to point out that managing people doing work on a product, and managing a brand overall, are very different activities.

"Just let the people working on the product do what they wanna do," is generally not going to work as a brand management strategy.

 

[Maxperson]

Sounds like he was insulting the company leadership that treated shareholder profits as more important than customer satisfaction and employee well-being.

Company leadership generally are shareholders. My wife is a corporate executive and when she goes to a corporation, stock options are offered, usually in the tens of thousands of shares that vest over time. Those that this guy worked for would have at least that much stock. Some like the CEO would have much more.

So this guy started off by insulting company leadership, and then switched to........................ insulting company leadership, but also including a lot more people, many of whom probably don't deserve it.

 

[Shardstone]

Company leadership generally are shareholders. My wife is a corporate executive and when she goes to a corporation, stock options are offered, usually in the tens of thousands of shares that vest over time. Those that this guy worked for would have at least that much stock. Some like the CEO would have much more.

So this guy started off by insulting company leadership, and then switched to........................ insulting company leadership, but also including a lot more people, many of whom probably don't deserve it.

I just cannot understand your pov.

 

[Maxperson]

Nothing says entitlement like anonymous internet comments.

I don’t know who this Tito fella is but good luck to him.

I hear he's an MMA fighter.

 

[Maxperson]

I just cannot understand your pov.

I didn't give one. My post was just clarifying that he didn't really change his position much with his clarification.

Edit: My POV is fairly close to @MGibster's. What he did is a red flag, because talking poorly in public about a prior employer is a red flag, but it probably isn't enough to end his career. It's also likely that between the stock options he probably received during his employment at WotC, prior jobs with stock options, investment accounts, retirement accounts, and his new public office appointment(which comes with very nice benefits for life), he probably doesn't feel that he will require employment in the future. So he's not going to really have to worry about how much it will hurt his career choices in the future. Especially since once in a highly placed political appointment, you can usually arrange more future appointments or just go into lobbying.