Here's the thing. I'll give you info through my perspective as I tried and failed and through that experience I know a lot about this. When I began modding and wanting to develop a group back in the days when RH and CTDP were the top notch (you veteran's will remember RH modding group), my desire was to unite big mod groups and talented people into one group, one home. Many called me crazy and that it would fail, others commended the effort to try. In essense, while the principle is a logical one, many with talent working together can produce more, the realism of it is that it can't work and I'll get into why.
When established groups merge together before the merger even occurs there is the first hurdle to overcome. Who will be the main boss who'll make the decisions, what would the bosses of other groups merging into the one group have position and authority wise?
Every boss doesn't want to let go of their ability to run things in their vision, and lets face it, visions defer. I tried to unite people but you always get the bad eggs that want to do their own thing and in most cases, instead of the bad egg being blamed, the leader is blamed.
You then have the vision aspect that I mentioned above. When we were going to merge with FSOne, one of the biggest issues we faced back in those days was the quality factor. I was more chaotic then their leader when demanding quality, back then for them it was all about quantity rather then quality. But as time passed, they began making more quality rather then quantity. Some people want to do things fast and get it out for the fame, others want to spend the time to make it right with quality, and this offset's the group's members into two sides. When I stopped having partners in MMG/MAK-Corp, only then did we start having a unified team that developed a standard which everyone worked towards and anyone new who came into the group understood and agreed with before joining.
The main thing is leadership. A group cannot work with more then one leader. Its not a matter of IF but WHEN they will disagree and throw the group into the chaos of taking sides. This destroys groups. By having the power alone doesn't mean I'm egotistical, but rather, wanting to protect the group from such drama's and everyone's work. Everyone comes in knowing exactly what we're about, everyone gets along with each other and learns from each other, and everyone works in a happy environment on the same goals.
While EGO's can play a major part in modding many times, the fact is, many of the great leaders like RH and Andy (Neidryder) from CTDP understand this scenario which is something I didn't understand in my early years. At some point management will disagree and when that happens, chaos ensures and that benefits no one.
That's not to say that groups and individuals cannot work and help each other, but it takes specific individuals with a specific mindset of a team success and not personal success to be able to work well within a group, and sadly, there are not many of those people due to EGO's. But those that do exist are testament to what can be achieved when the success of a group outweighs the success of an individual's ego.
As this is also over the net, its hard to tell true intentions. Anyone can act nice on the net, but their true intentions can be vastly different. MAK-Corp has been screwed over by several people over the years, and I'm sure many other teams have been also. This makes groups even more closed minded and careful on who they hire, they instigate tougher joining methods, one of mine being the confidentiality agreement which many people don't want to go through.
Its all about individual mentalities and it doesn't often fall under ego, but the fact that each individual has their own thoughts, goals, desires, expectations, and they often don't match, and that mismatch causes conflict.
While a noble idea, its very hard to have happen. MAK-Corp has over 50 staff members working in the group now, from modelers to painters, and that is years upon years of hard work and a lot of suffering from bad eggs to find the right people who above everything that occurs, remain loyal to the cause the group has and to the group itself. That is the mentality individuals need to have for a group to succeed, that is the loyalty in members that they need. I guess I'm lucky in that sense, I have met some great people who I feel very blessed to know and very thankful that they share the same vision as I and are loyal and dedicated to it.
I devote as much of my time to each of them as possible, I respect them and their work as much as possible, I don't just talk to them about work, I converse with them about normal topics too just like a normal friend. They are my second family. As a leader, you must know that without your staff, you are nothing. A group, a company without its workers, is nothing. A leader and a boss must know how to respect and care for their staff equally without prejudice. It works both ways, we can say individual's need to have less ego's, but the fact is, so do leaders/bosses.
