'Accept the Position You’re In and Ask Why?'

She had worked at two titans in the gaming industry: Electronic Arts and Microsoft.

Now, Tara Mustapha was thinking of breaking off on her own and starting her own business.

“There’s always the fear of, ‘Am I ever going to get paid again?’” Mustapha said.

“But you have to set goals, work toward them and put the checks and balances in place to go, ‘Is it time that I jump ship or pivot?’ You have to constantly be self-assessing.”

More than five years later, Mustapha’s company, Code Coven, is highly regarded across the industry for providing game-making courses and leadership training to women and marginalized communities.

Last year, Mustapha was named one of 15 female CEOs making a difference by Inhersight.com.

The Daily Coach spoke to her recently about embracing negative feedback, making yourself an expert in something you know little about, and the keys to effective delegation.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

Tara, thanks a lot for doing this. Tell us about your childhood and some key lessons from it. 

I’m a child of the 80s. I grew up pretty much in central London. When I was born, my parents were living in a bedsit over a bookmaker’s in one of the central roads of London. You share the facilities with other people. 

My parents were really, really hard workers and ended up making their way in their own business. My dad was a real early adopter who loved tech and loved getting his hands dirty teaching himself to code. He never stopped me from being interested. I would shadow him tinkering with hardware, things like that.

My mom, on the other hand, would say, “Tara is going to be a fashion designer.” The idea of being involved in games or doing what I do now wasn’t on their radar at all. But I was always taking things apart to put them back together. That was fostered through my life — having the access of playing games and enjoying them — and figuring out why rules existed.

When did you start thinking gaming could be a career?

I came into games at a really interesting time because the path to being in games wasn’t streamlined. I think the earliest realization was I used to love this series “King’s Quest,” which is an adventure game, but the important thing about it was it was called “Roberta Williams’ King’s Quest.” I thought, “If you can see it, you can be it.” That started planting the seed at a very young age of “Why can’t it say Tara Mustapha’s game?”

I lost my way after university, thought maybe I’d get into acting, traveled to Montreal, and it was right then that I saw a school offering a diploma in game design. I was studying artistic makeup and working at a political consultancy as a secretary and chauffeur, but I knew games were my passion. Where else can you create something using design mentality, growth mentality, challenge people, tell a story and create emotion? I took the first year of that course, got another diploma from another institution and went straight from that into the games industry.

Obviously, you’re going into a heavily male-dominated industry at the time. What were your early impressions of gaming?

If you look at who came before me, it was all the guys who worked at EB Games who happened to know a guy. I think there was very much an awareness of that. With the first diploma I took, I was one of two people who identified as a woman. In film school, same stats. That’s part of why I started Code Coven, to address these imbalances in gender diversity and creation because I think the statistic still lies that 80 percent of game developers are White men, but 50 percent of the purchasing power lies with women. Fifty percent of the player base are Black. It doesn’t reflect the culture.

There are these kinds of micro things you notice as you develop your career and push your way forward, these unconscious — sometimes conscious — barriers that are in the way.

You started working at Electronic Arts. What were some lessons from your time there?

Phenomenal experiences. At E.A., I was really lucky to work on the skate franchise. I don’t have a background in skateboarding, but I learned so much about the sport and the importance of brand and respecting brand and skill. There are nuances there. Of course, I was designing levels and challenges that were in the vein of really amazing legends in skateboarding. I couldn’t have them doing ridiculous, out-of-this-world stunts that weren’t true to their style. It really drilled down on how important it is to stand by your brand and create a brand and treat it as if it’s an extension of you.

Skateboarding isn’t the hardest thing to become obsessed about. It’s throwing yourself in, and studying, and learning every single athlete and their styles and watching as many videos as you can and reading as many magazines. It’s immersing yourself in the culture.

I think that’s the dedication you have to create. The skate community is so — I hope I don’t offend anyone — purist. You want to pay respect to that. That’s your job as a designer: Understand the motivations. You take them on.

How does someone get through not being an expert in a specific field of work and still having confidence to execute the mission?

My biggest thing is accept the position you’re in and ask why. Just be curious — and be annoyingly so. Don’t assume everyone knows where you’re coming from or where you’re trying to get to. There’s always ego involved, things like that, but you have to park that and go “Why? Why? Why?”

It’s the one thing I say about being a designer. Every time I send a deck out or information, I think, “Please, poke holes. Rip it apart. That will make me stronger next time.” You have to be a sponge about information and learning people’s goals and motivations. People love talking about their passions.

It sounds like you can embrace negative feedback, which is difficult for a lot of leaders. Why are you comfortable with that?

It’s not always easy. When you’re a designer and you show a rough copy, a work in progress, people are looking at it and going “Why isn’t it blue?” The natural reaction is I want to defend my choices here and it’s early and you want to explain everything, but you also know that’s not going to get you anywhere because that person isn’t there to learn your craft. You should put yourself in their shoes and go, “Why do you think that should be blue? What is your motivation?”

It’s trying to pivot. The negative feedback isn’t about you personally. It’s your opportunity to get to know your player, your investor, your opponent a little bit better about what’s motivating them. 

What’s the biggest obstacle you’ve had to overcome on a personal and team level?

Personally, the biggest obstacle I’ve had to overcome is probably the phase I’m going through right now. I’ve just had a baby and am trying to run a business and run a house. I’m sure it’s a story you’ve heard a million times.

Professionally, it’s not so far off and the driver for why I started Code Coven. There’s a ridiculously small amount of funding that goes to marginalized people in games. Again, 80 percent of developers are White men, but that doesn’t reflect the player base. How do we do things differently? It’s interesting because I feel this should be a moral issue, but the way I’m trying to back it up is, if you look at McKinsey studies, two or three years in a row, they said if you have a diverse senior leadership team, or diverse management or diversity at all levels, you will see 20 percent growth on profit year after year. 

If that’s what you’re going to be motivated by, why are you leaving that on the table? Those are the kind of challenges I’m facing but am also trying to overcome.

How many team members do you have and how do you go about delegating responsibilities?

Very reluctantly, I think (laughs). We have a really small team of just 10 people. Then, we have academy experts we bring in to continue the teaching mission that we have.

I think, at first, it was two-fold. You don’t have enough time, so you need to delegate. But delegating effectively means you need to be able to communicate effectively. Doing that always feels like it takes time. Through that, you figure out if people are a good fit.

When you’ve got your company, you’ve got to make sure everyone cares about it as much as you do, and I think I’ve been lucky with that with my team. It’s taken me a while to find people where I can go, “Hey, you’ve got this?” And they take it and run with it with the same care and motivations that I have. I’m able to pass things off that I’m not so great at and fill in those gaps.  

I don’t know if you’ve heard the phrase ensemble leadership but in orchestras, in some sections, the percussion section will have a louder volume and more focus than the strings. We really try to lean into that mobility and flexibility in being able to cover for one another and have that trust that whatever we decide will be the right decision and not get stuck in the pipeline. We want to have continuous momentum and growth.

Q&A Resources

Tara Mustapha ― Website | Twitter | LinkedIn

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