Put On A Show, Together

The last post got me thinking more about working with others. No matter what you’re working on, ultimately you can’t do it alone. Even if you rehearse a dance for hours with nothing but the walls and mirrors, there are things you’d never know about your performance unless someone is watching you, telling you what they see. After all, isn’t a piece meant to be performed for others to see? (Yes, it’s for the creator and performer, too, but you get my point.)

In other words, we work with others. We collaborate. Sometimes I find myself falling into the “I can handle this all myself” attitude to prove to myself that I’m strong and capable, but then I realize that this is not the point. To carry anything to completion, to make a production (a performance, a software program, what have you), you need other people. If you’re an engineer and have written an amazing piece of code, you still need people to test for usability and for quality, and whether your product is viable. If so, you need people to help you market it, handle sales, etc.

I may rehearse for hours alone in the studio, but until a coach or friend comes to see it, I don’t have the helpful suggestions to know if I’m doing something that isn’t what I’d intended, and to do what it takes to really make the piece sing. I realized that it’s impossible to work in a vacuum, and more important, it’s not desirable to try to do so.

Last year, one of my peer reviewers for my annual performance review at work wrote that I could collaborate more with others, and that I have a tendency to work in isolation. I was surprised, since I’d thought of myself as rather communicative with other team members. (Talk about the importance of having someone else tell you what s/he sees about you!)

I need to stay alert and see who’s around me, and to involve them in what I’m doing. Every time I learn something new that broadens my perspective about how to do my work. Others have knowledge and strengths that I may not have, and when we share with each other, together we become a stronger entity. Every project needs this kind of openness and sharing.

So find people! Invite them into your circle, learn from them, share with them, and there may be a fruitful collaboration in the works.