Pre-reqs for collaboration
While I was in London, I picked up a copy of Chris Robson’s “Confessions of an Entrepreneur,” which focuses on handling the emotional stresses of startup life. I finished the better part of it on the plane home, and have been doing a lot of thinking about some its first lessons; specifically, that choosing who you’ll collaborate with to build out your idea is vastly more important than the idea itself.
This led to a strange bit of kismet last night while I was suffering from jet lag. Flipping through the channels, I caught Russel Crowe talking about working with his frequent collaborator in film, director Ridley Scott. They’ve done three films together, and he said that “he and I share a work ethic, an aesthetic, and a sense of humor” - and went on to make the point that with those three things in common, it simply makes sense to continue working together.
I was struck by how insightful this comment was. For the last few years, I’ve found a lot of value in collaborations and relationships that follow the Cognitive Behavorial model of emphasizing both mirroring (empathy) and rational idealization (being ok with putting the other person on a pedestal occasionally). While those behaviors are helpful in working with pretty much anyone, Robson and Crowe have me thinking that there’s a threshold of shared values that needs to be met prior to engaging with a collaborator.
Sometimes it’s about who we work with rather than how.
