09-14-2020: 3 Qualities in a Good Collaborator

Hey, all!

One of the keys to a successful project is finding the right kind of people to help. There are many important qualities in a collaborator, and some that may seem important but are less so in practice. Here is a short list of some of these important qualities.

1. Communicative - In a face-to-face setting, it's difficult to NOT be communicative. But now with remote work, it's important to establish a baseline responsiveness expectation. A collaborator may need time to respond between life, timezones, and other preoccupations, but if they, for example, go AWOL for more than 24 hours on a regular basis, then it may be time to move on.

2. Accountability - People make mistakes. A good collaborator looks to admit any responsibility, investigate the root cause, and glean insight into how to improve themselves and the process. Don't get apology confused with accountability. Many people are generous in their use of the word, "sorry." Few people mean it and intend to take a lesson from it. 

3. Cross-Disciplinary Consideration - It may not seem necessary for a background artist to know about what the music composer is up to. However, since their work is combined into the same product at one point or another, it's helpful to take the time to consider what the other one is doing. Knowing what jobs other people have is one thing; understanding the challenges they face and their vision for how they fit into the whole is when teams start to click.

There's obviously many others, but think about your projects and the people involved in them, including yourself. Are you fostering trust and reliability in your team? Do you take some of these qualities for granted in some of your collaborators? Find someone you work with today and tell them, "thanks for always getting back to me so quickly!" or "I never noticed that when you do [x] it makes my job a whole lot easier!"

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