By Poornima Vijayashanker
I’ve been hard at work all summer working on my manuscript for my upcoming book How to Transform Your Ideas into Software Products. It’s officially done, and out the door for peer review! There are of course little pieces here and there that I need to tend to, but overall it feels good to have something done.
I officially began this book project 4 months ago with the goal of launching it by September. Each week I’d make incremental progress on it, and test the content out on readers. But I felt like there were some things missing like perspective and polish.
I needed someone who could help me determine if the content’s tone, structure, and of course grammar fit and flowed well.
Being too close to the book made it hard for me to judge.
Then one day I was having brunch with my good friend Bernadette, I mentioned to her that I was self-publishing the book, and that I really needed an editor. Someone who could give me direction.
Bernadette introduced me to her good friend Nathalie. Nathalie and I had a brief conversation on the phone, and both agreed that it was important that we work with people who we consider are a good fit. To see if we were, we agreed to meet up soon.
Nathalie also asked to read a few chapters before the meeting.
During the meeting, Nathalie showed up and handed me the chapters she had reviewed with line edits and suggestions for improvements to make.
I knew I had found my editor.
In my previous post I talked about picking provocative partners. You want to find and work with people regardless of who they maybe. You want to set clear areas of ownership, be OK with a little opposition, and offer support when it’s needed.
This week I want to focus on the theme of finding partners who can keep up with you!
Most people know that I have a tendency to operate at a certain pace. I won’t say what that is because honestly I don’t know, and feel like I just try to be consistent.
I’ve done my best to be considerate, really! But when you’re on a mission, the longer you linger, the less gets done.
It doesn’t matter what your pace is: fast, slow, or medium. What does matter is finding a partner who can match your pace, and for me that meant making sure those partners keep up. Otherwise you end up experiencing the following:
Resentment. You feel like moments are being wasted or that you’re operating so quickly you can’t enjoy them. Overtime you grow to resent the other person because of it, and the partnership breaks down as a result.
De-motivation. You lose focus of the project or goal, because you’re more fixated on the partner problem in front of you.
So how do you check for pace?
Being clear about expectations, goals, and deadlines. Before Nathalie and I sat down, I had mapped out most of the deadlines I had wanted to meet. I also provided her a clear goal for why I was writing the book. Finally, I mentioned when I’d be delivering chapters and doing rewrites. Transparency, on both ends, proactively ensures that partners keep up.
Providing a goal sets a vision, and if people believe in that vision they may even change their pacing to meet yours and achieve the goal. Otherwise they’ll drag their feet, not because they’re slow, but because they’re actually disinterested and perhaps too kind to mention it.
Once I had set out the deadlines, Nathalie in exchange, mentioned a few things she already had on her plate. To avoid a future conflict, we came up with a solution to meet her needs and mine.
Finally, we set expectations for little things like being available. After all it’s the little things that eventually start to grate on you.
Listen and re-evaluate the project while making progress.
There were a few opportunities that came up over the course of working together, and there were suggestions that Nathalie made to improve the book such as hiring a designer for layout.
Just because things came up didn’t mean that we stopped the work we were already doing. We merely paused to evaluate whether the opportunities and improvements made sense. Some did, others we decided to forgo for the time being.
As we wrapped up the manuscript I remember Nathalie telling me that she was amazed at how quickly I was able to get things done. The truth is having someone like her as a partner made me feel accountable in a good way. I found a natural flow, was able to keep pace and move forward, while receiving constructive feedback.
Ultimately, you want to partner with someone who operate at your pace. When you do you’ll both find a flow that helps you make progress on the project.
Now I want to know: have you struggled to find someone who operates at your pace, have you tried to operate at others’ pace and been miserable, or did you find a perfect fit that helped you make progress? Let me know in the comments below!
