IndieBiz - Juggling other people’s priorities

One of the reason’s I don’t like to work for other people’s companies (at least for the place in my life I’m in now, and no judgment implied on where anyone else is at) is because I tend to get irritated with having to spend my time playing out other people’s priorities. I like being my own boss, when it comes down to it, at least most days. One thing I need to balance out though, even still, is the pull of other priorities and contingencies that still surround every project, at least if you work with others at all. Which is inevitable.

I got early training in learning how to navigate other people’s priorities in grad school. In that environment you can feel your advisors and program director’s needs and interests like a gravitational pull. Academic departments are small cultures of their own, much like small businesses, or arts festivals, or what have you, and they have certain implicit rules like “publish or perish” that can shape your research style. And of course, every culture has ideas about what fits inside and what falls outside it’s domain, what the important questions are and what are the currently favoured ways of asking them.

But all this stuff is negotiable. It’s possible to lean against the tide without pissing people off, I swear. What became most important for me in learning how to do this was making sure I had done a lot of research in my own style and in the direction of my own interests so I could be quite firm for myself in the why’s and how’s of what I wanted before causing a kerfuffle. That way I could sit confidently on the things I knew for a fact we’re going to be important to me, keep and open mind and be flexible on anything else, and not react emotionally to my position being challenged.

This comes in handy these days in unexpected places. When, say, I end up dealing with artists’ agents who are getting second hand information and a little snitty with me, I can clearly communicate the things I need them to know to dispel whatever errors, and then also be firm on whether or not I want their act in the show. (Usually not, to be honest, in this situation, I don’t like dealing with artists who use agents and managers to be rude on their behalf so they can play nice. There’s too much sweet talent out there to waste time with that sillyness, in my humble opinion, and it’s certainly not what I envisionned when I set out to work for myself in the arts, so why bother?)

Aside from research to help me be firm in my own priorities and flexible to others, I do one other communication tactic that I think is really helpful but not always immediately popular. I wait out hoopla to see where the cards fall. This is a tactic I learned reading about some of the things Linus Torvalds is known for in how he communicates with the other Linux developers around the world. According to several articles, he’ll often wait out controversy until both sides have had a bit of back and forth, emotions have calmed a bit and the way through has started to make itself clear. This is also something that’s been noted of certain political leaders during times of crisis - during the end of the cold war Kennedy and his advisors would analyze every syllable of Russian communications before replying, and would analyse his own as stridently and carefully because every hint mattered. Same thing with Asquith during his early years as Prime Minister he was known for calling recesses without stating his own opinion, and urging everyone to think on eachother’s positions and return with mind’s bent toward fiding a solution. That is, before the new press and Conservative pressure combined to create a feeling of haste and crisis in the build towards the first world war, if you want to get into a longer story. (But let’s not just now, eh?)

Waiting issues out can make you seem detached and can frustrate people with quicker trigger fingers, but I find it hugely helpful in sorting out the actual crucial priorities from the white noise of assumption and emotion. And I thought, hey! heck! maybe you will too.