Sync Your Collaboration Styles

HAVE YOU ever sat with an editor in your office, asked them to suggest a line of narration and then been met with a blank look? Before jumping to the conclusion that your editor is inept, consider that she might be a brilliant introvert.

Tip #6  Sync Your Collaboration Styles.

How do you like to work with editors?  Do you want to be in the edit room (on your premises) and sit with your editor several hours a day?  Or do you prefer to hand off the digital files and leave your editor to work in their own space for several days at a time?  Knowing your collaboration style and hiring someone who synchronizes with it will save you the nightmare of having an unhappy editor resign mid-project.

Deborah Hoffmann, an Academy-nominated editor and director who now works exclusively as a story consultant, likes to hole up with the footage for a spell without the director breathing down her back.  She compares working successfully with a director to making a marriage work.  “Some people read self-help books and others stumble along on their own,” says Hoffmann.  “I’m more of a stumbler.  But bottom line is it’s all about communication, in both cases.”

To delve a bit deeper into the psychology of communication and work habits, let’s define a couple terms.  In self-help jargon, an introvert is someone who gets their batteries recharged by being alone.  They love to think things through in the solitude of their own minds and then present their findings-which are often perfectly thought out.  Extroverts, on the other hand, get jazzed by being around other people.  Their creative juices flow best by bouncing ideas back and forth until a masterpiece emerges from the jostle.  If your editor is an introvert and you are an extrovert, she will feel crowded and mentally shut down if you are, in her mind, standing over her shoulder.  On the other hand, leave her alone and she will flourish.  Now…if she is a hard-core extrovert and you leave her alone in the editing room for two weeks, she will find the silence suffocating and mind-numbing.

That doesn’t mean a marriage of opposites can’t work, but it’s important that you know your preferred collaborative style and hire accordingly.