My piano method, an ambitious undertaking that I’ve been working on for five years, received its final approval from my editor and is now under production. We don’t have a publication date yet, but let’s invent it: May 31, 2023.

Writing, revising, editing, producing, and publishing are a collaborative endeavor. My piano method, for instance, involves an acquiring editor, multiple anonymous readers who determine whether or not the method should be published, a project manager, a copy editor, a layout designer, a cover designer, a marketing team, and others still. I thought I’d share a few observations regarding the ins and outs of teamwork.

You’re human, imperfect, and perfectible. So are your collaborators. It’s a little inhuman for you to expect or demand that your collaborators be perfect.
Keep an invisible Post-it foremost in your mind, listing some of the flaws and gaps in your professionalism. Not replying quickly to important emails; misplacing files or documents; writing confusing paragraphs; neglecting duties and tasks. These are just some examples in the abstract. The idea isn’t for you to beat yourself up with these flaws, only to remember that you’re imperfect and perfectible, like all humans.
It’s absolutely incredible that other people are invested in your project and putting lots of time and thought into it. Wake up in wonderment and gratitude, and go to sleep in gratitude and wonderment.
Somebody you’ve never met and might never meet goes home at the end of the work day and says to her partner, “This guy has some interesting ideas. His method is kinda complicated, but I’m enjoying the challenges of laying it out. I think it’s going to be good.” It’s possible, right?
Over the decades, my editors at Oxford University Press saved my a** on several occasions. One day about 20 years ago they rejected a project proposal outright. And you know what? The project wasn’t ready, and I wasn’t ready. I took ten years to re-think and re-write the project, which was then accepted and published. A collaborator says “No, Pedro!” and it turns out to be a very positive thing.
Your collaborators have skills that you don’t have, life experiences that you don’t have, insights that you don’t have. In my opinion, it’s very difficult for an individual to truly assess and appreciate the totality of another individual. It’s good to accept that you don’t know exactly what the other person is really like. Then you won’t rush to judgment.
Sometimes it all works, and sometimes it doesn’t. But one thing is for sure: without collaborators, there is no project.