I love the movie The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. I think most people consider this ‘minor Anderson’ (which is just as snobby as it sounds), but I love it. It’s an adventure movie that features a rag-tag group of misfits that is past its prime but still searching for that great experience. What’s not to love?
One of my favorite parts of the film is when Steve and Ned first meet Bill Ubell, the bond company stooge. They step into the elevator and Steve immediately says, “I hope you’re not going to bust my balls, pal.”
Which leads to this exchange:
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you’re a bond company stooge.”
After a moment of disbelief BIll replies, “Well, I’m also a human being.”
Then Steve apologizes and they demonstrate their teamsmanship through a group cheer like the one you would do at the end of a Little League game. This kicks off their next big adventure.
The spirit of Life Aquatic lies in its team. They may be mismatches and castoffs from society, but they work together to make documentary-movie adventures. They collaborate.
Collaboration has been on my mind lately. A great team can make all the difference. But, as mentioned here and elsewhere, sometimes we talk more about collaborating then we actually collaborate. In that spirit, I’m going to talk more about collaboration. Or, more precisely, I’ve made a list of a few reasons why I believe collaboration to be as rare and difficult to accomplish as it is exciting to talk about.
1. No, you don’t understand: I’m the star of this show
As Louis CK pounded home on Conan O’Brien’s show last year, my generation (whatever you call past GenX) is the most spoiled generation ever. Not only are we spoiled rotten, but we also believe it is our destiny to become rich, famous, and important. The drive to do something great, or be someone who contributes is easily surpassed by our egotism and expectations of rewards handed out for whatever we feel like doing. The star mentality doesn’t lend itself to working with others.
2. The undeveloped role player
A second difficulty we find is lack of training. When were we ever taught to play a role on a team? Remember how well those “group projects” went in high school? Three people sitting around procrastinating, while the one hard worker planned and worked and took the project home to finish working on it late into the night. You think she wants to work with you on the next big thing now?
If you played a team sport and lucked into a great coach, you may have learned a bit of it then. If he (or she) could pound anything through your thick skull. Even then, it takes years to learn this stuff. And our schools (higher ed included) aren’t doing a good enough job at instructing us how to collaborate.
3. With no reason not to, we surround ourselves with ourselves
These days, it’s easy to completely sequester ourselves from anyone with an alternative opinion. I’m an artist? I don’t have much need for an accountant or a businessman as a friend. I’m a cop, why would I hang out with a writer? We’ve come to a point where it feels so comfortable and easy to surround ourselves with people who think, believe, talk like, and are interested in all the same things as us. And that’s what we do. The trick is that doing this takes away an essential element of collaboration: In order to collaborate, each party must bring something unique to the table. So if I surround myself with director-types, we’ll have a grand old time quoting Wes Anderson movies (and trust me, it is grand), but chances are we won’t be developing synergistic genius.
I don’t have the answers, but I suspect mixing in a dissenting opinion, putting the process and end result ahead of personal glory, and doing only what we can (as it is said genius does) can’t be bad ideas.
Beyond this, why do collaborations fail? And why don’t they come to fruition in the first place? While you’re thinking, maybe we should get together and make something great.
Tags: Movies, philosophy
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Very insightful post, Jake… I have to agree with you that a big issue seems to be that people haven’t been taught how to be on a team; or, perhaps more appropriately, how to work with others towards a greater good than something that will simply benefit themselves. Perhaps it’s generational, perhaps its just the “Me” culture/ generation… but it makes collaborative experiences (like ours on the First Fed commercial) that much more rewarding, as they’ve come to be the exception instead of the rule.
Great post Jake! I was just working on another post in reference to a favorite blogger, Bob Sutton. On his site he has posted, “15 Things I Believe”. Number 2 is, “Indifference is as important as passion.” Which says to me, it’s not that you don’t care what happens. But that you set aside your agenda to be open to other’s ideas and to what is truly possible! Collaboration.
I think it’s hard to not take things personally, and to be truly open to things getting better through more input. In this age of the internet, there’s really no limit to the input we can get. It’s a bit akin to the need for PR/ad women (and men) to let go of control of the message a bit. Let it go, things will be ok. And maybe better in the process? Thanks for sparking the idea Jennifer.
That Louis CK clip is incredible. “You watch a movie, take a crap and you’re home.” “Well, there are nicer ways to put that…”
I know exactly what you’re talking about regarding the “group” project reality in school. I drove around one night in high school, frantically looking for my group members to do a project that was due the next day because none of them were answering their phones. Turns out, they were driving around filming random stuff to use for our presentation. I know this because while I was filling up my car with gas, they drove circles around me at the gas station, filming me and laughing at how pissed I was that they were just goofing around instead of working on the project. (After all, it’s just for a grade that could possibly affect my GETTING INTO COLLEGE!) I was never able to meet up with them, which was great, because we had a presentation the next day in class. At school, I asked them if we could get together at lunch and edit the video while going over what we were going to talk about the next period. They weren’t up for that (too much effort) and they told me they had already edited the video. I ended up being the main presenter and had to explain how a 5 minute video (which I was seeing for the first time) made up of a car chase on the streets of Shoreline, random footage of people hanging out in a car, and me swearing at the camera as it drove around me in circles, sufficiently explained Existentialism.
I think we got a ‘C’… maybe a ‘B-’. We should have failed, but my teacher was probably just impressed that we did anything at all. Again, an entitled generation.
This may be a bit late of a reply, but I was thinking about this today as I met with the team I’m collaborating with on a video game. It’s an interesting situation – only the guy who hired me has ever worked with a writer on a game before, and the rest of them really have no idea of what I will offer or contribute to the final product. Writing/narrative design is a new type of career in that industry, and no one knows what to expect. So I find myself fighting for every inch of ground, carving a space out of an existing structure to try to improve and enhance what they’re doing without insinuating that they don’t know how to tell good stories. I’m definitely finding opportunities to stretch, I hope they’ll do the same.
Yeah, even more difficult when one of the parties isn’t interested in collaboration. Now all that’s left to do is fight for everything! Don’t give up.