Can You Make People Want to Collaborate With You on Performance Projects – Without Being a Sleazy Networker?

Transcript:

My very simple answer to the question of whether you can make people collaborate with you would be: No. You cannot force anyone to do anything. People will do what they want.

Yet, there’s a whole industry teaching people how to network, how to build teams, how to climb social ladders, how to “win friends and influence people” – and many of these books and training programs do have some truth to them, (I mean – they have to have a grain of truth in order to sell at all, right?) but I’d like to talk about what I perceive as fundamental, and possibly destructive, flaws in much standard networking and interpersonal advice.

I’ve talked a bit about my struggles building teams in episode 4 of this podcast, which was about the five types of arts funding. Since the failures I talk about in that episode, I’ve had much better experiences – in fact, I’ve been kind of baffled by how effortlessly things have fallen into place in some recent projects, at least when it comes to building teams and the incredible initiative those teams exert in taking projects forward. I’ve been wondering what the takeaway might be – what’s different about me and/or the projects I’m making, now?

The only thing besides location that has changed, is that almost everyone with whom I’m working, now, is someone for whom I’ve worked on projects in the past. So there is a kind of barter system at play: I’ve been willing to sing the compositions of young composers and perform in performances of young directors without expecting anything in return. In every case, I did it because I genuinely enjoy working on new music and building performances, and that was payment enough for me. But much networking advice would tell you that you can reverse engineer what I just described – that you can treat being available for other people’s projects as a strategy with the conscious goal in mind of getting favours from them down the line. And that’s what I disagree with – I don’t think you should treat people in any particular way because of what you want to get out of them. And I can’t possibly be alone in that. So, this episode is dedicated to all those young artists who are looking for collaborators but don’t want to treat others as a means to an end and want, most of all, to live in truth and honesty, not as a Machiavellian schemers. The confusing thing is that sometimes those two approaches might look the same from the outside.

By the way, I said last time that the end of the season would focus on the you, who, and where of it all. Last episode was about you – how to become the performer you can be, by finding a unique path. In this episode, it’s going to be about others – the who. It’s a very important question, because I can’t imagine a performance project of any scale not needing a team, but it’s also going to be a shorter episode because I want to propose a radical simplicity when it comes to collaborations. For me, it boils down to the importance of honesty and integrity and accepting that not everyone will like you and that that’s okay. Personally, I found that was the approach I needed to have in order to navigate the world of artistic collaborations, and maybe you’ll find that approach more helpful as well. And, at the end of the episode, I’ll share the 10 rules I try to stick to when navigating relationships with existing and potential collaborators.

One of the most famous books on networking is called How To Win Friends and Influence People. It’s an early, in fact, seminal, classic of that self-help genre that emerged in the early 20th century. Published in 1934, it was basically a summary of what a certain Dale Carnegie taught in his business and leadership classes, which he had been giving since 1912. You probably recognise the name, Carnegie – but this particular Carnegie’s name is only an homage to the Carnegie that built the famous Carnegie concert hall. This Carnegie was born with a similar surname, spelled with a -gay at the end instead of -gie, and worked his way up in life, somewhat like that other Carnegie, except this Carnegie’s career quickly because a bit meta – his main business, his main legacy, seems to be talking about success and teaching other people how to get it.

How To Win Friends and Influence People still sells today, almost a century later – Carnegie really got in on the ground floor of the self-help business. The book admits to the importance, the indispensability, even, of other people in any individual success story and that is a helpful and true message. But when you look at the principles that Carnegie espouses, it becomes kind of comical, because he’s advising things like: “Show interest in other people.” “Remember people’s names.” “Try to see things from other people’s point of view.” “Don’t criticise or complain.” “Avoid arguments.” And something about that always seemed off to me. I mean – haven’t you met people who are terrible to others, but do somehow become influential? Isn’t disagreeability actually a predictor of success in business? Aren’t there plenty successful people who never see anything from anyone else’s perspective but their own? Aren’t people who make others feel good about themselves and try to “help them get what they want” in order to influence them, classic manipulators? Sure, Carnegie’s book can be read as an ethical and pro-social analysis of what makes people tick and how to get what you need from others through mutually-beneficial, friendly interactions. Listening to people, being interested in them, and helping them get what they want is a great way to be in the world – and I’m sure a few successful people are that way, without it being calculating or manipulative. But let’s not pretend that the majority of those who have read and continue to read Carnegie’s book, and other books on influence and popularity, are actually looking for advice on how to be better people. No: they want instruction on how to be successful and if someone told them that intimidation and spreading rumours would get them there, they would just as happily do that as listen to other people’s points of view and repeat their name after every sentence. I’m sorry to put it so bluntly but I really believe that books like How To Win Friends and Influence People are sociopath-friendly instruction manuals on how to go through the motions of being a good person in order to consolidate power – even if, in the right hands, and perhaps even most hands, it might be fairly benign advice on how to be a more likeable person.

The truth is, nice people and likeable people are not the same as good people. You’ll learn that very quickly when you work with others. And I worry that being nice is over-valued at the expense of being genuine and fair, and treating people with actual respect and having actual integrity. And the more tough success is to come by, the more people will want to take the shortcut of being nice over being truly decent in order to get what they want, which over time creates a paranoid, fake, manipulative environment for everyone. And I think anyone who has been around the performing arts in any way has experienced such environments first hand.

I’ll expand on this a bit more and talk about my two main problems with the How To Win Friends and Influence People model, an approach which we can broaden to most self-help about networking – then I’ll get to the 10 rules I’ve developed while working with others:

The first problem I have with How To Win Friends and Influence People is that it encourages something I’ve seen again and again and which, at scale, leads to atrocities: People who climb social ladders, who often do, consciously or not, play the game of winning friends and influencing people, tend to be morally flexible, because they care less about the truth and more about reputation. This is precisely what leads people to tolerate bad behaviour from those at the top of hierarchical systems. The winning-friends-and-influencing-people model encourages moral flexibility in the face of hierarchy, in particular, because within top-down systems it pays off to make friends and influence people only in certain parts of the system – at the expense of integrity, and truth, and honesty. Now, the thing is, I am not agains hierarchical systems at all – I think an interesting thing about us humans is that we are capable of going in and out of different social structures based on what tasks need to get done. You need authority and central planning and hierarchy to achieve certain things. But that’s precisely why being honest rather than making people feel good about themselves needs to be a core value – and those core values of truth and honesty, don’t seem to be built into the “how to win friends and influence people” model.

The second problem I have with the How To Win Friends and Influence People model is that it encourages outer work instead of inner work and I don’t think you can change your behaviour towards others in a healthy way without first changing yourself inwardly. And sometimes it’s not about changing yourself but about making peace with things about yourself which not everyone is going to like. One of the most liberating things I’ve done, which has improved my life quite a bit, is simply understanding that I am not a naturally agreeable person, that I am to some extent a loner when it comes to how I work, that I have a bit of an edge, but that I am also keenly interested in fairness, and treating people with real respect and dignity – which to me doesn’t mean being nice to them, it means having deep, genuine respect and gratitude for their time and their work. Where my flaws come in, is my inability to turn the other cheek. When I do get into conflicts, it’s always because I’d rather say what I really think about someone who I perceive as being unfair than play a social game just to get what I want from them. That’s something that I could work on if I wanted to – though, frankly, I haven’t ever lost anything truly important having spoken my mind. But that’s also about accepting that integrity – even the petty, and some would say incorrect, integrity of standing up for yourself rather than turning the other cheek – sometimes means losing in the short term. Back when I was a freelance performer, though, I did suppress that part of myself. I tried so hard to be the thing others wanted me to be – agreeable, mild, no opinions, ready to do anything the director or conductor told me. I thought that was my job – and, in a way, it was. But the psychoanalyst Carl Jung would perhaps tell me that I wasn’t actually trying to be a better person, I was merely suppressing my shadow, and that’s very different than actually working on improving yourself. You cannot get rid of or suppress your shadow – your shadow being all those hidden traits you and/or society feel are unacceptable about you. You have to integrate your shadow – otherwise, the shadow might strike when you’re least expecting it, and do actual damage in the process. To be clear – I’m not talking about “just being yourself” even if that self is insufferable. I’m saying that that inner insufferable part of you is bound to come out whether you like it or not, especially when you try to repress it and that it takes work to deal with that, not just learning a set of tricks of how to treat others to make them like you.

So, always going back to the truth, not just what people want to hear, and changing yourself rather than just your behaviour would be what I would add to the common ways people think about networking. And with that, here are the 10 rules I’ve developed for myself when it comes to navigating collaborations, which incorporate this idea of honesty, self-acceptance, and letting go. I’ve written them as imperatives – but please don’t take them that way. They’re my imperatives – they don’t have to be yours. I do think they fill in some gaps in the standard narrative around networking and professional collaborations, though, which might be helpful:

if you have a performing project you need a team for – learn to let go quickly if your potential collaborators aren’t spontaneously holding up their end. If you need to constantly remind people to do things or if you’re the only one doing any work that’s a sign it’s time to walk away. This becomes clear very quickly within any kind of collaboration
be available to participate in other artists’ projects – but make sure to cultivate real interest in their work, otherwise you shouldn’t expect them to work on your projects
most people aren’t going to have projects they could fit you into – assume most artists you meet are just acquaintances, not future collaborators. Assume every interaction to be a casual one that is about the simple enjoyment of interacting with another person, nothing more, but also nothing less
not everyone is going to like you – and it’s not up to you to make them. All you owe anyone is decency – you don’t owe anyone warmth or bubbly friendliness unless it comes from the heart
cultivate genuine interest in others and never pretend to be interested – acting like you’re interested in someone when you’re not is manipulative
separate people from their work – do not judge someone just based on how much you admire them as an artist. The best collaborators may not be the ones whose work you would first pick out as most interesting to you
have meaningful conversations with people about their work, even if that means challenging them – don’t automatically shower other artists with the usual calorie-free platitudes about their work, especially if you don’t mean it. After all, you wouldn’t want to get false praise, would you?
don’t criticise anyone behind their back, especially among those they themselves know and work with – if you have a problem with someone, be direct with them about it even if that means conflict in the short term
keep your moral compass – learn what is morally important to you and do not twist that in the name of being accepted by the “right crowd”
going back to point one – learn to walk away from people and projects. Having fewer people and projects in your life of higher quality is a much better, and more efficient, way to live and work. It also doesn’t mean burning bridges – it just means not trying to get more out of people than they naturally give and accepting when a project just isn’t speaking to others, for the time being

Again, it’s important for everyone to figure out their set of rules for themselves, based on their own experiences. We all have different ways of being social – some of us are naturally agreeable, naturally friendly, naturally outgoing, naturally optimistic. If that’s not naturally how you are, you’re at a certain disadvantage. Self-help books, though, would tell you you can learn to act like you are those things – and sure, you can pretend for a while, but there’s this problem of keeping your soul intact in the process and I think to do that, your actions have to be genuine, you have to act as you feel, to some extent. After all, you want people to be collaborating with the genuine version of you and you want to foster honest relationships, not ones based on a false premise.

A big underlying theme of Classically (Un)Trained does seem to be finding truth in a world that is all about image – being collaborative where others are competitive, being unique where others are conformist, seeing what you do as a service where others see it as a personal ambition and, in this case, being honest where others are manipulative. And I really think that just like finding a very unique path, outside of the traditional ways of becoming a performer is, in the short-term, more work and less certain returns so, too, honesty and the willingness to let go are difficult on an immediate level, and can lead to immediate losses, but in the longterm, offer much greater returns.

Next time, we’ll talk about the broader context – not just who you work with but where you work. Strangely, location really seems to matter – you can play a totally different role just by entering a different scene. But of course there are trade-offs to everything. That’s next time.

In relation to collaborations, I should also add that I’ve been brainstorming with some other performing artists ways to create a kind of exchange network for unusual and what I might call Classically (Un)Trained performers. You can check out where we are in the process right now on the website – and if you would be interested in such a network, get in touch and, depending on where we are in the process, you can either help us brainstorm or join the network or anything else that may be relevant at the time – given that I might be speaking to someone in the more distant future, I try to keep things open.

Please remember that you can always respond with your reactions, disagreements, or corrections at the contact form on the website – which is, if you wish, anonymous.

Footnotes & Sources

Here is the self-help book I critique: How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

By the way, for those who are not native speakers of English (I’m thinking here of French speakers) or don’t know the term: When I say “agreeable” I do not just mean a nice or likeable person, I mean it in the sense that it is used as a very distinct psychological term in English. Some sources will tell you being “disagreeable” means having a lack of concern for others – that’s not a helpful definition. Being disagreeable just means that you do not avoid conflict, interpersonally, and that you enforce your own bounderies. And the truth is that there is a gendered aspect to this. If I were a man, no one would tell me I’m disagreeable – I’m simply disagreeable for a woman. But that’s another matter.

This is not so much a footnote as a recommendation but when it comes to learning about the Jungian concept of the shadow, there is the This Jungian Life Podcast – their episode on shadow work “Identifying and Integrating the Personal Shadow” (they have several but I think this ones the most direct) can be interesting to you.