By Christopher Medford

Difficulties of Partnerships Part Two. 

Being asked to be someone’s partner over the Christmas break gave me slight relief from the anxiety of worrying about the whole thing. In most cases, the people I wanted to work with already had made their first choices. In some cases, I was of too slow to ask and in others I had sadly not even been considered by the rest of the cohort. There are several reasons that I could guess for why I wasn’t considered. The main suspect is that in people’s minds, I would be working with a certain copywriter . We had previously done a few bits of good work earlier on the course. But even though we produce good work together, his attitudes and professionalism towards briefs and people leave a lot to be desired and I think he would have to grow up quite a bit if we were ever to work together.

This epic truth was not as obvious to the rest of the cohort as I thought. This became quite clear to me while trying to explain it to confused members of our class, adamant that we should be working together. But during this period, I was approached by my current partner. She didn’t have a first choice and we had worked on a two-day brief once previously, but in hindsight we hadn’t work long enough together to see if we were compatible pairing. She complimented the work I had done previously and was persistent that it would be cool to work with me.

In my previous blog post, The Difficulties of partners, I made a list of qualities that the ideal partner would need to have as well as attitudes both parties would need to hold to generate great work. Since starting back term 2, I have found my relationship with my partner has not been the great alliance I thought it may have been. Knowing your own strengths and weaknesses is the key to success and even more so when looking for a partner. Being able to know the things that you are weak in and looking to soften their blow in the strengths of others is the most necessity in finding a creative partner; securing someone to fill in the blanks and make you a fully rounded force is the goal, in my opinion.

I have found that I can come across forward and blunt, even after I say what is on my mind I am always, all ears to the feedback. I love to hear different points of and find a healthy discussion is something to pride yourself on; even before I did the 16 personalities test and found out I was“The Debater” (ENTP-T). Current partner and I have very different, often contradictory ideas on the best way to work, and due to this, we haven’t been able to create synergic creativity when working on briefs. Sadly, this has drastically lowered the standard of work we are able to produce. I know that the chances of being able to find that right partner straight away, in a room of about 40 people is a statistical fluke. But even though things have become less fun, the quest continues to find the right partner, and our rapport shall breed great work and unending awards.