All Together Now...

I'll be the first to admit it; teamwork is not my cup of tea.  Don't get me wrong, I work just fine in a team and I know the importance of having a number of people look at one problem from many different perspectives.  But if it were up to me, I would rather tackle classwork on my own.  Why?  I find it easier to work alone.  I trust my own work technique, can identify and accept my own mistakes, and can hand in an assignment knowing every part was completed to the best of my ability.
This semester, I am being challenged in each of my classes to work in groups on class projects that last all semester long.  And it is this task that is pushing me so far out of my comfort zone.  Working on long-term

One of my collaboration projects is
designing an app for Google Glass.
Check out twitter.com/foodvalet for
more information.

projects with a team requires patience and trust.  It requires letting go of some of your control of the project and believing that your teammates will perform to a level you are satisfied with.  It is about understanding that sometimes the best ideas come from a collaboration of thoughts rather than one person's head.
Collaboration is invaluable in the news industry.  A producer has to trust their reporter, their director, their cameraman and their news director.  And in turn, all those people need to rely on their producer as well.  A failure in communication among those people can prove disastrous in a newsroom, especially once deadline starts to loom.  Being able to trust that your reporter will deliver a powerful piece, or that your director will cue up the right graphic at the right time will only help you the producer improve.  Once you begin to relax and trust others, you can devote extra time to improving your own work so that others can learn to inherently trust you as well.
So, although it is going to take some time, I'm learning to let go little by little and trust in those around me.