Learning to Choose the Right People — Even in My Eighties

Last Saturday, Françoise and I met someone with whom I hope to develop the website for my proposed three-towns community project, together with its accompanying directory of organisations and events. I have always found it interesting how we are drawn towards certain people, sometimes without being able to explain precisely why. On this occasion I felt sufficiently confident to give him administrator access to my existing Chard website which will be a model for the new one. Anyone familiar with WordPress will know that Administrator is the highest level of access, giving the recipient virtually complete control over the site. He could, in theory, have done almost anything he liked with it, including making a complete mess of the whole thing. Yet something told me that I could trust him, and I acted accordingly.

We met in a pub, which I find a much more agreeable environment for getting to know someone than an office or a formal business meeting. There is something about sitting around a table with a drink that allows conversation to develop naturally, without the artificial pressures of an interview. I had been prompted beforehand to reflect upon what I really need from someone with whom I am going to work. Technical competence is obviously important, but I have come to realise that it is by no means the only consideration. There must be an ability to communicate, a willingness to understand another person’s point of view, and, perhaps most importantly, a sense that you are both travelling in the same direction.

My previous experience with the Chard website had taught me some useful lessons, although I cannot pretend that I learned them without a certain amount of frustration. That project was undertaken rather hurriedly, and I found a developer who offered to do the work for a fixed and comparatively modest price. He was based in Pakistan, which at the time seemed a minor consideration. After all, we live in an age when people can communicate instantly across continents, and much technical work is routinely carried out remotely. What could possibly go wrong?

Quite a lot, as it turned out, although not necessarily for the reasons one might expect. The first difficulty was the difference in time zones. Four hours may not sound particularly significant, but in practice it meant that our working days did not always coincide conveniently. A question raised in the afternoon might not receive attention until the following day, and when a problem required several exchanges of messages, the delays could become tiresome. There is nothing quite like being in the middle of a creative idea and having to wait until tomorrow before you can take the next step.

The second problem was more subtle. Although my developer could speak English, I gradually realised that speaking a language and thinking in that language are not necessarily the same thing. There is a considerable difference between understanding the literal meaning of words and appreciating the intentions, nuances and assumptions behind them. I might explain what seemed to me a perfectly straightforward requirement, only to discover later that it had been interpreted in an entirely different way. Neither of us was necessarily at fault, but the resulting misunderstandings took time and patience to unravel.

The third difficulty concerned the way criticism was received. If I pointed out that something had been placed in the wrong position or that a particular feature did not work as intended, he sometimes appeared to take it as a personal affront. I was not criticising him as a person; I was simply trying to get the job done. In any creative or technical undertaking there must be room for correction, adjustment and even the occasional complete change of direction. If every suggestion is interpreted as a criticism of someone’s competence, progress becomes unnecessarily difficult.

There is an old saying that if you buy cheap, you buy twice. I came rather close to proving its truth. To be fair, much of the work he carried out was perfectly satisfactory, and I do not wish to diminish his technical abilities. The greater problem was that I was not sufficiently in command of the ship. I had a vision of what I wanted to achieve, but I had not established a working arrangement that would allow that vision to develop in an orderly fashion. Eventually the whole undertaking came to a grinding halt, not because the original idea was unsound, but because the practical arrangements had failed to support it.

All this was very much in my mind when we met our prospective new colleague. I deliberately raised some of the difficulties I had encountered previously, partly to see how he would react. I mentioned the experience with the Pakistani developer, and he immediately understood the problem. I also spoke about the tendency of clients to want everything done yesterday, a failing of which I have occasionally been guilty myself. He smiled and explained that he encounters this sort of pressure almost every day. There was no defensiveness, no suggestion that I was being unreasonable, and certainly no sign that he regarded my questions as an attack upon his professional standing.

This was encouraging. He has been building websites for more than ten years, so he is hardly a beginner, and he lives only a few miles away. That last point is particularly important to me. I am quite happy to communicate by email when discussing routine matters, but there are occasions when sitting beside someone and looking at the same screen can resolve in five minutes what might otherwise require a dozen messages. There is also something reassuring about knowing that the person with whom you are working is part of the same local environment and can be met face to face when necessary.

Interestingly, we did not discuss money at our first meeting. I have always felt that introducing financial considerations too early can be a little vulgar, particularly when one has not yet established whether the two parties are suited to working together. Of course, the question of payment must eventually be addressed, and I have no intention of expecting someone to provide professional expertise without proper remuneration. But there is a time and place for everything, and I felt that our first meeting should be devoted to discovering whether we understood one another.

Whenever I commission work, I also try to establish what I can reasonably do myself. I have built and maintained a number of WordPress websites over the years and am perfectly capable of installing the software, creating pages, entering text and undertaking the general editorial work. I do not need someone to do everything for me, nor would I particularly enjoy surrendering complete control of a project that I regard as my own creation. Where I begin to encounter difficulties is in the more technical work, particularly the construction of forms, searchable lists, databases and the relationships between different parts of a website.

WordPress offers an astonishing variety of plugins, with tens of thousands available to perform almost every conceivable task. The difficulty is not necessarily finding a plugin that claims to do what you want but knowing whether it will work harmoniously with everything else already installed. Two perfectly respectable plugins can interfere with one another, producing errors that are difficult to trace. A website may suddenly stop behaving as expected, leaving the amateur administrator wondering which innocent-looking addition has caused the trouble. This is where experience becomes valuable. A competent developer knows not only what to install but, perhaps more importantly, what to leave alone.

Throughout our meeting I felt no pressure to make an immediate decision, and I did not attempt to obtain a commitment from him. Françoise was equally comfortable with the conversation, which I regard as a useful indication. She is often able to observe aspects of a person’s manner that I might overlook while concentrating upon the practical details. Even when I asked fairly direct questions, he remained relaxed and forthcoming. There was no sense that either party was trying to impress the other or conceal anything inconvenient.

I am increasingly convinced that nothing important should be decided at a first meeting unless there is an exceptionally good reason. Both parties should have the opportunity to go away, reflect upon what has been discussed and decide whether they genuinely wish to proceed. At worst, he may conclude that he is too busy to take on another project, or we may discover that our expectations concerning payment are too far apart. Neither outcome would be a disaster. The important thing is that I am not in a hurry, and I do not intend to create unnecessary difficulties by behaving as though everything must be settled immediately.

This brings me to a lesson that has taken me an embarrassingly long time to learn. Whenever I see a new project clearly in my mind, I have an almost irresistible desire to bring it into existence straight away. The vision appears complete, and I find it difficult to understand why the practical world cannot immediately catch up with it. Unfortunately, other people have their own commitments, technical problems take time to resolve, and even the best ideas require a period of preparation. Enthusiasm is a wonderful driving force, but it can become a nuisance when it refuses to recognise the existence of a timetable.

Here I am, well into my eighties, finally learning lessons that perhaps I should have mastered half a century ago. I could reproach myself for being such a slow learner, but what would be the point? We learn when we learn, and not necessarily when other people think we should. I have had a lifetime of initiating projects, bringing people together and occasionally charging ahead with more enthusiasm than caution. Some ventures have been successful, others less so, but I cannot say that any of them has been entirely wasted. Even an unsuccessful undertaking can provide useful information, provided one is willing to examine what went wrong.

This morning I wrote a long letter to the developer, setting out my thoughts about the proposed website, the work I can undertake myself, and the areas in which I would welcome his assistance. I found the exercise extremely helpful. There is something about committing one’s ideas to writing that forces them into a more orderly arrangement. What initially appears as a collection of loosely connected thoughts gradually becomes a coherent plan. By the time I had finished, I felt much clearer about what I wanted and, equally importantly, what I did not want.

I shall probably contact him sometime next week to see whether we can make progress together. If the arrangement works, it could be the beginning of a most enjoyable collaboration. If it does not, I shall continue looking until I find the right person. There is no point in trying to force a relationship that lacks the necessary understanding, however attractive the financial terms may appear.

Underlying all this is a conviction that work should be a joy rather than a burden. I do not mean that every task must be entertaining or that difficulties should never arise. Any worthwhile undertaking will encounter obstacles, and there will always be moments when patience is required. But the overall experience should be one of creative satisfaction, with everyone involved feeling that they are contributing something worthwhile. A website, a book or a community project is not merely a collection of technical tasks to be completed. It is a manifestation of an idea, something that begins in the imagination and gradually acquires a life of its own.

I have always been attracted to the idea that the manner in which something is created is just as important as the finished result. If a project is brought into existence through anxiety, conflict and constant pressure, some of that atmosphere seems to cling to it. Conversely, when people work together with mutual respect, good humour and a shared sense of purpose, the whole undertaking becomes more enjoyable, and often more successful.

Perhaps the greatest lesson is that we should not have to struggle quite so hard to make good things happen. There is a difference between purposeful effort and unnecessary strain. The former is productive; the latter merely exhausts everyone concerned. I am beginning to appreciate that the right people, the right timing and the right attitude can make an enormous difference.

And, come to think of it, this applies not merely to building websites but to almost every aspect of life. At my age, that is a lesson worth learning, even if it has arrived rather late in the day.