strategies for motivating co-authors
Your co-authors are probably just as busy as you are. So how do you get co-authors to focus on your joint project? There’s no manual on this. It’s probably highly idiosyncratic: depends on the unique working relationship that you have with your co-author.
But what might be generic strategies for “motivating” co-authors? (This presumes that you yourself are motivated.) Here are some quick strategies that come to mind:
- Corner your co-author. Erdos famously showed up at co-authors door steps (even at 2am) — incidentally he had LOTS of co-authors (511!) — and exclaimed “my mind is open.” Try something like that. More generally, physical proximity (despite the advantages of technology) tends to focus attention — so taking time to work on projects at conferences etc can pay off.
- Pester your co-author. In the digital era one can usually find co-authors lurking somewhere online. Skype, Facebook and other social media are good “control” devices.
- Bag the project. If your co-author doesn’t seem willing to work on the project, maybe the project is lame. Bag it — and work on something more interesting.
- Pretend your co-author doesn’t exist. Take charge and just work on the project yourself, as if you’re the sole author. The risk of course is that your co-author doesn’t agree with your arguments/work, but that might be a risk worth taking. More likely, your co-author will appreciate your work and it will push the project forwards.
- Pre-commit to intermediate deadlines. Pre-commit yourself to intermediate deadlines and do the same with your co-authors (I’ll finish “x” by next Wed). Co-authorship itself is sort of like a commitment device (well, among other things), it can keep us focused.
- Pick good co-authors in the first place. Probably the easiest way to manage co-author relationships is to have good ones in the first place. “Good” might have a lot to do with compatibility of work styles, similarity of perspectives, etc.
Drop any additional ideas into the comments.
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Buy your co-authors’ effort. I use extravagant dinners and the offer to purchase books for their research. I find that this consideration (in the legal sense) cements the contract for both parties.
Remember that co-authors have different stakes in the game. Junior coauthors (ass’t profs and grad students) need the paper more than me, so I reinforce this as often as necessary. Maybe more often.This doesn’t work with chaired profs…
Be sure that the paper is properly situated in the coauthor’s publication stream for promotion (if applicable). It should contribute to the story line in the promotion dossier about the substance of the research program, the audience(s) reached, and the journal impact factor where it shall be published.
Randy
April 29, 2011 at 3:36 pm
perhaps i’m just a naive grad student, but I thought that “if we work hard and do this RIGHT, we could publish in a top journal and then get TENURE” was motivation enough
Andrew
April 29, 2011 at 4:14 pm
I’ve found that physical proximity (“cornering”) is a necessary but not sufficient condition. One coauthor and I made arguably the least amount of progress when we worked at the same university, because other distractions were too great and it was too easy to say, “we’ll work on it over the summer / over winter break / later.”
Now that one of us has moved the better part of a continent away, physical proximity involves travel by one or both parties. This works much better, because the one who travels has made a special and costly effort to be there, and the one who hosts feels guilty enough to (and has a good excuse to) set aside the day-to-day stuff as much as humanly possible.
We tried phone conferencing, skyping, even working (separately) in spaces in our respective home towns other than our usual offices. Nothing works as well as physical proximity, as long as the clock is ticking.
krippendorf
April 29, 2011 at 11:00 pm