Editorial February 15, 1999 Issue

Jump-starting creative teamwork

Mary Metzner Trammell

Nine people I was meeting for the first time waved me over to join them under a huge California oak tree. "Hey, Mary!" they said. "You're our team leader."

This was news to me. I knew the two-week publishing course I'd signed up for last summer would be a morning-to-night proposition. But I'd pictured being more a spectator than a participant.

Our team, I quickly discovered, was loaded with talented writers, editors, and publishers. I honestly wondered what computer glitch had made me—rather than one of them—team leader. And then there was the project: an exercise that would include a complete proposal for a "new" magazine. How could we do this when we couldn't even arrive at a consensus on where to meet again?

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