Because when we first got together I made it a point to lay out my priorities and what extra work I would and wouldn’t be willing to take on over the life span of the project. “Let’s just agree on what we want to achieve,” I began. “Here are a couple of things that really matter to me …” And I asked him to do the same. Thus we worked through a “social contract,” not unlike the one Jin-Yung and her boss worked out in the opening story. Simply having an understanding up front about what we were really trying to achieve and what our boundaries were kept us from wasting each other’s time, saddling
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