What Can Business Learn From Dance
“If you’re smiling, you’re doing it right!”
Your innovation organization might not literally be a dance team, but you should execute like one, because you want all the same things: enthusiasm, elasticity, hygiene, boundaries, trust, clarity on leading and following, and more. Adopting the language, habits, and culture of Dance gives you a healthy, collaborative advantage.
You learn a lot in dance lessons. The most important lesson I learned on the dance floor was that everything applies off the dance floor - including my work.
Dancing with another person is a uniquely attentive, collaborative, intimate, and fun activity. Like many activities, the early uncertainty can be terrifying. Numerous things shape your experience, such as your dance partners, the friendships, the music, the classes, the instructors, and the performances. Once you learn and embrace the expectations, the partner dance community generates Moments That Matter.
For the employee experience in your organization, it’s the same thing. The same uncertainty, attentiveness, and learning exist! Certain expectations are upon you at certain times: before you get on the dance floor, when you are a beginner on the dance floor, and when you are an experienced dancer.
Before you step foot on the dance floor (before you leave home), take care of three things: your hygiene, your shoes, and your humility. Look good. Smell good. Demonstrate that you respect yourself and respect others. Use the personal equipment that’s right for the job (shoes in this case) so that you and your partners can focus on the collaboration itself without distractions. Finally, adorn your humility. Everywhere you go, assume that there are better dancers than you. There will be posers, too. Don’t be one of them. Instead, be a pleasant, authentic, positive surprise for your partners.
Beginners on the dance floor have seven skills to learn: governing themselves, mechanics, self-awareness, boundaries, trust, leadership, and followership. All these skills apply off the dance floor.
Governing yourself as a dancer includes knowing your why. You might take dance lessons to have a new hobby, for fitness, to meet new people, or to expand “date night” options with your significant other. Early dance lessons are a form of onboarding. You have to decide how intensely you want to climb the learning curve. Low intensity can result in new students simply forgetting what they learned the previous week.
“This is my dance space. This is your dance space.”
Beginner dancers must master mechanics such as left foot, right foot, and timing and direction of turns. Studios are rarely crowded, but a crowded club requires you to have self-awareness, set space boundaries, and not intrude upon others’ space. You must win your partner’s trust by conveying your competence with the dance and ability to minimize negative surprises.
On the dance floor, you must convey safety, comfort, and confidence - in yourself, in your partner, and in your partnership. Take responsibility for any mistakes. Simply reset and start again. Match your partner - in strength, intensity, and style.
As a Leader, you must be explicit without being rigid or menacing. Show your follow you can “meet them where they are” according to their comfort zone, talent level, and energy level. You must minimize noise (in the form of weaving arms like a jump rope) and allow the follow to style on their own terms. A skilled, minimalist leader makes it look easy. Like it is off the dance floor, a leader who is unable to adjust to their followers is limited and less effective. The leader is responsible for the follower to stay in the experience, enjoy the experience, and want to dance again. Leaders, be who your Follower needs you to be. Anything else is just being a boss.
When you are a Follower on the dance floor, you are not passive, limp, floppy, or blind. Good followership is active! You must have a firm frame, boundaries, and attentiveness. A good Follower conveys their sincere level of trust and enjoyment back to the leader. Many Followers are ready to assume leadership at a moment’s notice - for example, when a collision is about to happen.
Advanced dancers bring out the best in other dancers. Rotation and diversity of partners makes you a better dancer. Advanced dancers are attentive, forgiving, and elastic with each other. You laugh at your mistakes. Your muscle memory enables you to style and give your partner positive surprises and Moments That Matter. Neither of you aim for perfection - just fun, improvement, and elegance.
After every dance, you rejoin the community, you rotate dance partners. Your interchangeability makes you a good fit everywhere you go. After you learn enough Swing, you learn Salsa. Once you learn enough Salsa, you learn Tango. Each adds to your dance portfolio. Your learning never stops. Creating unique works of art one song at a time, never stops. Imagine if we never left the dance floor. Imagine if these lessons are your reality all the time! Everything you learn on the dance floor is important and valuable off the dance floor.
With some colleagues, teamwork is a “delicate dance.” Channel your inner dancer to demonstrate humility, collaboration, and grace - one experience at a time. In your innovation work, embrace the language, habits, and culture of the Performing Arts.