Dancing With Your Team, With Your Customers, ...

From what I can tell, humans generally spend less time exposed to dance as their life goes on. Maybe we have dance in our lives as kids, maybe dance returns to our lives when our kids attend classes or perform at school, and maybe dance appears again with grandkids. “Grandma, let me show you what I learned in gymnastics/ballet class!”

We should fight against this attrition of dance. Even if you are not literally on a dance floor, tango-ing in Paris, think about what a dance mindset does for you, your team, and your customers. And not merely bouncing along to a song in your car, but a partner dance – leading, following, attentive, imperfectly elegant.

Dance is attentive, collaborative, elastic, and community – like your organization.

The intimacy of partner dance is unnerving. As my dance partner, we are both vulnerable. We are intensely attentive to each other – “listening” with more than just our ears. We are unable to look at our phones, and if my eyes wander very much, you feel my rudeness.

The hyper-competitive world disappears. Suddenly, we are in a setting of collaboration. Far from casual collaboration, dance is hyper-collaborative. Second-by-second, measure-by-measure, we are constantly adjusting to each other’s rhythm, sensitivity, precision, skill, boundaries, comfort zone. Neglecting any of those reduces the enjoyment, the beauty, and the experience.

We don’t enjoy dance partners who are too strong, rigid, or self-absorbed. We don’t enjoy dance partners who are weak, unclear, and unresponsive. We want partners who bring balance, shape, firmness, who execute the fundamentals well. We like partners with something new, safe, straightforward, resilient, fun, and funny. Whether it’s our first dance or fiftieth dance together, we’ll make mistakes. We’ll laugh and try again. How we handle mistakes together can be the most meaningful moments.

Once a song is over, we’ll move on to other things and other dance partners. I will look at my phone. But consciously or not, we are citizens of a community. We avoid being a “one dance was enough” person. Others grow to know how we are on the dance floor and off the dance floor. On some occasions, we are inclusive (numerous dance partners). On other occasions, we are exclusive (keeping our partners to a select few). It’s one thing to dance like no one’s watching. You also can dance like everyone is “watching.”

So, don’t let dance leave your life. To the contrary, bring your dance shoes to work. With a dance mindset, you improve the experience for everyone. That’s really valuable. Your partners are worth it, your profitability is worth it, your team is worth it, and your customers are worth it.