In April 2015, 25 colleagues and I danced to Bruno Mars’s “Uptown Funk” as part of the entertainment for V After Dark, Vancity Credit Union’s annual employee recognition and celebration event. Here’s the video and a blog post about 10 professional lessons from dancing – I learned these lessons by shaking it in front of 1,500 people, but all you need to do is dance.
Vulnerability fosters self-compassion
Oh boy. Dancing in front of so many people had many of us – myself included – feeling pretty darn humble. By letting go of some hang-ups, like not having super-awesome dance moves, we embraced our vulnerability and, hey, being vulnerable makes us better leaders.
Guys don’t dance
Building a broader community at work means meeting new people and participating in extra-curricular activities. As it turned out, not a lot of men joined the dance team. My friend and colleague Phil and I were the only two dudes who took the stage and the two of us literally had a spotlight shining on us for five minutes. Chances are, guys, that if you join the dance team you’ll be more known in your organization and, probably, on the Internet, too.
Lean into challenges
So often at work our instincts tell us to embrace what comes easiest to us and run away from the hard stuff. When we embrace difficult tasks and conversations we not only learn how to apply our strengths and experiences in new ways (especially when we fail!), but we also normalize such behaviour across the entire organization. Even the simple action of executing a dance routine changes behaviour by showing people what people can achieve.
Learning happens everywhere
Especially at dance practice! During a Friday afternoon rehearsal, Phil – who is a much, much better dancer than me – gave me some great critical feedback about how to improve some of my messier moves. Not only did I learn how to pull the routine together, but I also learned that, as a manager, Phil is an incredible coach who makes people feel good as he recommends areas for improvement. All of my awesome finger-wagging in the video above is a credit to Phil’s teaching.
Practice doesn’t make perfect
Only perfect practice makes perfect. According to basketball legend Larry Bird, practicing something with mediocrity will likely see you repeat such a thing in the same way. For example, after Phil gave me some pointers on my moves, I practiced the routine with the same intention as the live performance. So, the next time that you’re practicing for a big presentation don’t just read your slides while you sit in a chair – replicate the exact experience and bring intention to your perfect practice.
Have fun with it!
Smiling is one of the simplest life hacks that you can master to enhance your professional potential. We were a nervous group, but our instructor, Tree, consistently reminded us that the most important thing about the whole performance was for us to smile and have fun because our enthusiasm would be contagious. And it totally was.
Movement creates movement
“As more people join in it’s less risky. Those who were sitting on the fence before have no reason not to [join in],” says Derek Sivers in his popular TED Talk about how to start a movement. His case study explores dancing and, well, our performance absolutely brought people to the dance floor and took the party to another level. After rocking out on the dance floor (sometimes my moves were like the guy’s in the video below), I’ll forever look for wild and ridiculous people who are putting themselves out there and do what I can to support their ideas. Because championing early adopters of change is how movements are sustained.
Leave it all on the floor
According to HBR’s Heidi Grant Halvorson, “grit is a willingness to commit to long-term goals, and to persist in the face of difficulty.” I’m not saying that rocking out to “Uptown Funk” reflected long-term goals for many of us, but we all demonstrated a certain amount of persistence and strong work ethic to learn the moves and work together to deliver a memorable performance.
Celebrate
It is critical for organizations to celebrate achievements and successes, especially amidst deadlines, targets and competing priorities. In our different ways – drinks, high-fives, more dancing, imbibing in a tasty snack – we all celebrated our shared accomplishment. What’s more is that our colleagues also recognized our moves in hugs and emails following the performance.
But, hey, we didn’t do it for the recognition; we did it for the dancing!
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This article was originally published on April 15, 2015.
Photo credit: Mary Seo