How Social Dance Can Grow Your Business. (Inspired by reading Keith Ferrazzi).
If you are a businessperson, you probably realize by now that the most challenging and rewarding part of any business is establishing, nurturing, and encouraging trustful relationships both with your clients and your team members. There are many strategies that a company can employ to make sure that its valuable work force is united and driven to do its best for the business. I personally believe that one social dance group class can bring more value into your culture than a hundred business workshops and trainings.
In my life, I attended some business trainings where all I had to do was sit and listen. I also attended network events where all people do is eat and talk. Now, it is all good but as a trained actor and dancer, I could sense way too much safety in all those conversations and polite business card exchanges. Safety is good only when it encourages risk taking. Unfortunately, that is not the type of safety that I have witnessed during those meetings. The safety I am talking about is a superficial communication that leads literally nowhere. NOWHERE but back into the same old routine.
That's when I started realizing the value of making people take one social dance class together. We all know that our verbal communication is only about 20% of the real communication. The rest is all in our body. That's why, when people actually connect through the dance position to figure out how to enjoy the given dance pattern while staying in harmony with each other and music, encourages a keen awareness of your own and your partner's state of mind, body, and spirit. People learn how to negotiate space; how to be considerate of other people's learning pace; how to guide each other and to be opened about what they feel their partner can do differently in order to execute the given pattern with more fluidity and eventually rip the benefits of the collaborative process. Moreover, while doing all of these beautiful adjustments, they also improve their overall mental, physical, and emotional health.
I think we do not need more research on this subject. There is plenty of it already. What we need though is the open mindedness and willingness to try new things and to remember that humans are social beings; and encouraging your team to learn how to dance together is the best investment you can make to turn your work environment and business culture into one harmonious, joyful, and dynamic culture.
If you have any questions regarding my personal approach to social dance training or would like to connect with me and learn more about how dance can grow your business, feel free to email me and I will get back to you sooner than later.
(Stephanie King and Artur Lago-V. performing Modern Waltz at the Academy of Social Dance Winter Showcase. photo by Gibeault Photography).
