Leadership lessons learned from two weeks of dance improv
August 26, 2010
I’ve just finished an extraordinary two week “Make a Show” dance intensive with two choreographers, Matt Kent and Renee Jaworski, from the Pilobolus dance company. (This event was sponsored by the Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College and the Lebanon Recreation & Parks Department.) Essentially, 20 of us (an interesting amalgam of movers and non-movers with an age range from 16 to 60-something) spent a total of 41 hours together doing movement improvisations with a final performance at the end. (For a few photos visit the Hopkins Center Flickr site.)
Each daily session began with a large group improvisational warm-up. We’d then break up into different combinations of 3 to 7 people to work on developing a movement piece that came out of some improvisational theme that was given to us or that had evolved during the warm-up. At the end of each session we would perform our pieces and receive feedback and suggestions from the group and choreographers.
Every session we worked with different combinations of people on new movement pieces, giving us multiple opportunities to create together. Some of the pieces were successful right from the start, others needed a bit of tweaking to really work, and still others really never got traction because the group in that moment simply didn’t gel.
It was an incredibly rich experience with learnings on multiple levels. What I found myself reflecting on most was how we could apply so much of what we learned in this movement intensive to any group setting. This was a fascinating opportunity to study group dynamics and leadership styles in self-organizing systems.
Here are some of the lessons that I learned:
- Speak less, listen more.
- Trust your instincts. Trust the instincts of others.
- Pay attention to your “mates”. If you try something new, see if they’re with you and if not, ask yourself “Do I want to be a loner, or do I want to play with the group?”
- Offer suggestions and ideas, but let go of attachment to any of these if the group doesn’t respond.
- If you especially like something or if something doesn’t work for you let the group know.
- Don’t try to be a star. It’s so much fun to support others.
- If you do something well that you know might be in service of the project, let the group know. It’s not showing off. It is, instead, helping to expand group possibilities.
- When you get confused or lost, stop. Stand still. Look around. Notice what’s happening in the room. And then rejoin the group.
- When you decide to do something, commit. Make sure you are very specific about what you are doing, not wishy-washy, otherwise it will be really hard for others to follow you.
- You can lean into someone and get their support, particularly if you’re clear about your intention to lean and your willingness to be leaned into also.
- Don’t fall back on old patterns that might keep you from discovering what’s possible now.
- Admit when you are afraid or stuck and ask for help.
- Notice when you feel most alive and follow that impulse. Trust that others will discover it too and will respond.
- Notice when your opinions get in the way of creative problem solving.
- Listen to others not just with your ears but with your whole being.
- Don’t spend a lot of time talking about how to approach the problem. Try three quick variations and then decide which one you liked best.
- When you discover the group mind, the collective, allow it to flow naturally without feeling the need to artificially imposing a “new idea”.
- Agree on group norms but break the rules when they don’t seem to work for you.
- Make a clear opening and ending. Don’t let either be mushy.
- Stay connected to the group.
- Give enough time to let things develop. Don’t abandon something interesting too soon.
- When you see an opening — a doorway — take it and as you go through let it affect you.
- Play! Have fun!
This list is just a start. My guess is that I’ll be adding to this over the next week or so, so check back here again when you have a chance.
Self-consciousness vs. Presence
October 30, 2009
In response to David’s comment to my last post about fear arising not at the beginning of a talk but rather 3 or 4 minutes into the talk, I thought I’d share the first article in a 26 week article series I’ve written entitled The ABCs of Presence in Speaking, Leading, and Life! This first article explores the what happens when we become self-conscious and compares it with presence. Here’s the article:
A is for… Arrows of Attention
Recently I had the privilege of watching a lovely young woman at her high school graduation party as she performed a modern dance she had choreographed. A living room had been cleared and we were all sitting and standing within five feet of her “stage.” Not an easy place to perform because the scrutiny was so close!
She was quite remarkable and maintained a strong connection with her movement, the music and the emotional tone of the dance throughout her performance. Only occasionally did I notice that she became self-conscious and in those brief moments, the sense of presence I experienced dropped away, and instead I saw a young woman feeling a bit awkward.
This was fascinating for me because it so clearly marked the distinction between self-consciousness and presence. When we are self-conscious, when the direction, or arrows, of attention are directed towards ourselves, we often feel awkward, clumsy, and we feel a sense of separation from the outside world. When we are really present, we are fully engaged in the activity of the moment, our arrows of attention are directed away from our ego, and we no longer feel separate, alone, afraid.
This is especially true when we speak in public. So often, we become self-absorbed and fearful about looking inept, making mistakes or forgetting what we planned to say. If, instead, we turn our arrows of awareness towards the people in our audience, becoming open to receiving them, and being genuinely curious about them, we lose that self-consciousness and drop into a shared place with our audience that better serves them (and ourselves).
A is for… Arrows of Attention
Recently I had the privilege of watching a lovely young woman at her high school graduation party as she performed a modern dance she had choreographed. A living room had been cleared and we were all sitting and standing within five feet of her “stage.” Not an easy place to perform because the scrutiny was so close!
She was quite remarkable and maintained a strong connection with her movement, the music and the emotional tone of the dance throughout her performance. Only occasionally did I notice that she became self-conscious and in those brief moments, the sense of presence I experienced dropped away, and instead I saw a young woman feeling a bit awkward.
This was fascinating for me because it so clearly marked the distinction between self-consciousness and presence. When we are self-conscious, when the direction, or arrows, of attention are directed towards ourselves, we often feel awkward, clumsy, and we feel a sense of separation from the outside world. When we are really present, we are fully engaged in the activity of the moment, our arrows of attention are directed away from our ego, and we no longer feel separate, alone, afraid.
This is especially true when we speak in public. So often, we become self-absorbed and fearful about looking inept, making mistakes or forgetting what we planned to say. If, instead, we turn our arrows of awareness towards the people in our audience, becoming open to receiving them, and being genuinely curious about them, we lose that self-consciousness and drop into a shared place with our audience that better serves them (and ourselves).
Intentional Attention: Insights from the cha cha cha
February 4, 2009
I took an aerobic dance class yesterday at my fitness center. We were doing the cha cha cha and a series of steps with lot’s of turns. Long ago as a modern dancer I was trained to “spot” when I turned, that is, to focus on one spot during a turn so that I could stay balanced and not get dizzy. I found myself spotting yesterday as I was doing the cha cha cha and after one particular turn the gift of my ability to spot left me with a moment of startling clarity. The insight that came with that clarity was so compelling that I found it difficult to continue dancing for the rest of the class.
So, what was my insight? When we have an intention to focus our attention in a particular way, we feel present, steady, grounded, clear. And, this is true despite all the activity swirling around us. The dance steps I was doing were fast paced. The music was loud. There were many other dancers in the room. New steps were being presented continuously. In turning, it could so easily have led to my feeling off balance. But in the moment when I completed that one turn, with a clear focus on my spot, all the frenetic activity around me became still and I was momentarily simply THERE.
When we feel anxious, we often have a feeling that there’s too much swirling around us and we find ourselves in an ongoing state of imbalance. This is particular true when we are doing an important presentation in the throes of a fear of public speaking. In these moments, our mental state creates an experience of chaos and we feel out of control.
In those moments of high anxiety, the physiological stress response kicks in and we are thrown into survival mode. One manifestation of that internal “fight or flight” state is that our eyes rapidly scan our environment as we become hypervigilant.
In a speaking situation this translates into what I call the “radar” scan – we continuously look around the room without really seeing anyone. To use my dance “spot” analogy, this is the equivalent of not focusing on anything when we turn, which leads to falling off balance and feeling dizzy. The net result of this experience is that we amplify the fear that was already there.
In my years as a public speaking presence coach, I have found that letting our gaze rest quietly on one person at a time as we speak (what some would call “eye contact”) with a conscious intention to truly see the person we are looking at, has the same effect as the “spot” has in a dance turn. In a way that might seem quite paradoxical, this gentle focus of our attention on a single person at a time instead of the “crowd”, calms us down, steadies us, brings clarity in the moment, brings us into balance, keeps us from feeling dizzy, slows us down.
And, it has another benefit… Our audience feels invited in, included, important. They feel attended to and so become more interested in what we have to say.
