Leadership Arts 3: Dynamic Thinking

Theme: The Dynamics of Human Relationships

This month, we’re on the move. It’s all too easy for a business to find itself stuck in place: maybe a project has dragged on for too long, or you’ve become too comfortable with old habits, or you’ve just stopped stretching yourself and your team. It’s very common to forget the importance of how shifts in dynamics matter, how noticing the spaces in between and how they change is a critical part of leadership.

At TH, we take movement seriously: how we relate to each other in a room, how we plan a route through our day, how to optimize space (both literally and metaphorically!). We recently ran a programme called ‘Take the Lead’ for insurance company Convex in which employees were taken on an immersive, theatrical experience. A big part of the effect was getting participants to move and think spatially - to actually live the physical environment of their experience – to walk a mile, in other words, in someone else’s shoes.

We also specialise in constellations – or systemic mapping where deeper understanding of challenges or strategic relationships is made possible through the physical manifestation of the human dynamics of the problem.  Participants get the chance to step outside the ‘dance’ of the day to day world they are part of and they see the blocks and the opportunities for themselves, to experiment with moving the pieces on the board in a safe, supportive space.  They become choreographers of their own strategic futures.

Body-language, spatial reasoning, dynamism: these things are crucial to powerful, effective leadership.

What can be learned from the humanities?

So, this month we’re looking at dance. Dance can tell us all sorts of things about how we relate to each other and to our environment: it’s about finding rhythm, whether a waltz or reggae, about releasing endorphins, about spatial reasoning. Is your business choreography the right fit for your project? Or are you trying to rap to the sound of a foxtrot? Whether it’s a solo, a pas des deux, or a big ensemble piece, getting our bodies – as well as our minds – moving and relating to each other effectively is a powerful step towards success.

Watch the dance in this link

Take note of how one person relates – physically and spatially – to another, and how the dancers generate so much meaning without using words:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ-OX_zYeJM

It’s an excerpt from a dance first performed in 1946, called Dark Meadow. Its choreographic rigour, precision, and expressiveness have endured for almost 100 years. This is due to the combined vision of the choreographer and dedication of the dancers. Added to this, the movement is structured with and against the music that creates a harmonious sense of rhythm.  

Specifically, this is a dance about support and risk. Notice how the male dancers act as structural bases on which the female dancers can rest and push away from. There are moments, even, when we fear the dancers might fall, but the choreography always provides a strong core.

Completely wordlessly, the dancers are able to communicate a clear – though complex – relationship based on reciprocal trust. This is something that leaders must do too: to provide a spatial dynamic in which people feel free to take risks, to leap knowing, always that a safety-net remains.

Who made this?

The dance was created by the virtuosic performer, teacher, and choreographer Martha Graham (1894-1991). Graham, living and dancing to the ripe age of 96, brought modern dance into the American mainstream: transcending the rigid borders of ballet and emphasising the body’s expressiveness at its very limits. She was, herself, an extraordinary dancer, dedicated to somatic (a fancy word for ‘to do with the body’) communication and wordless storytelling.

So influential is her legacy that many dancers still work to what is known as ‘Graham Technique’: the first codified modern choreographic system. Graham saw this system as a cycle of ‘contraction and release’, a process by which tension is built and then dissipated. (Take another look at the video to see how this works!) Leaders, too, need to carefully negotiate the rhythms of pressure and relaxation to optimise creative potential.

In her original programme notes to Dark Meadow, Graham wrote: ‘Dark Meadow is a re-enactment of the mysteries which attend the eternal adventure of seeking.’ This is true, too, for your own spaces, whether at home or at work. Go forward, seek, and think dynamically.

‍

Theme: The Dynamics of Human Relationships

This month, we’re on the move. It’s all too easy for a business to find itself stuck in place: maybe a project has dragged on for too long, or you’ve become too comfortable with old habits, or you’ve just stopped stretching yourself and your team. It’s very common to forget the importance of how shifts in dynamics matter, how noticing the spaces in between and how they change is a critical part of leadership.

At TH, we take movement seriously: how we relate to each other in a room, how we plan a route through our day, how to optimize space (both literally and metaphorically!). We recently ran a programme called ‘Take the Lead’ for insurance company Convex in which employees were taken on an immersive, theatrical experience. A big part of the effect was getting participants to move and think spatially - to actually live the physical environment of their experience – to walk a mile, in other words, in someone else’s shoes.

We also specialise in constellations – or systemic mapping where deeper understanding of challenges or strategic relationships is made possible through the physical manifestation of the human dynamics of the problem.  Participants get the chance to step outside the ‘dance’ of the day to day world they are part of and they see the blocks and the opportunities for themselves, to experiment with moving the pieces on the board in a safe, supportive space.  They become choreographers of their own strategic futures.

Body-language, spatial reasoning, dynamism: these things are crucial to powerful, effective leadership.

What can be learned from the humanities?

So, this month we’re looking at dance. Dance can tell us all sorts of things about how we relate to each other and to our environment: it’s about finding rhythm, whether a waltz or reggae, about releasing endorphins, about spatial reasoning. Is your business choreography the right fit for your project? Or are you trying to rap to the sound of a foxtrot? Whether it’s a solo, a pas des deux, or a big ensemble piece, getting our bodies – as well as our minds – moving and relating to each other effectively is a powerful step towards success.

Watch the dance in this link

Take note of how one person relates – physically and spatially – to another, and how the dancers generate so much meaning without using words:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ-OX_zYeJM

It’s an excerpt from a dance first performed in 1946, called Dark Meadow. Its choreographic rigour, precision, and expressiveness have endured for almost 100 years. This is due to the combined vision of the choreographer and dedication of the dancers. Added to this, the movement is structured with and against the music that creates a harmonious sense of rhythm.  

Specifically, this is a dance about support and risk. Notice how the male dancers act as structural bases on which the female dancers can rest and push away from. There are moments, even, when we fear the dancers might fall, but the choreography always provides a strong core.

Completely wordlessly, the dancers are able to communicate a clear – though complex – relationship based on reciprocal trust. This is something that leaders must do too: to provide a spatial dynamic in which people feel free to take risks, to leap knowing, always that a safety-net remains.

Who made this?

The dance was created by the virtuosic performer, teacher, and choreographer Martha Graham (1894-1991). Graham, living and dancing to the ripe age of 96, brought modern dance into the American mainstream: transcending the rigid borders of ballet and emphasising the body’s expressiveness at its very limits. She was, herself, an extraordinary dancer, dedicated to somatic (a fancy word for ‘to do with the body’) communication and wordless storytelling.

So influential is her legacy that many dancers still work to what is known as ‘Graham Technique’: the first codified modern choreographic system. Graham saw this system as a cycle of ‘contraction and release’, a process by which tension is built and then dissipated. (Take another look at the video to see how this works!) Leaders, too, need to carefully negotiate the rhythms of pressure and relaxation to optimise creative potential.

In her original programme notes to Dark Meadow, Graham wrote: ‘Dark Meadow is a re-enactment of the mysteries which attend the eternal adventure of seeking.’ This is true, too, for your own spaces, whether at home or at work. Go forward, seek, and think dynamically.

‍