“It’s not the note you play that’s the wrong note – it’s the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong” -Miles Davis
We had the opportunity to interview Robert Snyder, author of the soon to be released book, Innovation Elegance: Transcending Agile with Ruthlessness and Grace.
In our community’s name is the word “beyond.” What we intend to imply is that leaders must manage the messy runway while at the same time collaborating, innovating, and creating a compelling future of work – at the individual, team, organization, and societal levels.
The good news is we don’t create from scratch, we can draw from what is currently working and find new applications.
Robert draws leadership and management ideas from the Performing Arts with a unique style, using analogy and metaphor in a way that makes the business application accessible and immediately actionable.
A glance at his bio and his business experience clearly shows how he’s made this strong connection. Listen as Robert tells of his journey from an awkward male beginner in Latin dance, to being part of a dance team, and now teaching dance.
Every phase of his dance learning journey contains lessons for us all.
“And I started concluding everything I’m learning on the dance floor, applies off the dance floor. When you think of hygiene, leading, following tension, rotation, resilience. I started getting passionate about cross-pollinating and translating those lessons to my teams, to my work, and to my organizations… .”
A few key takeaways from this conversation:
- We can find a lot of inspiration, learning benefits and profitability from the performing arts.
- How to learn to deliberately innovate for synchronization and play for the audience (internal and external).
- Listening for balance. We can’t imagine a conductor not listening to talented musicians. Unfortunately, we can see leaders conducting a team and not paying attention.
- A “Go Live” date is analogous to opening night and we can learn from the performing arts including milestones, rehearsals, feedback, and best practices. Let’s imitate this process of the performing arts into our business teamwork. And don’t forget small celebrations and special moments leading to a big celebration after opening night.
- The greatest of the empathetic arts is parenting. There is a time for bang the table leadership.
Listen to this great conversation for more!
Be on the lookout for Robert’s upcoming book to explore another analogy that he makes between business and the performing arts: “Ruthlessness” and “Grace.” Two words seemingly diametrically opposed, yet necessary for successful leadership.
Connect with Robert through these links:
Website and Blog: https://www.innovationelegance.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/innovation-elegance/
As always, we encourage you to connect with us and share your thoughts and experiences with this community of conversation.
Tom & Adrienne
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