Retaining poise amid dizzying change

In Act III of Swan Lake, Odile, the Black Swan, dances 32 consecutive fouetté turns en pointe. It’s an extraordinary thing to behold. Like an elegant spinning top, a human gyroscope. Your jaw drops. Surely the ballerina must get progressively dizzy. Why doesn’t she fall over and collapse to the ground in a heap of black tulle?

Of course, there is a technique. From an early age, a ballet dancer learns to ‘spot’: while rotating her body at a constant speed, she fixes her gaze on some distant point in the theatre or rehearsal room and then whips her head round to refocus on the same point again. Spotting diminishes the amount that the head is spinning and so in turn diminishes the risk of dizziness.

Perhaps there’s something that business can learn here. As the commercial world spins faster, one way or another we’re all engaged in change. It can be quite dizzying.

Companies can suffer change fatigue. Too many empty promises, unrealistic projections, apocalyptic predictions; too many buzz phrases and brave new worlds; a revolving door of senior managers and singular ideas.

When all around is changing, we all yearn for a North Star to guide us, an anchor to secure us. What can that fixed point be? It can be the reassuring consistency of a leadership team. It can be a well-articulated purpose. Whatever it is, it’s worth repeating. Over and over again.

In recent years, scientists have suggested that there’s more to the ballet dancer’s stability than spotting; that, in fact, a ballerina’s brain learns over time to suppress signals from the balance organs in the inner ear, which would otherwise make them fall over.

Perhaps a business too can, with repetition, internalise a sense of security in the midst of accelerating change; learn to sustain perfect poise and balance at the heart of the revolution. Just like a ballerina.