In Act III of Swan Lake, Odile, the Black Swan, dances thirty-two consecutive fouette 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’: whilst 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, whether managing it or making it happen. Sometimes it can be quite dizzying.

The rhetoric increases in volume. We’re on a burning platform. We’re going to re-invent, re-engineer, re-model. We need to be faster, more flexible, more agile. We’re seeking transformational change. We have change managers, change programmes, change champions. The only constant is change. It’s going to be 78 revolutions per minute.


In my own time in advertising I found that change could be inspiring, exciting, exhilarating. But the pressure for constant change could also be bewildering, destabilising and confusing for the broader staff base. As you launched another vision, introduced another expertise, proposed another process, your colleagues sometimes stared back at you with blank looks and empty smiles. What, you wondered, were they really thinking? 

We learned periodically to remind people that in the midst of change the objective remained the same: fundamentally we’re in the business of producing great ideas that shape beliefs, behaviours and culture; it’s the same as it’s always been; it’s all about the work.

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. Like a ballerina pirouetting on stage, when we’re in a spin, we need a fixed point to steady us.

What can that fixed point be?

It can be the reassuring consistency of a leadership team. It can be a reminder of unchanging cultural truths. It can be the clear statement of Vision, Mission and Values. 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.

‘You know I saw the writing on the wall
When you came up to me.
Child, you were heading for a fall.
But if it gets to you,
And you feel like you just can't go on,
All you gotta do
Is ring a bell,
Step right up, and step right up,
And step right up.
Just like a ballerina,
Stepping lightly.’

Van Morrison/Ballerina

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No. 73