Living Life In The Center Stage- The Journey Of “My two Left Feet”

When I say work, what comes to mind?
Is it the endless deadlines, conference calls, boring meetings, tough bosses and the whole load of drudgery? Or is it nice friendships, long chat sessions, interests, cool stuff, challenges, accolades, skills,  interest, excitement and above all a great work-life balance?

As we embark on our work-life journey, most of us avoid the former and search for the latter. We shift across jobs, towns, levels, specializations as we search for that elusive goal. Organizations struggle to engage people and people struggle to be engaged.

I have been thinking about this for a while and I thought it is time for us at EmPower Research to try and break those molds. But how?

I struck upon this idea, stemming from my own inability to dance and a colleague offering to help me in that regard. The more I thought about the idea, the more I liked it. If we can learn something new, have fun at it and help break our constraints of self expression, then why not? So “My two Left feet”, a program of dance for the challenged, was born. This is for those that cannot dance, those who do not know how to, those who simply do not have the confidence or the time to do so.

As part of Life 360, we began the “in-house” dance lessons program. What a response! Some loved it, some hated it, some said ‘not for me’, some laughed while some just ran! Whatever it was, we started this program 3 months ago and our classes have been growing from strength to strength. We finished a bollywood dance and are onto the dance with the attitude- hip hop.

There was something more than learning a skill in these classes. Personally, it was a welcome break from the stress of long working hours along with the chance to interact with people across the organization. The faces that I see in cubicles became names and fellow participants for me. The silos we built as part of our life gradually disseminated. We developed a strange kind of kinship out of our common struggle to learn from a very competent teacher. It brought commitment to schedules beyond work- I have had people plan their work for the day in order to attend the sessions. It brought a sense of relief in our busy lives and above all loads of joy, health and vitality.

Organizational learning anyone?

We are now bonded as a dance group with aspirations to perform in public. I am sure this effort will become larger than all of us some day. Until then, we will keep dancing away those blues.

Thank you my dancing group and our teacher- Meghana…