A Manager's Greatest Admission
Netflix sucked me down the rabbit hole of b-movies last week and I landed on one that surprisingly popped out a powerful virtual leadership lesson. It’s one you need to hear.
Watch video lesson or continue reading below…
The name of the movie escapes me though it had a textbook plot: Small town dancer heads to NYC to make it big on Broadway. Her dreams get crushed and she heads back home to sulk. Of course, her jilted high school boyfriend enters the picture and from there you pretty much know how the story ends.
The lesson, though, appears in this tiny scene where the town’s dance school owner is sitting cross-legged on the studio floor with three young girls, explaining the physics of a pirouette. The woman is holding a carrot and a banana.
She takes the banana and sets it upright on the floor, twirling it around and says, “The banana can’t spin properly because it’s curved, and the rotation throws it off balance.” She follows with, “The carrot, though, is tall and straight which helps it hold a center balance while it spins.”
It’s a cute analogy, but that’s not the lesson. The brilliance is in what the dance teacher says next. “Can I let you in on a little secret?” she asks. The little girls nod. “I used to be a banana.”
I used to be a banana! That declaration was utter management brilliance.
The entire scene can teach us so much, and yet this one admission is what I want you to remember. I don’t know about you, but I used to be a banana manager in so many ways. When this teacher admitted that to her students, I was like, “Oh hell, yea.” Bananas unite!
Can I break this leadership scene down? I want to make sure we extract every nugget from this exchange.
1. The “team” is clearly struggling with something that needed to be solved and the “manager” is taking a causal timeout to address it. That they are all sitting cross-legged on the studio floor is precious. The forum of the conversation sets the tone for their receptivity of her feedback.
She’s not yelling at them down the hall, she’s not being impatient or condescending mid-practice (in front of the rest of the class), she’s giving them feedback at a time and a place where their willingness to hear it is high.
2. Have you ever not understood something and the person explaining it to you just repeats what they already said only louder? There’s a key to unlocking understanding and it requires a different approach than what was initially used.
The teacher grabbed fruit to explain a complex physics lesson and was purposeful in using visual tools that they could understand. Her voice was gentle because she knew nobody learns HOW to do something by being scolded on how NOT to do something.
3. She stepped into their struggle. By declaring, “I used to be a banana,” she is telling them “I, too, used to be in your shoes. I feel what you are feeling because I used to have a hard time too.”
Managers, listen up. This dance instructor, in one silly sentence, humanized herself in way that cemented a connection with them.
She was intentional with that banana revelation. By being honest and vulnerable, she nailed the actual lesson she wanted them to learn – one that was less about dancing and more about trying your best.
Here’s what I’d love for you to think on: As a teacher of the dancers, AKA manager/parent/partner/friend, are you delivering feedback with purpose and intention as this woman did?
Remember, she took care with where she spoke to those girls, how she spoke to them, and what lesson she wanted them to learn coming out of the conversation. Her approach impacted their success (you can guess that they all perfectly executed pirouettes at the State Competition!).
Who needs to know you were once a banana?
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About The Author
For the past two decades, Cecilia Gorman has helped advertising agencies and other creatively-minded companies fix costly communication and productivity issues by teaching managers how to become better connectors, motivators, and leaders. Cecilia is the author of Always Believe In Better, creator of the digital learning course for managers—Manager Boot Camp, and co-founder of the global training and support community for working women—Empowership. For media inquiries or to learn more about hiring Cecilia to speak at your organization click below.