Ballrooms And Boardrooms

Whenever I am free, I like to view websites that are related to dance. There are quite a few of such good websites out there in the internet. One of my favourites is nytimes.com where you can find news and reviews on dance happenings in the USA and all over the world. One article which I found very interesting and which was published on 6 August 2011 is titled "Ballrooms and Boardrooms" by Catherine Burzik, chief executive of Kinetic Concepts Inc, a wound care company in San Antonio. Catherine and her husband Frank, are both into competitive ballroom dancing. Below is an excerpt of the article.

"I've been married to Frank Burzik, my high school sweetheart, for 40 years. We met while roller-skating when I was about 13. We have always liked to dance socially; we used to go to the Rainbow Room in Manhattan. We now go ballroom dancing together. In fact, we just built a house with a ballroom in it. Ballroom dancing can teach you a lot about life and business. You can dance well only if you are connected, myself as the follower and my partner as leader. I have to intuit in fractions of seconds how to respond to a lead. So you learn to read a person's mind.

I talk to my people at work about ballroom dance, about how to be connected, and to be aware of musicality. In a business sense, this means learning a three-dimensional presentation of yourself that allows you to understand how to harmonize with others in the organization, as well as with customers and patients. It gives you the insight and intuition to anticipate and take initiative quickly, and then to follow through in an informed way. Once or twice a year, I invite my leadership committee members and their spouses over to my house and we dance. And they've turned out to like it. A few are even taking ballroom dance lessons now. I like to think it's my influence."