Social Recreational Dance "Industry"

Cooperation & competition

Competition is natural in business; it occurs automatically; it's unavoidable (more on the topic of competition is in preparation).

Cooperation however is optionally chosen.  We as an industry can choose it.

I would argue that, while successful businesses are very competitive, they are at the same time more cooperative with their competitors than their less successful brethren are.  What would be your take on that?

Thus the simple act of being cooperatively involved in beginning and sustaining an industry association has two domains of benefit:  the rising tide benefit which lifts all boats; and the probability that smartly-cooperative competitors are likely to be more successful than their less cooperative industry mates.

Brilliance is neither necessary nor sufficient

"When a collection of brilliant minds, hearts, and talents come together ... expect a masterpiece."  - anon

While I do like that observation, I disagree with the hyperbole of it: brilliance is not necessary; and it is not sufficient.

What is necessary and sufficient is the existence of a collection of minds, hearts, and talents, brilliant or not, who come together commitedly to seed, nurture and grow a vibrant social-recreational dance industry association. To the great benefit of all.

Synergy

Synergy  The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

I'm of three minds about this term: 

On the one hand, it might be a tired, worn out, overused word that now provokes negativity and scorn.

On the other hand ("OTOH" in netspeak) the term can't really be left out of a conversation on teamwork and cooperation.  Leaving it out just increases the needed verbiage to explain the concepts involved; and many others will add the term anyway.

On the other-other hand (OTOOH; one of my favorite little expressions), regardless of how the term is heard, the concept is certainly valid, useful and powerful, and not tired or worn out.

Dilbert:  While negative "humor" is, to me, a negative and destructive element in society, it does show a face of the culture: thus one of the best barometers of cynicism and scorn in business is Dilbert.  So we find, in The Ministry of Truth Wiki that, "Cobuyitaphobia is a fear of synergy as described in the Dilbert TV Episode number 20 titled: The Merger. People afflicted with Cobuyitaphobia will usually leave the room screaming upon hearing the word synergy."

Well, I'm suggesting we get some intra-industry synergy going here.  Please don't leave the room screaming.  Yet.  ;-) 

Teams outperform individuals

The statement that "teams outperform individuals" is a nice thought, but is incomplete and misleading. It's an example of Checkers-thinking (one step ahead, no real thinking), vs Chess-thinking (thinking multiple steps ahead).

A problem with the simplistic, "teams outperform individuals", is that the mere existence of a team does not produce synergy.

In fact, in far more cases than anyone wants to admit, the result of "teamwork" is substantially less than the sum of the parts.  The tech term for this is dysergy.  For example, any team burdened with a Dilbert, a destructive cynic, would tend to produce dysergy rather than synergy.

Clearly teams can outperform individuals. But in many cases they don't.  This is what Dilbert knows; and why he is cynical.  Dilbert does see the dysergic face of "team"; especially those teams that are thrown together by management who expect them to work without doing any "work" to make them work.

We all have experience in which the sum of some of the individuals on the team could easily outperform the whole team.  In such cases it makes sense to seek to sideline the dysergic elements and proceed - with synergy.

In social-recreational dance industry-building let's go for the synergy.  We can make it work.

Teamwork fosters connection and belonging

Good teamwork also produces community and the valuable but intangible attributes of that; including connection, belonging, communication, higher levels of trust and well being.  And this spreads, subtly and imperceptibly, to the larger community of families and friends of the well functioning team.