Do Ducks Dance?

You've heard the saying, "Get your ducks in a row." From as early as I can remember it's been impressed upon me that creating order and structure and following it is a darned good idea. Doing so is supposed to save a great deal of heart ache and strife, keep things flowing in good form, and produce product after product that is efficient and effective. I'm a good duck-liner-upper. Consequently, I've spent much of my life in positions where I am depended on to have ducks like information, history, and skill at the ready so that we all can lean in and get the important work done. This is a good thing, and I am not complaining one lick about how wonderfully productive my life has been.

What I would bet, though, is that only those who really take time to know me and see beyond the product and my work ethic would know, is that I love to dance. Not only do I love to dance, but I love to get my ducks dancing! It's probably not blog-worthy to write about how I turn up the speakers throughout my home and ask Siri to play 60's, 70's, and 80's music and turn my housework into a dance-athon...(don't tell my family...it's private!). But it is blog-worthy to tell about how the ducks dance and what that does to my world.

Ducks dancing looks like wiggle room to find alternatives, like valuing different ways of approaching the same task and even orchestrating such differences so that individual strengths are brought to the forefront, like working diligently on a project but allowing breaks to do something completely different and even frivolous for a minute, like challenging my tried-and-true ways and opting for deviance even when I'm unsure that it would not take longer or be less effective to do so. Each of these is a little risky--what if I don't get the job done? what if it is of lesser quality? what if I look weird doing it? Risk is, well, risky! What I've found, though, is that everyone recovers when the dance doesn't produce. I can choose when to dance and when to stick to the line up and only move to dancing when it is not critical to stick to the line. Dancing finds room for others which almost always enhances the product. Innovation is common in my world because of dancing.

I spoke about this with my students a few years ago, and boy did they embrace it (see the photo above...they gifted me these ducks). Better than speaking, we lived the dance...and they are some of the best and clearly diverse counselors out there!

I double dog dare you to shake your booty! move your fee! feel new rhythms, and get out of line--where it is not critical that you hold the line--and let yourself dance. Quack!