Evaluating your Team from the Balcony

Evaluating when and how to change or alter key leadership roles within your team is a critical and complex decision for leaders.

Understanding how to weigh those choices, including when to trust your gut and when to wait, is important to ensure high-level performance and sustained growth. In order to evaluate, a leader must be willing to take the time and effort to “get on the balcony.”

“Getting on the Balcony”

“Getting on the balcony” refers to a metaphor that likens adaptive change to a large-scale waltz or other traditional dance.

When you are “on the dance floor” you are engaged in certain capabilities and perspectives that are essential for keeping pace with the music, however that vantage point will always limit your ability to see the dance as a system, or as a whole.

To gain perspective on how the individual parts are working together (or not), leaders must step away from “The dance floor” and “get on the balcony.” This allows a leader to look at dynamics of the whole and see things that are otherwise obscured by the dance itself.

Balcony time yields the greatest value when it is regularly practiced. We encourage leaders to start by carving out 30 minutes each week to step away from the crush of daily demands and look at the bigger picture and re-orient to purpose, impact, and care. If this can be done daily, even better.

Additionally, leaders are wise to adopt a quarterly, bi-annual, or annual habit of taking extended time on the balcony to audit their performance, define new puzzles, and reflect on the change dynamics that are most relevant for progress.

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