Incorporate

One of my favourite words is incorporate, literally: to move inside the body. I associate it with a work by my choreographer friend Efva Lilja: Movement as the Memory of the Body — as we age, which memories exist in our minds and which memories exist in the movements and senses of our body?

Time and time again, I come to the conclusion that the members of a project team are not truly on the same page until they have incorporated their insights, i.e. moved them inside their body.

Every person must know the team’s findings in their head to be able to move on, but they must know it in their body to be able to make the right micro-judgements along the way. Just like the dancing body instinctively makes micro-judgements on which muscles to use to stay balanced and move according to the choreography.

This article is part of a series of more or less unfinished thoughts on digital transformation and team management, a collection of insights from my fifteen years as a team leader at the digital agency SthlmConnection. Originally posted on Medium.