How Tango Can Boost Business Productivity for IT Professionals

By Anita Flejter, Argentine tango expert and Co-Founder of Ultimate Tango.

With digital transformation ruling the world of business, IT professionals are under unprecedented pressure to be more productive, adopt better workflows, and develop new skills. While we often think that all this will happen by taking on another online course or experimenting with time management tools, there’s another alternative. Tango.

Believe it or not, Tango and software development have many similarities. Both have structure and follow patterns and rules, which physicists, software engineers, and scientists are often attracted to. But it’s not just about Tango’s mathematical structure.

It is impossible to predict what you need to learn but what doesn’t change is the need to communicate effectively. For example, programmers can be so focused on perfecting their code that they forget to empathize with the client’s needs or see the bigger picture. In the IT world, you can’t wait forever for the perfect solution; sometimes you need to act immediately, even overnight, to solve data breaches or debug an application. This is where Tango steps in to teach embracing change and adjusting on the spot.

Triggering a Sensitive Side 

There are many digital tools that are supposed to improve business workflows and achieve better productivity and focus. But we all need human contact at a certain level. Think about toddlers or babies who were not given enough attention; they can be cautious when it comes to human relationships. The same is true for IT professionals who may not have enough interactions in their professional career; they don’t have the space to develop communication skills to navigate today’s remote work.

Tango dancers, however, develop non-verbal communication skills and almost telepathic abilities, which could be meaningful to take straight into the workplace. For example, it could help to feel aware of other people’s needs, prompt discussions, preempt issues, or predict errors.

Tango allows you to experience physical touch and embrace somebody without obligation. You feel settled just feeling another’s heartbeat. The sensual human interaction gives rise to hidden feelings, and pretty much everyone feels an awakening – including IT professionals.

Accepting the Career Journey 

Tango itself is a challenging skill that takes time and patience to learn. It does not support one-way communication nor micromanagement, which is good for IT professionals who have to be willing to start at the bottom in entry-level positions.

Many people try Tango after engaging in Ballroom and Salsa lessons. With the confidence and body awareness they have learned previously, they expect to adapt to Tango quickly. They can begin in the more advanced classes but sometimes, for every step they take forward, it can mean two steps back. They often voluntarily choose to go back to fundamentals and make progress from the very beginning. You can’t just fake it until you make it – and all IT professionals have to deal with this reality at the beginning of their careers.

Effective Communication and Diversity

Imagine if IT professionals could survive difficult situations through honest communication. This would be vital in the workplace, especially as more and more companies are striving for diversity. Tango doesn’t bring everyone together, but it connects communities of people across geographies from specific professions and with a particular mental setup or psyche.

Tango is particularly prevalent across India, Turkey, and Poland, and when dancers from these countries meet, they will still build relationships through Tango without speaking the language. Today, as we work with different cultures and nationalities, Tango can help you learn how to respect the space of another and be open to working with other processes or systems.

Learning an All-encompassing Skill

IT is a dynamic industry, so employees in the sector are encouraged to learn more skills to establish IT expertise. But you don’t need to be the master of everything: The most important skill is the ability to understand another person. All tech industries are developing at an unbelievable pace, and there are expectations to understand every concept. Even if you are a good designer, writer, and marketer, you have to choose where your passion lies, as you can’t be a jack of all trades.

IT professionals can quickly become stuck in their logical thought patterns and habits due to monotonous, intense work schedules. And growth doesn’t always happen in environments like that. If they want to challenge themselves and get a fresh perspective, they should try something new. Today’s latest digital innovation issues are not only resolved with policies and technology but through good old human contact. So, let’s Tango.

About the Author

Anita Flejter is the CMO and Co-Founder of Ultimate Tango School of Dance, where Argentine Tango is taught not as a dance but as a philosophy of life. Ms. Flejter is an entrepreneurial-minded individual who is highly skilled in marketing, project management, graphic design, painting and other artistic endeavors.

The Ultimate Tango School of Dance offers Argentine tango classes, including Milonga & Vals, in Boston. It has courses for beginner, pre-intermediate, intermediate, pre-advanced, and advanced student levels. The school also offers specialty classes, workshops, and private lessons. At Ultimate Tango, instructors teach the students the tango alphabet and how to create words and sentences from it. Students will learn basic rules, steps, and combinations. They’ll also learn about music, connection, lead and follow, types of tangos, and more. From there, students can launch onto their journey to discover what tango means for them.