I started ballroom dancing because it was mandatory. Not at school, but by my parents.

They signed me up to be prepared for the big 50 year wedding anniversary party of my grandparents. Practical, well intended, and at the time, slightly annoying.

And then the twist: at the party, there was no dancing.

None. Zero. Not even an awkward slow dance after dessert.

But the ballroom stuck.

I kept going, got hooked, and I am still doing it today. Yes, the fancy shoes are mine. Not just for the dance floor either, they sometimes show up on the keynote stage too. Spoiler: it taught me more about collaboration than I expected.

In the years after that non dancing party, I explored different styles. Classic ballroom, then lambada, mambo, and eventually acrobatic rock and roll, which most people find very surprising when they first hear it.

I loved the combination of structure and free creativity. The steps give you a framework, the music invites you to play inside it. That mix is also what I love about innovation.

One small confession: these days in dancing it sometimes feels like I never take the lead. And that is exactly why I value the next lesson so much.

One of the biggest lessons dancing keeps teaching me is this: control is not fixed.

In a good dance, the lead can shift back and forth. Not because someone is losing control, but because the music changes, the rhythm asks for a different move, and one partner is simply better positioned to guide the next step.

That is exactly what strong win win partnerships do too.

“In strong partnerships, leadership follows the work, not the logo on the slide.”

The myth of the permanent lead

Many collaborations start with an unspoken assumption: one organisation will lead, the others will follow. It often feels efficient, especially when deadlines are tight or funding calls create pressure.

But in innovation projects, that setup becomes fragile fast.

And every now and then, you need to pause, listen, and notice what changed before you rush into the next step.

Because circumstances change constantly:

• technical uncertainty goes up and down
• stakeholder expectations shift
• the “real” problem becomes clearer mid project
• external constraints, like regulation or procurement, suddenly dominate the next step
• sometimes the world moves on and the original problem is no longer the problem

If the lead cannot move with those shifts, partners start feeling like contributors instead of co owners. Engagement drops, discussions become transactional, and the project becomes slower, not faster.

“If the world changes, the plan must change too. Otherwise you solve yesterday’s problem beautifully.”

Balanced control is not compromise, it is trust

In dance terms, balanced control means three things happen at once:

1) You trust the other person’s expertise enough to let them lead when it matters.
2) You know the steps well enough to lead too, and you recognise the moments when you should step in.
3) You have enough clarity about the shared goal to follow without losing your own purpose.

That is what a balanced control dynamic looks like in a partnership too. The rule is simple: leadership is earned by contribution, and shared by fairness.

It is not about being nice or endlessly negotiating. It is about building an adaptive collaboration where the steering role moves to the partner who is best placed to create momentum in that phase, so people feel safe enough to experiment together. If you want more structure for that, you can also explore the alignment by design section in my "Collaboration in Innovation Foundation".

“Balanced control is not compromise. It is trust, clarity, and knowing when to step in.”

And sometimes, it is not even a handover moment. You can also choose to work with multiple leaders in parallel: one lead for the technical challenge, another for validation, another for regulatory or stakeholder alignment.

Instead of fighting over one steering wheel, you match leadership to the specialities and challenges, so the consortium makes the best possible use of the skillsets present.

“Do not fight over one steering wheel. Match leadership to the speciality.”

The magic is in the middle

On a dancefloor, the sides are great for talking. You catch up, you laugh, you negotiate the next song, you decide who dances with whom.

The sides feel safe and familiar, you can breathe, connect, and reset before stepping back in.

But the real magic happens when two people meet in the middle and actually find the rhythm together.

“The sides of the dancefloor are great for talking. The magic happens when you step into the middle and find the rhythm together.”

Innovation works the same way. Alignment meetings, contracts, and stakeholder updates matter, they are the side of the floor conversations that make collaboration possible. But the real value shows up when partners step into the shared space and start co creating across organisational boundaries.

AI is a perfect example. Technical experts can build powerful approaches, but without domain experts to frame the right problem, define what useful means, and test against real workflows, you can end up with a smart solution that never gets adopted. Domain experts, on the other hand, see where value could live, but they need technical partners to explore what is feasible and how to make it work in practice.

“Co creation is where prototypes turn into adoption, and adoption turns into value.”

Complementary interests beat competing interests

On the dance floor, partners do not win by fighting for the lead. They win by creating flow together.

The same applies to innovation partnerships: complementary interests create energy, competing interests create friction.

This is especially relevant for three typical profiles:

Post doc researchers
You might lead when scientific rigor, validation design, or credibility with evaluators is critical. Industry can lead when market timing, adoption constraints, or implementation paths become the bottleneck. And there is another hidden advantage: industry constraints often reveal the most interesting research questions. Real world limitations, messy data, edge cases, integration issues, safety requirements, they can sharpen your research focus faster than any purely academic brainstorm.

SME innovation managers
You often need speed and proof fast. You lead when deciding what to test first and how to keep risk low. A research partner may lead when translating early signals into robust evidence that boosts funding success rates.

Corporate innovation managers
You might lead when internal alignment, governance, and scaling decisions dominate. Startups or institutes can lead when rapid experimentation and technical exploration are needed before the corporation commits.

Different phases, different leads, same shared outcome.

Three practical ways to dance your collaboration

Agree that leadership can move, or be shared
Say it out loud early. Not in a political way, but as a working principle: leadership follows the work, not the logo on the slide. Try it in your next meeting: ask “who leads this part of the song?”

Define what triggers a lead shift, or a lead split
Examples: when it becomes a user adoption question, the partner closest to users leads. When it becomes a validation question, the partner strongest in evidence leads. When it becomes an internal approval question, the partner with mandate leads. When multiple challenges hit at once, assign clear leads per speciality, for example technical integration, validation, user adoption.

Make leadership explicit and visible
In dance, the coordination is felt instantly. In projects, it often stays implicit. Keep it simple: one shared goal, clear roles, short feedback loops. A check in at milestones helps: who leads what next, who supports, and what good looks like for the next phase. And check it: did we actually act according to that agreement?

Flow maximises your chances of achieving strong results

Flow does not guarantee results, but it maximises your chances of achieving strong results because it keeps learning, decisions, and ownership moving.

When partners can switch between leading and supporting without ego, or divide leadership smartly across specialties, the partnership becomes flexible. It pivots faster, it recovers quicker from surprises, and it stays engaging for everyone involved.

The teams that dare to step into the middle outperform the ones that stay politely on the edges.

That is when you get the real win win effect: outcomes that are stronger than what each partner could have achieved alone, and results that actually land in the real world.

So, let’s dance.

If you want to explore how these ideas could work in your organisation, feel free to reach out via the contact page. I am happy to think along with you.