Yesterday, I was at  a street fair celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake that hit San Francisco and the Bay Area.  Not too many people celebrate the anniversary of earthquakes, but in San Francisco, the devastating 1906 quake is celebrated every year at the same date and time of the quake. So this wasn’t an unusual celebration.

As part of yesterday’s celebration, there were fire trucks, a FEMA rescue dog, and entertainers including young singers and dancers entertaining on a stage covered by a canopy.  One of the dancers performed a traditional Chinese ribbon dance with colorful ribbons at least 20 feet long.  As she twirled, swirled and made the ribbons dance with the flick of her wrists and wave of her arms, one of the ribbons became caught in the metal center support of the canopy.  She tugged on it, but the ribbon had wrapped around the vertical post.  She tugged on it again and it got tighter.  There was a man at the front of the stage watching and getting ready to hop up and assist.  Meanwhile, the dancer gracefully moved to a different angle, pulled, moved again, pulled and voila – the ribbon fell loose.  As a professional, unperturbed, she danced her way out of the situation until the end.

The overall impression of the dance would have been radically changed if the stagehand had mounted the stage and tried to untangle the ribbon. The image of the graceful young dancer costumed in a river of flowing blue silk and her obedient ribbons would have been ruined by the man with big boots and jeans.

Unplanned incidents like this can happen often when you’re wielding 4 foot wide and 20 foot chiffon ribbons in anything less than a proper full theater stage.  This young dancer could expect ribbons to be tangled, but couldn’t prevent or prepare for it.

In business, how many of us are prepared for the unexpected and can gracefully get ourselves out of business knots?  All of us will do well to be prepared to take a different angle to loosen the knots. Doing it gracefully is a bonus.