Thread: Traits of Professionalism

Working on some CE's for my day job and the current module is no ethics. I think a lot of what they said applies to belly dancing! It goes way beyond being paid to peform.

What do you think?

Traits:

Commitment to high ethical standards
Professional competence
Sense of altruism (verses selfishness)
Commitment to Continuing education
Participation in association or society
Ability to think and act independently
Public recognition as a professional

Also:
Aspiring to be a professional requires personal sacrifice. The long hours spent in training and education require time away from family or recreational pursuits.

Originally Posted by norma

Participation in association or society

I'm not sure how useful this is. Nobody wants a doctor who isn't licensed through a medical board or a lawyer who isn't a member of the bar, but what association or society do we have that everyone agrees would make one worthy of respect? You can be a member of some of our organizations simply by forking over money, with no requirements of participation beyond that. Not that it isn't valuable that you're willing to invest in the community, but it doesn't prove anything about your level of professionalism or skill, only that you have some amount of interest and cash to spend. I think every dancer who wants to consider herself a professional should have a passing familiarity with Eddie Kochak, but I wouldn't say owning at least two "Strictly Belly Dancing" records should be a requirement. Until we have a organization where a majority says, "Yes, this indicates you must be quality because you're in it," I'd consider this one optional.

On the other hand, I would add "Understanding of mainstream business practices" to your list. If you run your business on whims, bizarre policies, and what you think you can get away with, that's not professional, no matter how good a dancer you are. Professionals obey the laws, use sensible business strategies, and respect their customers by following through on their commitments in a timely manner. Professionals don't inflict a scatterbrained, diva attitude on the people they work with.

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

I'm not sure how useful this is. Nobody wants a doctor who isn't licensed through a medical board or a lawyer who isn't a member of the bar, but what association or society do we have that everyone agrees would make one worthy of respect?

I didn't interpret it quite the way you did but more like "participation in and contribution to the (professional) community." For example, participation on Bhuz (or a similar network). Or just reaching out and supporting other dancers in your area, for the promotion and elevation of the art and business.

Originally Posted by SomaBellydance

I didn't interpret it quite the way you did but more like "participation in and contribution to the (professional) community." For example, participation on Bhuz (or a similar network).

I assumed she was talking about IAMED, SAMEDA, ISAMETD, and those sorts of organizations. Bhuz is as much a student community as a professional one. IIRC, someone estimated last year that about half of the membership on Bhuz doesn't use any of the features but the swap meet, and I wouldn't consider reselling costumes a hallmark of professionalism. It just means you have costumes you want to sell. All one can determine from participation in the swap meet is whether you're an ethical reseller.

Back when the MEDlist was running, there were a lot of big names participating in the conversations. There are few dancers of that caliber on Bhuz now, and most of them aren't very active in the discussions. I think there is often concern that it might damage their reputation to be too visible. For one, it is embarrassing to be caught making mistakes. Nobody knows everything, and if you post enough, eventually you'll expose you're not omniscient. Perhaps higher profile dancers prefer to cultivate mystique rather than revealing their personalities too much. There's also an aspect that bigger names don't want to undercut their real-world business. It's one thing to share your expertise for compensation. It's another to give your knowledge away for free online. And besides, this is the Internet, and it's easy for conversations to turn sour quickly and tempers to flare. If you're an internationally famous dancer, maybe you simply don't want the aggravation of getting tangled up with the inevitable people you'll clash with online.

Or just reaching out and supporting other dancers in your area, for the promotion and elevation of the art and business.

You wouldn't need to affiliate yourself with any sort of formal structure to do this. You don't even need to be a dancer. Every community has a few people (retired teachers, friends or family, and other "patrons of the dance") whose contributions are essential to success, but they don't dance themselves.

I'll add not being snarky about other dancers

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

1) I assumed she was talking about IAMED, SAMEDA, ISAMETD, and those sorts of organizations. 2) Bhuz is as much a student community as a professional one. IIRC, someone estimated last year that about half of the membership on Bhuz doesn't use any of the features but the swap meet, and I wouldn't consider reselling costumes a hallmark of professionalism. It just means you have costumes you want to sell. All one can determine from participation in the swap meet is whether you're an ethical reseller.

1) Again, not an assumption I was making.
2) It's not bidirectional. Not everyone who participates in a community need be a "professional." But I think a professional should participate in/contribute to the greater community. Obviously the swap meet doesn't count, and Bhuz was just an example. There are other ways to participate in the community.

Back when the MEDlist was running, there were a lot of big names participating in the conversations. There are few dancers of that caliber on Bhuz now, and most of them aren't very active in the discussions. I think there is often concern that it might damage their reputation to be too visible. For one, it is embarrassing to be caught making mistakes. Nobody knows everything, and if you post enough, eventually you'll expose you're not omniscient. Perhaps higher profile dancers prefer to cultivate mystique rather than revealing their personalities too much. There's also an aspect that bigger names don't want to undercut their real-world business. It's one thing to share your expertise for compensation. It's another to give your knowledge away for free online. And besides, this is the Internet, and it's easy for conversations to turn sour quickly and tempers to flare. If you're an internationally famous dancer, maybe you simply don't want the aggravation of getting tangled up with the inevitable people you'll clash with online.

Not all professionals are internationally famous.
Internationally famous dancers participate in the greater dance community in their way. Local professionals participate in other ways, but they are still professionals.
I'm talking analogous, not identical.

Norma, would you mind if I shared this list on the Biz group on Facebook? (giving you credit of course) . :)

Originally Posted by SomaBellydance

2) It's not bidirectional. Not everyone who participates in a community need be a "professional."

Norma's original list has the item "Public recognition as a professional," not "Public recognition of one's professionalism." To me, that implies she is directing the list to dancers who perform and/or teach for money, not students or hobbyists. The two ideas can be somewhat decoupled. Anybody can (and should) act with professionalism, even if they're an amateur, and a bad dancer can trick the GP into paying her to perform at least a few times even if she's an unethical clod, but I think it reads like this is about dancers who do paid public work, not conscientious, committed students who don't perform outside the hafla/workshop circuit.

Originally Posted by SamiraShuruk

Norma, would you mind if I shared this list on the Biz group on Facebook? (giving you credit of course) . :)

I'm fine with it although I really can't take the credit. The above traits were word for word from my ethics module "Ethical Guidelines for Insurance Professionals" put out by The Institutes.

Just to clarify on the professional association or society. The module goes on to say that this allows professionals to establish standards for ethical behavior behavior specific to their speciality.

It kind of goes hand in hand with altruism which is to establish ethical standards for the better good of the whole community vs just being selfish and thinking of one's self.

So I think if you apply it liberally to a dance context, I think it means that professional dancers have an ethical duty to establish acceptable standards of behavior and I think that can be done in how we conduct ourselves in public and on discussion forums and try to educate those who are new to the business. I think the establishment of standards for the "better good of the community" is what is key here vs. just paying dues to belong to an association. And I think that can be done on bhuz. The many threads on Undercutting for example.

Also, while it is true that sometimes threads get out of control, among the majority of bhuzzers who are active participants in the forum discussions, rude obnoxious behaviour is not tolerated and we do encourage an atmosphere of respect towards each other and what we all do even if we don't agree on all aspects of dance. So even while we may not have formal written rules of what is acceptable and what is not, we do have many unwritten rules that are based on moral and ethical behavior.

What about some of the other traits? Any comments?

The module goes on to say that ethics is not about right vs wrong but right vs. right.

It gives an example of a single mother who is proud that her son is on the football team at school. She volunteers at game time. This particular Friday, she had promised to help out pre-game and her son was playing and looking forward to her coming and watching him.

Just before the office closed, they get a frantic call from a key client whose business has just burned down. She soon realizes that in order to help the client she will be late for the game. But if she doesn't help the client they could lose a key account and people could get laid off including herself.

The dilemma-Balance the interest of the client and the employer/employees/job over family.

Note: There was no answer to this dilemma.

Compare that with this belly dance example:

A single mother of 3 has been laid off from her job and it's been a year and she can't get work and unemployment is running out. She has been dancing as a hobby. A new hookah bar in town is hiring dancers. They tell her they can't pay much to start because they are trying to draw business. But they can offer her steady work. She really needs the job and the money she would make would help pay the rent and buy food for the kids. On the other hand, she knows that the hookah bar is paying much lower than the acceptable rate in the local dance community and the local dance community has already warned other dancers not to go work there because they won't pay the going rate.

Dilemma: Take the job to provide for her family, or turn it down to support the local dance community so that all can earn a higher wage.

But isn't part of "establishing standards" equivalent to saying you want to establish accepted ways of doing things, with consequences when you deviate from them (even if those consequences are as minor as losing your good standing in the organization)? That's not really the same as hoeing your own neat, little, righteous row. We have lots of good examples floating around, but no system for any sort of enforcement of educational or punitive corrections of the bad examples. Gig undercutters, teachers who preach unsafe or incorrect information, student troupes doing high-profile, paid gigs when they're not nearly competent enough, disorganized, self-entitled flakes who show up late and unprepared at the inconvenience of their customers/students--many of them just keep doing what they're doing, no matter how many other conscientious dancers are out there trying to model appropriate behavior in front of them. Not enough dancers have that moment of thinking, "I wasn't aware it was a problem for me to _______. I'll correct myself," and when they don't self-correct, it encourages others to think bad behavior and incompetence are somehow tolerable.

Originally Posted by jesennia

I'll add not being snarky about other dancers

And not only this, but also when newer dancers or dancers new the community are trying to become a part of the community as a whole, but then they attend events to show their support only to be up against the Old Guard who continues to react only with their clique, making newer dancers always feel on the outside because they didn't originally know these older dancers. Too many times I have heard of this where dancers with the best intentions continue to be rebuffed because of 1st grade "group" behavior and then no longer support the community but go off to form their own group or not care about a supposed sisterhood when it's not reciprocal.

Ah, but this is not about all the other dancers or a "sisterhood". In any other profession, like medicine or law, you have to pay your dues. You work your way from the bottom up until you earn your way. And it takes years to accomplish this. Why should belly dancing be any different? It is a high standard. There are many dancers out there that I consider to be true professionals, but that doesn't include every dancer out there dancing for a living.