Pursuing Excellence in Leadership through Ballet
July 12, 2024
In this episode of The Executive Hustle Podcast, Nick Ade and Kirsten discuss the how the values of curiosity and ownership drove Nick deep into the world of ballet, past ‘just’ the dancing and into establishing a world-famous dance studio. We explore how teaching (or coaching) others offers a path to improved self-awareness and discover secret to engaging your employees through a powerful purpose.
NICHOLAS ADE’S BIO: Nicholas is the CEO of the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet (CPYB), founded in 1955 by Marcia Dale Weary, and enjoys a world-renowned reputation for excellence. Nicholas initially joined CPYB as a guest teacher, joined the company permanently as the first school principal and finally became the CEO accepting the life-long legacy of its late founder, Marcia. Under his leadership, CPYB changes lives through dance year-round with its children’s, primary, and pre-professional programs.
For more info on Nick:
KIRSTEN YURICH BIO:
Kirsten is a licensed behavior analyst, speaker, author, and retired CEO who partners with business leaders to help them achieve more of what matters most to them. Kirsten’s clients are high performing CEOs, founders, and executives looking to “level up” in life and business.
Kirsten share’s her expertise in leadership, performance management, and learning with executives through coaching or consulting, peer groups, and speaking.
For more info, check out Kirsten Yurich HERE.
The following is an AI generated transcript of the podcast (may contain errors).
@4:44 - Kirsten Yurich .
Well, welcome Nick, CEO of the Central Penn Youth Ballet. I am so happy to have you today on the podcast.
@4:50 - Nicholas Ade
I have been looking forward to it.
@4:53 - Kirsten Yurich .
Certainly. Certainly. Certainly. We know each other little bit. You know that as a clinician by training and a practicing executive coach, I'm often in the position of helping leaders become more aware.
And as you've experienced, becoming more aware gives us choices and with those choices comes confidence. I've also shared with you as we started here today that I have three values that influence this podcast and what I believe leaders are not successful without and those are curiosity, vulnerability and ownership.
And for those reasons, those values, I'm so excited to have you here today because I think your story, well, know your story links to at least one, if not all three of those values.
@5:38 - Nicholas Ade
So yeah, welcome Nick. I'm so glad to have you. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored and glad to have a conversation.
@5:48 - Kirsten Yurich .
Yeah, awesome. Well, tell me a little bit about the seven year old Nick.
@5:53 - Nicholas Ade
And did he always want to dance? Oh, wow. Seven years old. So I got into dance through my sister and I had baseball practice you know and I would have to sit and wait for her to be done with her dance class until one day where I kind of walked into the middle of the studio and just said like we need to go like just do it like this the teacher keeps on telling you what to do and you're not fixing it just do it like this and like let's go and so the teacher while my mom was upset with me the teacher Helen Clark said no that's okay you know you just if you're gonna you tell her what to do after class but why don't you come and take a full class and so in my kind of honorary way I was like fine I can do that you know how hard it can to be and it was turned out to be one of those things that it was more challenging to me than any sport I had ever played being a kid growing up in California in Southern California you play baseball all year you play football you play basketball and and ballet was the challenge it didn't come easy to me I didn't have a natural body for for ballet and so I
I had to work really, really hard at it. And so I became fascinated not only with ballet, but just also you have to make it look easy.
You have to tell a story. And so the storytelling really is something that I really gravitated to and just learning and figuring out how to make my body do certain things.
And yeah, it just became the thing that I needed to do, not just a hobby, it became the thing I needed to pursue.
@7:29 - Kirsten Yurich .
Wow. That is so fascinating. So they just laid down the gauntlet and you picked it up.
@7:35 - Nicholas Ade
Yeah, don't know, but I think it was more of a challenge because you know, boys aren't always that popular in ballet.
It's like, just boy, you know, once it wants to give it a shot. And so it created a lot of opportunities for me.
A lot of opportunities to be exposed to an art form that I didn't really know anything about. So the more that I learned about it, the more I became fascinated.
It's needed with with it.
@8:02 - Kirsten Yurich .
That's amazing. One thing you said that I gravitate to is I have to make it look easy. How does that show up today?
@8:11 - Nicholas Ade
Um, that's a good question. Um, how it shows up today is, um, you know, I force myself to, um, say I'm tired.
People ask me how I am, never say I'm tired, even if I feel a little tired, don't say it.
If I feel, you know, like, oh, you know, I'm on my 12th hour today. Don't don't worry about that.
Um, you know, you're here to work. You're doing something that, um, that you love to do. So don't announce it.
Don't, you know, you don't have to announce how busy you are. You don't have to announce, you know, uh, you know, if how long your day's been, um, you know, do have to do things as, as well as you can and do it with as much grace as you possibly can because you never know what someone else is going through.
else always has it harder. you know, just do your work, own it, and, you know, keep progressing, because, you know, my own father works, he was a vice president at Trans-American Corporation in Los Angeles, and he was vice president of underwriting and could not stand his job.
And so, when you have that influence in your life, and he was a very good influence on me, but when you have that in your household, and you know that they're going to work early, coming home late, and they don't like it, and it affects their person, that's why I continue to gravitate towards ballet and try to find a life continuously in ballet, because I love it.
And so, I get to do something that fills my bucket and allows me to have a full heart, and you know, I share that with my family, you know, they see that I love what I do.
And so, if you find what you love to do, pursue it. And, you know, some people are out there making money, but miserable.
And I'd rather, you know, continue to take charge of this legacy that has been given to all of us at CPYB and do with pride.
@10:18 - Kirsten Yurich .
Yeah, and you say, you know, stick with it, do something in ballet, you didn't stay as a dancer your whole career, right?
You had to make a shift to stay in ballet, is that right?
@10:28 - Nicholas Ade
yes. when I was 20 years old, I had finished up my first season as professional dancer with Pacific Northwest Ballet.
And what ended up happening was I got a call to be able to be a guest teacher at a place called Mid-Columbia Ballet.
was the company Tri-Cities Academy of Ballets in school, and it was owned by Joel and Debra Rogo. And Debra gave me my first shot teaching, and I really enjoyed it.
And so I kept on going, but she gave me more and more opportunities to teach this, or teach lower levels, and to explain.
Lord, the world of teaching. by the time I would say, I would say like 24 25, I knew that my dance career was only kind of, it was a springboard to something I loved even deeper.
And I was teaching, because the more I taught kids, I made myself aware of, oh, I do that same thing.
I have the same problem as a dancer, or I would say, turn and look at turn and look at this way in the mirror so that can see yourself.
I say, oh, I need to stay, I need to start standing like that in class as well. So I became a better dancer, the more I studied teaching.
And that just blew my mind and made me really fall in love with art form that much more. And so once I knew, you know, teaching was going to be my path, I also quickly realized that if I wanted to be of a greater influence on, you know, kids success and kids pathways in ballet, I needed to be even more than just a teacher.
@11:57 - Kirsten Yurich .
And I don't mean just a teacher, I mean solely a teacher.
@12:00 - Nicholas Ade
Right. And so I thought, well, how can I help with scholarships? How can I help with, you know, how an organization is formed?
How an organization functions? Because that's gonna have an influence inside the studio and outside the studio. So I really started to explore that possibility, that opportunity.
@12:19 - Kirsten Yurich .
So you were curious about all the other aspects of the business. Yes. you could find your niche so that you could stay in ballet.
Exactly, exactly. And so while I did that, I actually was at Pacific Northwest Ballet.
@12:32 - Nicholas Ade
was at Dancer, but I went up to one of our artistic directors at the time who was starting a choreographic initiative.
And I knew I was never going to be a choreographer.
@12:41 - Kirsten Yurich .
That's just not in my life.
@12:43 - Nicholas Ade
I ever say I'm going to have a choreograph a ballet run because it's not my thing. So I went to the artistic director and I said, his name was Kent Stoll.
And I went up to and I said, know, I want to figure out how all of this comes together.
I want to figure out, you know, how do you market? performance. How do you bring a performance together? What happens with the crew?
How much do things cost? How do you get, how does ticketing work? How does, you know, the rental of the theater?
How do you fill the theater programs? Programming, all of those things. And so he gave me an opportunity to really just kind of be on the administrative end of that choreographic workshop.
And knowing that, you know, that he was giving me an opportunity in how valuable it was. I threw everything into it, you know, all my days, all my nights to be able to make sure that I didn't let anybody down.
But I figured out a lot, and I learned a lot. And so I continued doing that for many years to be able to make sure that I always understood how this all kind of comes together so that I could take it and learn from it.
@13:49 - Kirsten Yurich .
Yeah. So you turned that curiosity into really ownership over the entire soup to nuts of a ballet. Fast forward to today, you have been handed a legacy.
@14:00 - Nicholas Ade
Yes, yes.
@14:02 - Kirsten Yurich .
Tell us about that.
@14:04 - Nicholas Ade
Well, I met. I first met the founder, Marcy. We were in 2004. I was a random, you know, guest teacher for the summer.
I had met Alan Heinlein and Darla Hoover through other other teaching opportunities and they invited me. And so I with that another opportunity.
Just just squander it, you know, really come in and know your stuff, teach well, teach your absolute best, teach at a high level and make it look easy.
Yeah, look easy. And I met Marcy and Marcy asked me after one of my classes, why do you do it like that?
And she was talking about a certain jump and I obviously felt like, oh, I've done something wrong. No, I like it.
like the way that you made them get into into the position even faster in the air.
@14:56 - Kirsten Yurich .
so I was like, okay, well, first few like I'm not.
@15:00 - Nicholas Ade
Yeah, I'm not a random hack who just came in and, know, is messing up her summer program. And so from there, they continued to invite me each summer and it also happened in the fall and during the year.
And I quickly got to know Marcia very well, but also fell in love with the philosophy. Marcia was never a professional dancer.
She actually didn't receive the best training, so that prohibited her from having a career. she started Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet with the idea of no student of mine will ever not know what true training is.
@15:39 - Kirsten Yurich .
That just was like, wow, that's so powerful.
@15:42 - Nicholas Ade
I was that kid who, know, my, didn't have a lot of turnout. I didn't have, you know, the best feet.
had a very tight back. I had like hamstrings like guitar strings. It just was, you know, it's just, but I had to work at it.
had to figure it out. I had to understand it. I had to study it. I had to do all of those things.
things that she did to to start a school. I just had the opportunity to also figure out all of the other facets of of a ballet school and you know that just became the place where I was like I need to I need to be a part of this organization and when she called me in 2012 she called and offered me the position of being the school principal and and and at first Alan Heinlein who at the time was the CEO called me and we had a conversation also with Marcia and I was just like I have to do this I this is like all of those other opportunities are leading me to this this is why I was put on this birth it's like the missing piece you've you spent so much time on the process and the business and now here's the passionate purpose yeah yeah my wife and my daughter who you know obviously I'd love eternally but
They had faith in me and moved to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, side unseen. had never been all the times in years I've been teaching and guest teaching.
They didn't have the opportunity to come with me. So they moved side unseen because they knew that this is something that I not only, it's not like a job where you, OK, got that promotion or a job where I got this nice raise.
This is something that is meaningful and goes beyond just a cool job and a good setting with a decent.
@17:38 - Kirsten Yurich .
right. It was a gift. Yeah. Wow. Where are you taking that gift now? What's next?
@17:46 - Nicholas Ade
What's next is really taking the school and continuing to look deeper and deeper at where we came from and how we got here.
OK. we do that, the more that we stay true to this legacy that Marcia gave us, but also the people around it can believe in what they're doing.
that really is at the center of, you know, how to keep this going beyond Marcia, who unfortunately passed in 2019, but it goes beyond any one person.
And when you talk about planning for succession, and you talk about, you know, how to keep a legacy, how to keep the culture, you know, how to keep the marrow of what what makes you exist as an organization.
That's it. So you have to always constantly look and look at the philosophy of how you got here. You don't have to always do what you've always done before.
I'm not saying that, you know, but carefully make sure that everything changes and the purpose and the reason is rooted in what got you here.
And so what got us here was a beautiful syllabus in ballet. like that, Marcia took, you know, decades to be able to harness and to create dancers, but also within that syllabus, it lives in the teachers.
It lives in us who teach, because the syllabus teaches you there are no shortcuts, just like in life. If you try and find shortcuts, that's time wasted.
You know, you have to just do the work. If you don't like the level that you're placed in, you just do the work to be able to get out of that level.
You can get out of the level. You just got to work your way through it without shortcuts and just keep your head down and keep, you know, keep at it.
And so that's what's kept us going, you know, through many hardships. It's kept us going through, you know, even as, as generations of kids go through the school, you know, you keep finding the ability to create wonderful dancers, but also great humans.
Humans who are willing to work, humans are willing to have an ownership. of their work and their progress and and their place here in life.
@20:04 - Kirsten Yurich .
Yeah. Well you mentioned no shortcuts do the work. I've often heard you say that we're not just teaching ballet.
@20:12 - Nicholas Ade
Yes.
@20:13 - Kirsten Yurich .
What else? So besides no shortcuts and do the work what else do you proclaim that you're teaching these young children?
@20:22 - Nicholas Ade
We're teaching them how to succeed in whatever they choose to pursue. had his academics. That is whether you want a college education, whether you want to you know run your own ballet school someday, whether you want to be a a dietist or veterinarian or or anything.
If you want to be a truck driver you're gonna be the best truck driver. You know what I mean?
It's it's it's about pursuing excellence and when you do that you you you find what you love and you do it and you pursue excellence.
And so that will make you fulfilled in life. you have to, you have to find that and through, it's always word through ballot.
find those directions in life and those opportunities in life to be able to to find your own personal success.
@21:19 - Kirsten Yurich .
What would you say is an undervalued leadership skill that that you have focused on or that other leaders maybe listening could or should focus on?
@21:32 - Nicholas Ade
Undervalued is a good question. I've only, I think recently learned this and that is the ability to, I've always listened, but I've always started to help guide people by either being the first to talk and have them understand what, what, what, whether the priority or anything is, it's stop.
opting for a second and listening and letting other people speak first so that you can then speak to understand rather than speak too direct.
Yeah. And that is something that I'm working hard at on a daily basis because as a teacher, you're just supposed to, you know, you're saying what the corrections are, you're saying you're the one guiding all the time.
So outside of the studio, I have to practice just as hard as I did with my technique because I have to practice that a lot because that will give people the freedom to, for them to be vulnerable.
And for them to be able to not be afraid to express an opinion. Right? or indifferent? It just allows them to grow as well, rather than it just being an org chart and everybody's just looking up going, hey, you know, what do you want?
Say what you want and I'll do it. That's not going to continue the the ability for CPYB. as an organization to, not necessarily to grow, but also to be better, to be more efficient, to be more productive, to pursue excellence, just like we're asking kids to pursue excellence.
@23:13 - Kirsten Yurich .
Right, right, that excellence. Well, it's interesting to hear you say, know, take off the teacher hat when I'm trying to be in that leader position.
So there's a real distinction between, in your mind, between those two things.
@23:28 - Nicholas Ade
Yes, absolutely, absolutely. Because, you know, as a teacher, I think of it as a filter. We're always looking for what can be better and what can be improved upon.
But it's up to you, it's you and your eyes and your ideas of how am I going to take them in 90 minutes?
How can I take a student from here to here? And from point A to point B, and it is up to you to guide that entire process, class by class, student by student.
And as a leader, you need everyone. to come along with you, but they need some some ownership and vulnerability in the game too, because if it's only you, then you're you're going to get people who are going to get left behind, and that's not right.
@24:13 - Kirsten Yurich .
Right. What would you say has been your greatest mistake as a leader?
@24:19 - Nicholas Ade
My greatest mistake as a leader, I think, especially at the beginning, was as was starting this role as a CEO, was assuming that everybody's looking to you for the answer, the right answer.
know, in ballet, you're trying to make something perfect. knowing that perfection is not attainable. So you're pursuing something that is unreachable.
And when you have that mentality, you step into a CEO role, and if you keep that mentality, it's like you're going to make a mistake.
So that's not the end of the world. And so you have to learn that, you know, pursue the right answer, but not everybody's looking to you for that perfect answer every single time.
The right answer in progress lies with with many people and listening to many people. And when I do that now, I find a greater rate of success.
@25:42 - Kirsten Yurich .
So if I'm hearing you right, when you were first in the role, you felt the answers had to come from you and they had to be correct.
And now you see, you know, the answers are probably somewhere in this room, and they're probably not with me.
But I have to evoke them, I have to pull them out, I have create this space here in this room for everyone to feel comfortable to share so that we can get to the right answer.
@26:06 - Nicholas Ade
Yes, yep. And that takes time. That takes time to form a leadership group and it takes time for people to feel comfortable.
It takes time for even different personalities to hear things the same way and everything like that. So it's a constant work in progress, but that's why I love ballet because it is your pursuing perfection knowing that it's unreachable.
And every day, just like you put your hand on the bar as a dancer, you're trying to improve in small increments.
@26:36 - Kirsten Yurich .
What keeps you coming back? Because that sounds, as you say, I'm pursuing excellence, I'm pursuing excellence, I'm trying to get to perfection and it's not attainable.
That sounds exhausting. So what keeps you coming back? What brings these teachers back and these students back every day to keep doing something that's impossible.
Because it's beautiful.
@26:58 - Nicholas Ade
It's just it's simply beautiful, When I see kids, and I see kids who generally, they didn't have the best body or they didn't have the best opportunities or anything like that, and you can make them dancers to be able to see how that changes someone's life, to see them come from someone who wanted to work hard but didn't really, really know what hard work was, to then have a career in ballet and then pursue other things and be successful in their life, and they say, know, and you hear these kids say, I didn't know that I was going to have a life like this.
@27:41 - Kirsten Yurich .
That keeps you going.
@27:43 - Nicholas Ade
That is worth doing. know, it's in our vision, changing lives through dance, and yes, your organization needs to have a vision, but when you actually carry it out over a year span, you realize it's worth it.
And the kids realize it's worth it. the organization then knows it's worth it. And yes, you have to be stubborn.
And I talk about that in class, you know, yes, you have to be very stubborn. Now you have to use your stubbornness for your, you know, or for good, you can't use it just to be stubborn.
You have to use your stubbornness say, no, I'm going to continue to pursue this. I'm going to be so persistent that I'm going to exceed my expectations.
And it does, it takes every day. You just have to do it every day. You got to get up every day.
You've got to, know, I have never really liked the saying, you know, showing up as half half the work or half the battle or whatever people say.
That's not that that's not if you're if you're thinking about showing up being half of the work to do it.
@28:51 - Kirsten Yurich .
You're never going to get anywhere.
@28:52 - Nicholas Ade
You have to be passionate about pursuing this. And it will change your life. really well.
@29:00 - Kirsten Yurich .
Wow. I don't know. That would make me show up if that's what you're seeing every day in the classrooms.
@29:07 - Nicholas Ade
Yeah.
@29:07 - Kirsten Yurich .
Yeah.
@29:08 - Nicholas Ade
And it's nice because people, you know, people will walk in the building and they'll say, I just, I love this place.
I love, you know, being able to come here and teach or I love being able to come here and see what, what, you know, what happens in these walls because it's alive.
It goes beyond all of us. And that's what Marcia gave us. And we forget how lucky we are to be able to be here and doing this.
@29:34 - Kirsten Yurich .
And that's the day we need to kind of hang it up and say, like, yeah, let's, let's make a change.
Yeah. It resonates for me what you're saying earlier in my career, working with individuals, disabilities, you know, it's not just a job.
When you're showing up and you're changing lives, when you're taking someone from not talking to talking, not walking to walking, not feeding themselves to feeding themselves.
I mean, these are our life-changing things. And it just sounds so similar to the experiences that you're having when they're saying, I didn't think I could have a life like that.
@30:07 - Nicholas Ade
mean, that's profound. Yes.
@30:10 - Kirsten Yurich .
That's generative.
@30:11 - Nicholas Ade
Yeah. And they come back and tell us, you know, our discovery coordinator, Wayne, he came here, he, you know, he worked for two years using the first class of our two, two year men's scholarship.
And he's now back working with us because he gets it. He understands what, what has given him the opportunity to, to dance, but also give back.
And now he's here again giving back and he has a career in, you know, something that he believes in.
@30:42 - Kirsten Yurich .
Yeah. it doesn't. So I understand you were away for a couple days, maybe even a week, right, dealing with some, some health things.
And what I'm curious about for individuals listening is I've often run into leaders where it's hard. for them to even leave a day, right?
You know, we're, we experienced VISTAGE, you know, getting people to come for a day can be really hard, right?
Ah, day out of the office. You were out for maybe a week, right? And after talking with you, said it was great, right?
Everyone did great, you did great, no fire. So what is your advice to those leaders out there that struggle to turn off the phone, to disconnect the email.
This is a real challenge, I think, today that a lot of leaders are faced with. And so when I find somebody that's really doing it well, I think I think it's responsibility to share some of those practices.
@31:42 - Nicholas Ade
Yeah, I particularly in our in our leadership team, if you are not fully committed, it just weed yourself out.
And we have a leadership team who's fully committed to the legacy of this place. And I'm committed to them.
believe in them. do not, you know, doubt any of their work. And it's taken a lot of trust, lot of, you know, conversations, a lot of me just kind of stepping back and say like, you know, I want us, I want us to all work together, you know, I want us to all, you know, I want us to all, you know, continue to progress together.
And you should be here, I should be here, we should all be here working together. And when you do that over a course of years, and you continue to just want the same things, maybe we disagree on how to get there, but we agree that we want, we want the best for this place, then you're able to say, okay, I can, I can walk away, you can walk away, we can all, we can all cover for each other, because at
end of the day, even if someone didn't do or handle something, but the exact way I would have, well, they're intent.
You got to come back to their intent. And it's always for the best of the best for CPYB.
@33:13 - Kirsten Yurich .
Yeah. Yeah. And that comes from a personal connection, building relationships with each other over time. That's great. I just want to highlight that because I think there's a lot of people do it well.
@33:30 - Nicholas Ade
I think this last time was necessary, and they knew that. So they were obviously willing to drop whatever they needed to help me out.
And that was not only appreciated, but also very real. And that's what CPYB really is also. There's not this facade or there's not this
You people talk about values and culture, put it on the wall and, and sure, or use it as a weapon, you know, oh, you know, that wasn't that or that wasn't very, you know, right, right, you can use it for good, you can use it for evil.
Yeah, and so, no, it's, it's, it's very real. And if we're not, if we're not doing it, we need to check ourselves.
@34:26 - Kirsten Yurich .
So there's a high level of accountability as well. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Outstanding. Well, Nick, this has been as close to magic as I'm going to get today.
I don't know about you, but this was amazing. Thank you so much. I appreciate this amazing conversation. And I want to highlight at least three things that I'm taking away.
And I listened to this are probably taking away more of one. I heard early on that following the spirit of curiosity, you're going to find a way to stay close to what you're passionate about.
you stuck to ballet by being curious about what other aspects there are of ballet, and you get to stay in a place where you're happy, a business and an industry that you're happy in.
And that's, I think, amazing for you, your family and CPYB. Two, you taught us that by teaching others, you improve your own self-awareness with whatever you're doing.
So again, through ballet, you taught yourself and others something else, so many levels of lessons here. And three, I really took away this powerful purpose.
You said, we're always going back and going deeper to what Marcia left us, and that power of a true enough star for a company, and how they can continue to reap benefits for their current days, crisis, or challenge by going back to that more star, why do we exist?
What are we here for? Just so powerful.
@35:53 - Nicholas Ade
Oh, thank you. and it's something that we all truly believe in, so it it work.
@36:00 - Kirsten Yurich .
Well, it's beautiful. And it's so, so beautifully evidence. thank you so much, Nick. Pleasure having you today.