Please enjoy
the lesson that
Benjamin Zander teaches us on leadership. This is a wonderful 18 minute talk given by Zander at a recent
TED conference. The TED (stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design) web site has many other great talks as well. Enjoy!
I have watched this several times and was amazed by it. Thanks for sharing and for bring the TED web site to my attention. Always enjoy your blog.
ReplyDeleteThis is powerful. I forwarded it to our violin teacher. Thanks, Joel.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely inspiring and uplifting - Mr Zander is obviously passionate about his chosen field which in turn inspires those around him.
ReplyDeleteWe often hear talks on "Leadership" in the church (especially as priesthood holders), the qualities of a good leader and how we should be striving to become better leaders in our lives. These of course are great virtues. Less frequently however do we hear what it means to be a good follower and the virtues of "Followership" in secular life. As Mr Zander pointed out - as a conductor (leader) of an orchestra he personally made no noise whatsoever. The musicians (followers) taking his lead together made beautiful music. I sometime feel that in life if we are too focused on always being the leader in situations instead of the follower we may miss our opportunity to make beautiful music and in so doing deny the leader his/her opportunity to lead. I have unfortunately seen this occur many times in my 20 years in Church employment - passion, ambition, duty to become leaders often blinds individuals on what it means to also be a follower and the often forgotten virtues of "Followership". Regarding leadership Lao Tse wrote "When the effective leader is finished with his work, people will say 'it happened naturally'".
Benjamin Zander spoke at the HDI tech support conference in Dallas last Spring. His puzzle showing us how to look outside the box really made me think. I often set bounds on myself and others that don't need to be there.
ReplyDeleteI remember some years ago attending a concert by one of the great orchestras. The conductor was new and a bit 'raw'.The conductor got a bit carried away and ended up slowing one piece down to the point where it was getting to be painful. The orchestra leader; the violinist seated at the first desk to the left of the conductor, got eye contact with other lead players. Then gradually but surely they followed his lead in speeding the piece up. The conductor ended up following rather than leading.
ReplyDeleteI used to play in an orchestra and spotted what was going on, most of the audience didn't of course.
There was loud applause at the end of the piece. The anonymous leader made the leader "out front' look good, and was publicly unrecognised for it.
You see leadership is not always obvious or public.
I saw Ben Zander speak at the 2006 IBM Rational Software Developer Conference in Orlando. WOW! I have purchased his book and found myself re-reading it often to remind myself of what I need to be doing to enable others to reach their full potential. For someone who is Jewish, he is a great Mormon!
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