BENJAMIN ZANDER: There are
a lot of stories about
conductors, mostly told
by orchestra players.
And one of my favorites is the
one about Toscanini, who was a
very great conductor, who had
the ability to galvanize
people to great passion and
intensity and expression, and
he also had a temper,
famous temper.
Apparently, when he did one of
these temper tantrums, he took
his watch and smashed
it on the floor.
I heard recently he bought
them wholesale.
Anyway, the story goes that in
the middle of the rehearsal he
saw that one of the players in
the double bass section wasn't
playing very well, and he
shouted at him, "You're
fired!" This was in the
days before the union.
We can't do that now.
But in those days, you could
fire a musician without any
explanation or recourse.
That would be the end
of his career.
So this poor man had to go home,
tell his wife he didn't
have a job.
As he left the room for the last
time, he turned around
and shouted at Toscanini,
"You're a no good son of a
bitch." And Toscanini shouted
back, "It's too late to
apologize."
[LAUGHTER]
That's the old style
of leadership.
It's top-down, hierarchical,
right-thinking, and male.
And it served humanity for
about 75,000 years.
Now, I used to be that
kind of a leader.
Not quite as extreme, but I was
successful as a conductor.
But I paid a high price in
terms of the energy,
well-being, and self-expression
of the
people around me.
And then I had a quite
extraordinary event that
happened in my life.
It was almost like a road to
Damascus event for me.
I was 45 years old, and I'd be
conducting for 20 years or
more, and suddenly I had a
realization, for the first
time, that the conductor
of an orchestra
doesn't make a sound.
Now, my picture appears on
the front of the CD.
But the conductor doesn't
actually make a sound.
He depends, for his power, on
his ability to make other
people powerful.
And when that occurred to me,
it was so profound, had such
an effect, that people in my
orchestra said, Ben, what
happened to you?
And that's what happened.
I realized that my
job was to awaken
possibility in other people.
Now, it became from there a real
question whether I was
doing that.
And the way you find out whether
you're doing that is
to look at their eyes.
If their eyes are shining,
you know you're doing it.
And if the eyes are
not shining, you
get to ask a question.
And this is the question: who
am I being that my players'
eyes are not shining?
We can do that with
our children.
Who am I being that
my childrens'
eyes are not shining.
Now, from this moment and from
this discovery, Roz and I
started exploring together
a new kind of leadership.
Now, we distinguished
two worlds--
two worlds.
One world we called the
downward spiral.
The world of the downward
spiral, in which Toscanini was
conducting his orchestra.
The world of the downward
spiral is the world of
competition, competition in
which you might be energized,
but you might also
be demoralized.
The world of fear and pressure,
in which you might
be galvanized to great things,
and at the same time, you
might be paralyzed.
So the lines come down
and they also go up.
It is the world in which
we live normal life.
Most conversations take place
in the downward spiral.
Gossip and all the magazines
that depend on it take place
in the downward spiral.
TV shows that we're used to.
The Apprentice, a perfect
example of
the downward spiral.
How To Be A Survivor.
We have another program, How
To Be A Millionaire.
And I learned about another
one today called
Million Pound Drop.
Those are all downward spiral
conversations and games.
The stock market is a perfect
image for the downward spiral.
Sometimes it goes up and
sometimes it goes down.
And we have to constantly
observe to see whether it's up
or whether it's down, which
gives us much excitement and
also much dis-ease
as it goes down.
That's the world.
Sports, of course, full of
downward spiral, but in sports
it doesn't matter because
we all go out for a beer
afterwards.
But our educational system is
based on a downward spiral,
because there's nowhere to
go from an A but down.
And so we shouldn't be
surprised if our
children look anxious.
Right now, many of you have
young children who are worried
about whether they're going to
get into college and accepted
or rejected.
We have a 4-year-old who's
worried that he may not get
into preschool.
So this is a world of
measurement and a world of
comparisons.
Sometimes it seems as though
it's the only world, which is
not the case, which is why I
asked for another flip chart.
This world is called the world
of radiating possibility, and
it has a completely different
shape, going out like this.
This is a world of shared
commitments, shared
involvements, of
open-heartedness, of
open-mindedness, of
contribution, of love, of health--
both personal and
international and for the world--
collaboration, curiosity,
and grandchildren.
Those of you when you get
to my age will have this
experience of having
grandchildren.
One of mine, who's six, doesn't
walk, she skips
everywhere she goes,
like this.
Now, you don't see this
much on Wall Street.
They don't do that
on Wall Street.
If somebody did that on Wall
Street, they'd come along in a
white van and take them away.
But all my grandchild is saying
is I'm happy to be here
and I'm happy you
are here, too.
And there's a piece of music
which goes with that, which is
the Beethoven's "7th Symphony,"
which some of you
know it goes like
[SINGING RHYTHM].
That's actually a very
hard rhythm to keep.
That rhythm tends to fall
into [SINGING RHYTHM].
If you're a little lazy,
[UNINTELLIGIBLE]
[SINGING RHYTHM],
which is a march.
You can do that for hours.
This rhythm is [SINGING RHYTHM].
That's the rhythm of skipping.
When I did the recording of it--
which, incidentally, you
can get at amazon.com--
the orchestra, which was a
wonderful orchestra, the
Philharmonia Orchestra, played,
[SINGING RHYTHM].
After a while, they got a
bit tired and played,
[SINGING RHYTHM].
I said no, no, the rhythm
is [SINGING RHYTHM].
Oh yes, [SINGING RHYTHM].
It kept on falling back.
My job is to remind the players
what the rhythm of
transformation is, because
transformation lives here, and
the rhythm of transformation
is lighter and brighter and
faster and more buoyant
than the rhythm of
exhortation and blame.
You should, you would,
you must, you need.
So what we know about this world
over there is that life
unfolds in the story we tell.
It's, in other words,
an invented world.
Now, you probably know the story
of the two show salesmen
who were sent to Africa in the
1900s from Manchester in order
to find out if they could
sell shoes in Africa.
And they wrote telegrams back
to base in Manchester.
And one of them wrote,
"Situation hopeless.
Stop.
They don't wear shoes." The
other one wrote, "Glorious
opportunity, they don't
have any shoes yet."
Now those two stories
are told about
circumstances that are identical.
The circumstances hadn't
changed, only what changes is
what we say about it.
And you notice that even the
music of that statement,
"Situation hopeless, they
don't wear shoes," and
"Glorious opportunity, they
don't have any shoes yet,"
along with the hand motion, is
a totally different world and
we get to choose at every moment
of every single day
which place we're standing in.
Now, it may seem to some of
you that this sounds like
positive thinking.
It is not positive thinking.
Positive thinking is saying
something is great when you
know it's shitty.
[LAUGHTER]
And it's stupid, and
it belongs in
the downward spiral.
Possibility is something quite
different, and I'm going to
tell you a story.
My father who, as he told you,
he was quite a remarkable man.
He had an amazing ability to
turn things upside-down.
He used to say, there's no such
thing as bad weather,
only inappropriate clothing.
That was his way.
And he was a survivor from the
Holocaust. He lost his mother
in Auschwitz, and he lost
eight brothers--
members of his family.
And he lost everything.
He lost his home, his
belongings, his money, his
profession.
And he came to England
with four children to
support and a wife.
And then he was interned.
They had internment camps in
those days for Germans, and
they put them all
in these camps.
There were 2,000 men
living in tents.
And the state of fear and
anxiety under which these
people lived must have been
virtually unbearable.
Some of them were so stressed
that they sat, my father told
me, against the barbed
wire fence for the
entire time of the day.
Now, he looked around and
said, there are a lot of
intelligent people here.
We should have a university.
And so they started a university
in that camp, with
40 classes running regularly.
No paper, no pencils, no books,
no blackboard, nothing.
Just people talking
to each other.
That is possibility.
He didn't say this situation is
great and pretend that it
was positive.
He simply made up his mind to
create something out of
circumstances that seemed
to have no hope and no
possibility in them.
That is the secret
of possibility.
The art of possibility, which is
the name of a book, is the
art of moving from
here to there.
And leadership is taking
people with you.
That's simply what it
is, this new view.
Now, central to this is
the notion of vision.
In the middle of this circle
I'm going to put the word
vision, because that
is crucial.
Now, there's a great deal of
misunderstanding about vision.
If you go to the London
Business School--
many of you have been there--
in the hallway of the London
Business School there is a very
large stone plaque, which
says, "Our vision is to be the
preeminent business school in
the world." I went to the
director and I said, you know
that's not really a vision.
She said, I know, but it's
written in stone.
[LAUGHTER]
Now, a vision, to be a vision,
has to be for everybody.
There must be nobody
who's left out.
The Boston Philharmonic
has a vision.
Our orchestra is called-- our
vision is "Passionate
music-making without
boundaries." And that's the
thing that leads our
organization.
Our orchestra's not run by a
person, it's run by a vision.
And every conversation we have
and every discussion is led by
that vision.
So we had a discussion recently
about ticket prices
for next year.
They have to go up, yes, by all
means, they will go up,
but not the cheapest
ones, they've been
the same for 30 years.
Passionate music-making
without boundaries.
See, that's how it works.
The Boston Symphony, which
is the other great
orchestra in Boston--
the richest orchestra in
the world, actually--
if you give your tickets back to
the Boston Symphony because
you can't use them at the
weekend, they resell them and
make more money.
If you give your tickets back to
the Boston Philharmonic, we
give them to Rosie's Place,
which is a homeless shelter,
because there are many people
at the homeless shelter who
love classical music but they
can't afford the tickets.
So there was somebody at a
meeting I went to recently who
was standing over here firmly
and said, 3% of the population
likes classical music.
If we could move it to 4%, our
problem would be over.
I say everybody loves classical
music, they just
haven't found out
about it yet.
Now, the question is: how would
you walk, how would you
talk, how would you be if you
thought 3% of the population
likes classical music
[MUMBLING]?
How would you walk, how would
you talk, how would you be if
you thought everybody liked
classical music, they just
haven't found out about it?
So these two words are
absolutely separate.
The vision under which I run
my life is that everybody
understands and loves
classical music.
But let's experiment
here and see.
We have a very interesting
situation.
We have a young pianist,
her name is Olga.
I have never met her before.
I've been told she's
a wonderful
pianist. We've never met.
She has no idea what's
going on here.
She just walked in.
And I've asked her to come
and play for us.
And so we're going to
see what happens.
She's going to play the first
movement of the "Moonlight
Sonata" of Beethoven.
We welcome Olga.
Thank you for coming.
Please, go to the piano.
[APPLAUSE]
[MOONLIGHT SONATA]
BENJAMIN ZANDER: Now, first of
all I want everybody to clap
because [INAUDIBLE].
[APPLAUSE]
Now, so Olga, you're an
extraordinary musician and
you're a beautiful pianist, and
you have amazing capacity
to hold the concentration
of the listeners.
I have some good news
and some bad news.
This is a group of
people divided
up into three sections.
The first section are people--
it's quite a small section--
they are people who love
classical music.
They will listen to classical
music at every moment of the
day or night.
They have their radios
permanently on the FM radio
classical station.
They go to the symphony.
They have CDs in their car.
Their children are learning
instruments.
They go to the symphony.
They are passionate.
They would be willing to
listen to you forever.
We don't have to worry
about them.
That's the good news.
[APPLAUSE]
The second group of people
in this room are--
they don't mind classical
music.
You know, They don't mind it.
They come home from a long day
in the office and they take a
glass of beer, a little Vivaldi
in the background
doesn't do any harm.
That's the second group.
[LAUGHTER]
And then the third group are the
people who actually never
listen to classical music.
It's just not part
of their life.
But leave out the first group.
The second group, although they
were absolutely riveted
on you at the beginning,
gradually lost their
concentration.
I noticed a couple of
them actually take
out their cell phones.
That's the sad news, isn't it?
And halfway through this
movement, you had actually
lost all the people except the
ones who were passionate about
classical music.
And there's a reason for that.
It's not because you're not
fabulously gifted and a
wonderful pianist, it's because
you've misunderstood
what Beethoven was
trying to say.
All right.
So shall we look at this?
Let's look and see what happens,
because my dream is
that we will find that every
single person in this room
actually loves and understands
classical music.
You know, one of the
characteristics of a leader is
that the leader never doubts
the capacity of the people
he's leading to realize whatever
he's dreaming.
Imagine if Martin Luther King
had said, I have a dream, of
course, I'm not sure they'll
be up to it.
[LAUGHTER]
OK.
So they are up to it.
So let's see what happened.
First of all, the melody
is not here.
[PLAYING PIANO].
That's not the melody.
So the melody must be
in the left hand.
So let's hear the melody
in the left hand.
[PLAYING PIANO].
So what's happening is it starts
on a C sharp, it goes
down, [PLAYING PIANO],
and back to the same C sharp.
So could you play it in such a
way that they hear the first C
sharp and the second C
sharp are connected?
Here it is.
[PLAYING PIANO AND SINGING].
Should we get them to sing it?
OLGA: Yes.
BENJAMIN ZANDER: Let's
get them to sing it.
OK, here comes.
All right, everybody.
You conduct.
Here.
Everybody's singing.
Are you ready?
[SINGING NOTES].
Good.
Can you get them to really hear
that the first C sharp
and the last C sharp
are identical?
I'll play this time and
you conduct them.
Are you ready?
Here we go.
Great.
[SINGING AND PLAYING PIANO]
Ah, oh is that beautiful.
Did you hear how beautifully
they sang?
Wow.
This is the--
it's the Google choir.
[LAUGHTER]
I heard both C sharps.
Now, I'm going to point
something out to you that is
going to absolutely shock you.
Because if you do that again and
I play the triplets, look
what's happened.
You conduct them again.
[SINGING AND PLAYING PIANO].
It's twice as fast. It's twice
as fast. Isn't that amazing?
Now, for 180 years, which is
the time that has elapsed
since Beethoven wrote that, the
world has misunderstood
how this piece goes.
And the reason is because
Beethoven didn't say anything
about moonlight.
You know that?
Do you know who said
moonlight?
It was the publisher.
He thought it'd sell more copies
if he said moonlight.
And he was right.
This piece has sold more copies
than any other piece of
music in the history
of the world.
And he thought, the publisher
thought, that if he said
moonlight, and the pianists
all went like this,
[PLAYING PIANO],
which is fine for the opening,
because even the tone deaf
people would be moved by that.
But when you get to this,
[PLAYING PIANO],
you've even lost the classical
music lovers.
It sounds like somebody
practicing.
[PLAYING PIANO].
It makes no sense.
It's clearly nonsense.
So should we find out really?
Now, what Beethoven wrote was
not "Moonlight Sonata," he
wrote "Sonata Quasi Una
Fantasia." A fantasy.
It's a fantasy.
So let's see where we
can find a fantasy.
[MOONLIGHT SONATA]
[APPLAUSE]
