Conductor Benjamin Zander turned a Beethoven masterclass into a leadership lesson, getting the audience to sing the Ninth Symphony's finale in German. His core message: true leaders must believe in their people's capacity and coach them in the moment, pushing past what he calls "beyond the fuck it" to commit wholeheartedly.
Well, hi, it's Tom. I'm still here at TED and I have not been able, as I'm normally not able to do, to keep up with my updates. But I just wanted to— I just walked out of an extraordinary experience and a great moment that really captures why people come to TED. The final speaker of Day 3 was Benjamin Zander. Ben Zander is the the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic and the author of a book along with his wife Roseman that I'll put the link to over here. Now, people think that coming to something like TED is, you know, some sort of a— I mean, there's all these ideas that are here and it's a brain fest. There's just things coming at you from all kinds of angles. But the thing that really makes TED so extraordinary are the emotional experiences of the participants because of the incredible emotional connection with great people and terrific speakers like Ben Zander. Ben, Ben Zander spoke about classical music, but he didn't just speak about classical music. He steeped the TED audience in classical music. We had a little mini masterclass in classical music tonight. And all of it, while it was about classical music, was also about leadership, which is what his book is about too, he and his wife's book, or as he puts it, the book that he— the book that his wife wrote, that they wrote together. The idea that in order to be a leader, one has to be totally convinced of the capacity of the people in their organization to really succeed at doing the thing that the leader has envisioned is a— it's sort of a truism, almost a platitude in leadership literature. But if you watched and listened to Ben Zander tonight, you saw a leader in action taking a group of people into the palm of his hand and saying, we're going to go on a little journey together. We're going to do something extraordinary together. And what we did together was to sing the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. With phonetic German that he had had printed out on sheets of paper. And at a certain point in this, while he was helping us to practice to sing the lyrics to Beethoven's Ninth, he kept coaching us, which is what great leaders do. They coach people in the moment during their performances. No, no, no, be a little— try the— but yep. Do it. What he said was that at a certain moment, that it was very important for this group who was very obediently singing and reading the words, that it was very important for the group to get, in his phrase, beyond the fuck it. At a certain point, in order to really put oneself into any activity that's worthwhile, you must get beyond that point that we all have of reticence, of holding back, of, of not really totally committing to what it is that we're being asked to do, what it is that we really want to do but not yet having committed to it. Well, Ben Zander showed this group, had this group experience what it's like to get beyond the fuck it in doing something that for at least that moment is something important. And it's moments like this, not to mention the moments of teaching what a Chopin sonata and what a Mozart sonata really means in emotional terms. But it's moments like that last moment that really send people out of here energized. We've still got another half day tomorrow, but then keep people coming back to this very extraordinary event. So I just wanted to, to talk about that briefly before I head off to the annual TED gala, which is at the Monterey Aquarium, an extraordinary place. Just wanted to take a moment to, to let you know that when this talk goes up online, the Ben Zander talk, you're going to really understand what makes TED such magic. So take care, and I'll see you again soon. Bye-bye.
