"The conductor doesn't make a sound!"

I watched another TED Talk that was linked up on the ol' Presentation Zen that I seem to talk so much about, and -- as usual -- it was awesome. It's the one sitting right above this paragraph if you didn't already notice. You can also watch it on the TED website here. But this one was a little different because the presenter, famed classical music conductor Benjamin Zander of the Boston Philharmonic, spoke all about classical music. And his love for it. And everyone else's love for it ("They just don't know it yet!"). There's a lot of great stuff to take away from the talk -- he hits on everything from Nelson Mandela to 7-year-olds struggling at piano -- but I wanted to highlight just one idea: "awakening possibilities."

Zander speaks in the latter portion of his talk about his realization that the conductor never makes a sound (all grunting and everything aside, I guess) during an actual performance. He relies on his players to realize his dream and vision. And the only way he says to do that is to "awaken possibilities" in them, to make them believe in themselves and to enable them along the way. It seems pretty basic, and it probably is, but it's a different way of looking at the idea of executing a strategy or vision, especially in the business world today. To make your followers' eyes shine.

For more on Zander from PZ, check Garr's book review here.
For more on the TED Talks from my boss EJ, click here.

(h/t as usual - Presentation Zen)