Speaker A
[Music] the first uh thing uh musicians do when they get together is uh tuning uh can we tune even the people in the cheap seats please join in this is nice so now you know that I'm a conductor and conductors are about
Itay Talgam shares leadership lessons from conducting orchestras, emphasizing embracing gaps, listening, and collaborative ownership.
Key Takeaways
- Embrace and use gaps—cultural, economic, or knowledge gaps—as sources of creativity and strength.
- Leadership is about creating harmony and shared ownership, not just control or authority.
- Effective teaching and leadership come from listening and acknowledging one’s own ignorance.
- Collaboration across differences enriches understanding and innovation.
- True influence comes from empowering others to learn and grow independently.
Summary
- Itay Talgam introduces the role of a conductor as a creator of harmony and discipline within an orchestra.
- He highlights the unique example of the world’s best young orchestra from Caracas, Venezuela, composed of diverse and underprivileged youth.
- Talgam emphasizes the importance of embracing gaps—cultural, geographical, and economic—as opportunities rather than barriers.
- He shares his personal experience of overcoming fear of gaps when addressing non-musician audiences like senior bankers.
- Through videos, he illustrates different leadership styles and invites reflection on desirable leadership qualities.
- Talgam advocates for mutual respect and understanding across different fields without trying to close or erase gaps.
- He discusses the concept that ignorance can be a powerful teaching tool when combined with listening and openness.
- Talgam stresses the importance of listening deeply to help others become independent learners.
- He uses Leonard Bernstein as an example of a great teacher and leader who embodies these principles.
- The talk concludes with a caution not to rush into applying these lessons but to develop them thoughtfully.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Tuning
- 01:02Discipline and Gaps in Orchestra
- 01:36The Young Orchestra in Caracas
- 04:18Ownership and Harmony in Music
- 04:52Using Gaps Creatively
- 05:23Overcoming Fear of Gaps with Non-Musicians
- 06:21Leadership Styles in Videos
- 07:25Embracing Ignorance and Teaching
- 08:36Listening as Key to Leadership
- 11:11Leonard Bernstein Example and Conclusion
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
their jobs are about creating Harmony in tune playing singing uh but usually this harmony ends at the end of the stage you see the orchestra here is supposed to be harmonious while you are under strict discipline you're not supposed to move
Speaker A
you're not supposed to make any kind of noise even to breathe loudly you're not supposed to okay so there's a huge gap here now I want to take you to the best young people's Orchestra an orchestra made of really young people uh but the
Speaker A
best in the world where would it be I mean classical European music where would it be England England Vienna Vienna Vienna maybe Austria yeah or maybe the state States they have a lot of uh h no actually it's in Venezuela in
Speaker A
Caracas would you believe now this you really have to experience that's why I'm going to devote two very precious moments minutes of my talk to this just look at the first video please enjoy yourselves and we'll speak about it
Speaker A
please [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] w [Applause] [Music] come [Applause] [Applause] w [Applause] oh [Music] [Music] [Applause] yeah glad you liked it now I have one question for you but it's a really important question who has ownership on
Speaker A
that event who is the owner are these the big guys is this the conductor it's everyone you could feel that everyone now this is fantastic because you you see these people were not born into this music they had huge
Speaker A
gaps between them and making this music cultural gaps G geographical gaps economical gaps because most of these kids that grew up in the orchestra actually come from deprived families that's that's another talk another Ted Talk by by the way not mine the
Speaker A
conductors um uh so you see there were huge gaps but they told themselves we're not going to just close the gaps we're going to use the gaps you see they say we are you know Latinos and we have this
Speaker A
culture and then they have this culture and we'll look into the Gap and create something better so that's my first message to you Embrace gaps whenever you see a gap don't close it use it hug it okay now
Speaker A
I'll tell you how I um stopped being afraid of gaps uh the first time I was asked to speak to non you know audience of not mus non musicians uh through music was many years ago and and the audience was
Speaker A
composed of senior Bankers people with a lot and I was going on my bike to and then I see in the parking lot all those 500 S-Class Mercedes cars you know and that was a gap you know and and then of course I I
Speaker A
look at the Investments and the foreign uh whatever I have no idea what these people are are doing the gaps are too great so I said to myself I can't I can't tell them anything I don't I don't
Speaker A
connect I cannot tell them anything what I can do I can show them things so I show them things like um like this we we'll we'll watch now another video with a very simple question I said what do
Speaker A
you think about this guy would you like to work with this guy look at this can we have the second video [Music] so so you understand what I mean and then there was another guy this this one is called cber let's look at the the
Speaker A
next video look at him would you like to work with this guy [Music] [Applause] so you see uh things that you know I didn't have to say anything about but then uh there was a conversation because we've been
Speaker A
watching together certain phenomena and uh they were speaking about about it in their own language I was speaking in my language and again we didn't try to close the gap I didn't try to presume to know what to tell Bankers to do and they
Speaker A
didn't presume to tell musicians how to conduct their business but just listening to the other speaking about the same thing in their own language you know makes you understand new things about what you thought was so familiar to you you see so uh well I I I saw gaps
Speaker A
are working yeah so uh I I I decided to embrace Gap and that was a huge barrier for me because I had to agree to the fact that I'm ignorant I'm ignorant of what those people could learn in fact
Speaker A
even today when somebody ask me to give a lecture and he says what will people learn from your lecture I say I don't know how could I know I'm not in their heads you know in fact if I could tell you what
Speaker A
they will learn it will mean that they will learn very little I want to tell you something about teaching and learning uh there was this french guy jako in the 19th century and he said something shocking he said an ignorant
Speaker A
person can teach another ignorant what he himself does not know now this is fantastic yeah this is fantastic yeah yeah an ignorant can teach another ignorant what he himself doesn't know it's fantastic because you know if we only can learn from other people's
Speaker A
knowledge it's always limited to their knowledge but if you know and and besides look around you how many ignorance you know every one of us you know for one thing that we know we're ignorant in 10 10,000 other things or a
Speaker A
million for me yeah um so if an ignorant can teach that's fantastic but how does ignorant teach he does not transfer knowledge it's not about you know pouring your knowledge from up to down and then you let no because this kind of
Speaker A
attitude old schooling always keeps the student the learner independent new teaching it's not so new as you know but nothing is really new everything was was done before right especially with your uh tradition you you've done everything before right for last week I was in
Speaker A
Moscow and uh uh we we spoke about technology and we mentioned Telegraph and they said ah we invented it before and then telephone and they said no no no we had an inventor before the Americans and then internet they said
Speaker A
yes we had an internet before but it was mechanical I know I thought that was very good uh and anyhow where was I something about something about ignorance yes but if you want to if you want to teach uh uh from your ignorancy
Speaker A
and not transfer knowledge you have to become a nand doer a listener I have a good friend that you know speaks about in many conferences he says his biggest dream is to become a keynote list listener key Keynotes thank
Speaker A
you Keynotes keynote speaker is nice but if you really want to to to have a lasting influence you have to listen you have to listen in way that actually helps other people to emancipate themselves as Learners yeah and I want
Speaker A
to show you my greatest teacher ever Lal Bernstein doing exactly that so just remember Embrace gaps love gaps don't shy away from them and then be ignorant happily and listen and with this one and a half minutes of video by leonal
Speaker A
Bernstein uh I hope we'll understand and experience all of these please [Music] [Music] he [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Applause] thank you thank you um uh one word of warning you don't start this way okay
Speaker A
don't go back to your offices and start doing all yeah do everything right you'll get there thank you so much [Applause] [Music]
Topics:leadershipItay Talgamsymphony conductororchestraTEDxteamworkembracing gapslisteninglearningcollaboration
