Two Great Quotes

My husband Yoav has come up with some amazingly insightful quotes lately. Here are two of them.

1) Last week, I had the chance to meet a very influential person whom I work for. After the first day of this encounter, I told Yoav that I regretted not going to up to this person and saying something memorable. I feared that he wouldn't even remember me the next time we met.

Yoav responded by saying "Hard work and time. That's how you get noticed." In other words, replace a snappy soundbyte with an impressive work ethic.

Sure enough, the next day this person asked me to do something - by chance, I was standing next to him. I performed the task to the best of my ability, and he both noticed and appreciated it. On his way out of the building, at the end of the second day, he looked at me, smiled, and said thank you.

2) A few days ago, I was walking along the street with Yoav, talking about graduate school. I was considering different options out loud. I noted that many of the powerful men and women mentioned in The Economist usually went to Harvard Law School or Harvard Business School. Doesn't that mean that, in order to become a powerful person, that's where I have to go?

Yoav responded by saying "You become powerful by doing what you love, not by pursuing power for its own sake."

The more I thought about it, the more I agreed. When we do something that we love, we are naturally better at it and naturally excel, which makes us more powerful. The ones who go after power for power's sake do not have the same long-term success.

Amazing Internship Flyer

On Wednesday evening, I was sitting outside my Arabic class in Sever Hall, Harvard Yard, and I saw an internship flyer that just blew me away.

The headline said:


WE NEED INTERNS TO BRING US

insights on how Colombian bonds will be affected by the rally in

COFFEE



It was an advertisement for Investment Associate and Technology Associate summer interns at Bridgewater, a hedge fund manager.

Not only was the title eye-catching, but the fine print was just as catchy. It explained Bridgewater’s drive to be the absolute best in the business – better than professors, traders and Nobel laureates.

Here is some of the language:

“We need to find the best people, bring them to their full potential, and have them contribute immediately…There isn’t one person within our walls not doing something critical to our success – including our….interns…We seek to hire the future leaders of our company straight out of college.”

It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. No finance experience was necessary, and they were telling me that I could still make an impact on the success of the company. These hedge-fund managers were saying that they weren’t just hiring interns to perform busy work; they were creating future leaders, helping them find their “full potential.”

Fostering leadership development and growth: how many times have you heard a great person say that he was inspired to be great not because he believed in himself, but because someone else believed in him? A guidance counselor, a friend, or a parent - how about an employer?

I used to hire interns at my previous job: I creating the marketing plan to reach out to them, interviewed and hired them, and gave them tasks. Sometimes I didn’t even have the time to really go over the work they did – I just needed to get stuff done. Sometimes I didn’t even need to get stuff done, but I had to find work for them anyway. This was not an optimal internship experience because as an organization we had never created a strategy for intern growth and development, despite the fact that numerous interns became full-time employees in our organization, myself included.

So imagine my surprise when I read this intern flyer for Bridgewater: here is a company that stopped to think about what the real purpose of an internship was, how it could benefit the intern as well as the company, and how to inspire the best and brightest to apply – by telling them that they are going to make a difference, that they are going to become a leader.

I know nothing about this company – just what I read on the flyer. But this simple document made a tremendous impression on me.

Opera vs. Orchestra

Last night, I attended a concert of the MIT Chamber Music Society. Having spent high school and college as a vocal performance major, I am currently trying to maintain the presence of classical music in my life, in addition to my other professional and personal interests.

I find it both inspirational and bittersweet: On the one hand, I am reminded that musicians are always musicians, whether they perform or not. On the other hand, I am reminded of how much technique I have forgotten, despite over a decade of practice.

The selections and the performers in last night's concert were both outstanding. The pieces were Fantastie in F minor, Op.103 by Franz Schubert (for four hands!) and the piano trio in G minor, Op.15 by Bedrich Smetana.

As I watched the Fantasie, I was struck by the differences between public speaking and performing on an instrument, which are also differences between opera and orchestra.

In public speaking, as in opera, the performer is an actor: conveying emotion through one's face, body language, and voice. The text itself is important, but is not nearly so without these presentational aspects. No scripts are used in an effort to maximize the actor's contact with the audience. (And public speaking is definitely a form of acting; no matter what kind of bad day you are having, you cannot pass it along to your audience.)

However, in an orchestra or instrumental performance, it is the opposite. The focus is almost exclusively on the music itself; aside from bowing, no eye contact is made with the audience, sheet music is the extreme focus of the performers, and there could quite possibly be no emotion on their faces, despite the glorious sounds emitting from their instruments.

But it varies from performer to performer, and I'd like to compare each of the two pieces I heard last night as examples.

The piano Fantasie for four hands involved three actors: two pianists sitting at one piano, and a page-turner. The two pianists (male and female) sat side-by-side on the same bench, eyes focused intently either on their sheet music or on their instrument. With every crescendo or decrescendo, with every scherzo or pizzico their arms and hands reacted, the music flowed out of the piano with amazing emotion and feeling, yet the performer's faces were motionless. They could have been sitting bored through a lecture. And they were so perfectly in synch with one another, that their eyes never met, despite the fact that their hands caressed and intertwined throughout the piece. It was at the same time intimate and distanced.

The piano trio was somewhat different. It involved four actors: a (different) pianist, a cellist, and a violinist, all of whom were female, and a male page turner who was the pianist from the previous piece. As in the Fantastie, there was no eye contact with the audience, and they mostly focused their eyes on their music or on their instruments. However, the energy in their performance was completely alive; they frequently made eye contact with each other, whether to ensure consistent entry or exit on a passage, smile at a favorite section, or otherwise share emotion. The energy and emotion came not only from the beautiful music they produced, but also from their visible relationship with one another.

Both performances were powerful, arresting, and professional. But I was struck by the inherent differences between opera and orchestra, between singing and playing an instrument.

Since much of my time is dedicated to helping people improve their presentation skills by establishing a connection with their audience, it is fascinating to realize that other aspects of performing require little to no interaction with the audience, and nevertheless result in being absolutely effective. It reminded me that the variables, the possibilities in every field, are endless, and it instilled in me a sense of awe and appreciation for the infinite combinations that can be made.