New Year’s Concert in Vienna or About Introverts and Extroverts

One of my major joys during the winter holidays has always been the New Year’s concert in Vienna.

I wasn’t a fan of the holidays, beyond the joy of the days off and the fascinating smell of mandarins, I didn’t really see the advantages: the preparations for Christmas, New Year’s Eve were always so tiring that I didn’t feel like partying.

But the concert was the time of catharsis. It was as if I was coming out of the prosaic of sarmale, of cleanliness, of the tables set, and I was entering another dimension, one where there was hope that it was something above the ordinary world, to which I could aspire.

The joy of the music was accompanied by the enthusiasm I saw on the faces of those who sang, of the conductor. They seemed happy, as if they had the best job in the world.

I saw, listened to the concert in Vienna this year. The conductor, the orchestra, did not seem too happy. They performed the way most people do at work: without joy, without enthusiasm, thinking about what they will do next. But if you just listened to the music, without looking, it was something else. The music didn’t care about the placidity that I perceived on the faces of those who sang. Those people together transposed you into a magical world.

I remembered a Ted talk: ‘Leading Like Great Conductors’. There, Itay Talgam talks about conductors as orchestra leaders. This year’s leader of the Vienna orchestra (Riccardo Muti) was one with a lower expressiveness, not much could be seen on his face. You’d say, look, he’s not charismatic. Yes, maybe it’s not, the man is more withdrawn, but people sing in the rhythm imprinted by him, and the result is superb.

I thought of some topics I hear about in organizations:

This man is too withdrawn, he doesn’t smile enough; he’s too introverted, he doesn’t seem to feel anything, we like extroverts here. It has to change, otherwise we have problems.

I don’t know how it’s better: introvert, extrovert, more expressive, more talkative, more reserved. Everyone has their feelings, but they express them differently.

After all, maybe it’s better to embrace what everyone has to offer, to accept it, to appreciate everyone’s expression preferences. As long as everyone, in their workplace, performs and has results like this conductor, why not appreciate it and look for the noisier expression elsewhere, when we need it?