Portfolio Publisher and His Maestro

Imagine Malcolm Gladwell lecturing a group of corporate executives in the middle of a sweaty basketball game or Paulo Coelho leading a self-help seminar through a desert. Generations of speakers have used metaphors to explain business concepts–long tails, fat tails, sports, war, and card games–but Roger Nierenberg places his audience inside a small orchestra.

Yesterday this orchestra conductor and leadership guru gave a lecture about running a business with a full orchestra. Nierenberg illustrated management principles at the Portfolio imprint‘s event celebrating his upcoming book, “Maestro: A Little Story About Leading by Listening.”

GalleyCat filmed the climatic final act when twenty invitees crowded on the conductor’s podium to experience the driver’s seat of an orchestra. Afterward, we caught up with Portfolio Books founder and publisher Adrian Zackheim to find out what this title taught him about publishing.

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