Me – “I’m leaving Theatr Clwyd”
Them – “What?”
Me – “I’ve handed my notice in?”
Them – “Are you okay?”
Me – “What do you mean?”
Them – “I mean, are you okay? Are you ill?”
Me – “No, why would you…”
Them – “…no, no reason.”
Me – “Oh.”
Them – “So where are you going to?”
Me – “I don’t know yet.”
Them (louder) – “What the f**k?!?”
Me – “I just need a change.”
It’s an odd feeling leaving a place you’ve been connected with for a while, particularly when it’s a role that you worked so hard to reach. Talking to people about it is weird – there’s a underlying notion that after spending so long climbing the mountain that I’ve stepped off with summit in sight – why move when the view from there could be so spectacular?
I realised a few years ago that it’d be really easy to stay in my lane but that, increasingly, the challenge, the little burning fire within me, the excitement, was fading a little. Anyone in any job for a long time knows there’s a period of reinvention every so often – I think about the last 15 years, the tail-end of my time at Unity, through to Clwyd and it’s littered with them – Covid, capital projects, rebrands, new websites, new strategies, dynamic pricing, comedy festivals – all these moments of iteration from where I was previously. But even those iterations didn’t disguise that change, for me, sometimes needs to be bigger than new things in a role I’m doing.
So I started to chatting to lots of people – finding out about what they do, what’s different to being a Director Of Audiences in a regional producing theatre. There will be people reading this who will know that when we chatted that was the underlying conversation, for others this might be a joining of two dots moment.
I’d been doing some light toe-in-the-water chats, the odd application (one I was really excited about kiboshed somewhat by my son being born on the interview day), then touring shows, and running festivals. The problem is that I was still in my lane, still had the safety net, perhaps trapped in a golden cage of my own making.
The solution to that problem is, I think, to actively make that step, scare myself shitless and take a bit of a risk.
So what next?
I’ve been careful to not say what role I want to do next. Mostly because I want to be open-minded and not get constrained by what I’ve done in the past too much and let my skillset speak a little. What I have though is clarity on what values I need in my working life and the type of people I might like to work for and with. Here goes…
Challenging
I want to do something that I have to work hard on, where I question received wisdom and my own experience to find a path to something really great.
Growth
I want to feel like I’m growing – learning new things, getting new skills – I don’t want to ever look back a year and think “y’know what, I’m the same as I was then”.
Helpful
I take real joy in helping people, making their lives easier, finding a solution where you see that they’ll sleep easier, or feel better, or even better, grow, learn or change.
With kindness and joy
I’m not great at confrontation, or telling hard truths with a hard edge. It’s not me and I mostly think it’s nonsense 99% of the time and unnecessary. That’s not to say I don’t think I can make change – but rather I like taking people on a journey while landing kindness and ideally joy (and occasionally the odd joke…) to make it enjoyable even when it’s tough.
Makes change
I love it when I can see a difference – that “I can see a glimmer of light” moment – where you think this could be the start of something.
A little bit geeky
Let’s not kid ourselves, I love a spreadsheet, and data, and Power Bi and trying to get to the truth of something. I love the odd graph. Occasionally a scatter chart. But never a pie chart. I’m 100% donut.
But wait… I think we’d get on…
I’ve started writing a few applications, and am preparing to drop my CV on lots of desks, and, you’ll have noticed, have completely rewritten this entire website… If you think I might be good for you, or a project, or who you work for then I’d love to hear from you.
Open mind, open heart, open to ideas.