Reflections on Toolbox International 2022
LEAP – BELIEF – SUPPORT – GROW – TIME – OPEN
Over the past few months, I’ve engaged in Toolbox International, an online leadership and professional development programme for arts in public space, with participants across the UK, Denmark, Portugal and Spain.
It’s been a pleasure to connect with the other producers and artists working across festivals and other contexts in Europe. Although our individual challenges have some differences, we all share some common struggles around imposter syndrome, time management and capacity, and confidence in making the right career decisions. These were interrogated through a series of active learning sets.
We have explored leadership in our own contexts, through the coaching leadership style, whilst thinking about our emotional intelligence and developing our active listening skills. I was already very aware of the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, but very interested to discover the Tony Robbins Model of Our 6 Human Needs, which really made me think about my own needs, motivations and what makes me thrive.
I’ve been especially struggling with saying no. Why do I continue to take on more work when I’m already at my maximum working capacity? I’ve been reflecting on this for some time now. Taking the leap to be fully freelance in March this year (2022) was something I’d been working towards for some time. With a mortgage to pay, a growing family and now the cost of living crisis, it was a big risk to leave my role working in a local authority. I’ve been growing my networks and reputation, connecting with old contacts and making lots of new ones. I have wanted to jump right in and explore all the potential work opportunities, which has been amazing and I feel very fortunate about the projects I’ve had the pleasure to work on and the people I’ve been working with. But I am now starting to make some tough decisions about the work I take, based on what I want to do, and also, unfortunately, how much it will pay.
Through Toolbox, we’ve also looked at the career pathways of producers working in art in public space, hearing from some inspirational people like Vicki Amedume. She spoke about taking opportunities because they help achieve goals, not just growth for growth’s sake. Support was also highlighted as a key factor in success, building good teams and choosing focused roles within projects.
Toolbox also made me think about the both positives and negatives of replicated touring content (through programmes such as Without Walls) at outdoor arts festivals across the UK (and Europe), but that’s a discussion for another day…
I hope moving forward into 2023 that I can take the opportunity to think more strategically about my work. Recently, I’ve done some work on my vision and mission, which I will share soon.