PAUL WILLIAMSON
TALENT DEVELOPMENT
Nurturing talent & leadership IN A GL OB ALLY MOBILE INDUS TR Y
Marianne Curphey talks to Paul Williamson, Head of Talent, Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG), and finds out how strategies developed in the theatre world can be applied to other business sectors.
H
ow do you spot and nurture the managers and leaders of tomorrow – and how do you give staff valuable international experience to enhance their skill set? That’s the
question for many professionals working in the global mobility sector and one that Paul Williamson from Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG) addressed at the Festival of Global People in May. Williamson, who is head of talent development at ATG, is a chartered member of the CIPD, an experienced presenter and facilitator, and an AoEC qualified executive coach. Spotting talent and designing a training programme
that creates the leaders of tomorrow was the subject of his talk, Innovation – How a dynamic theatre group takes to the stage. Williamson described two innovative leadership programmes, ‘Leading Lights’ and ‘Rising Stars’, which identify potential and existing talent, and invest time and money over a period of years in order to help managers work on their personal and professional skills. ‘Leading Lights’, a leadership development programme for senior leaders,
includes strategy
and purpose, emotional intelligence, coaching skills, resilience, managing and motivating teams, presentation skills and trust. Williamson also developed ‘Rising
Stars’, a two-year development programme for emerging leaders. This programme provides high-level support through executive coaching and psychometric personality assessment for leaders within the business to enhance their performance and meet their strategic objectives.
A GLOBAL LIVE-ENTERTAINMENT BUSINESS ATG is the world’s largest live theatre group, with 50 venues in Britain, the USA and Germany, and international sales of £155.8 million. This year, it was one of the Sunday Times International Track 200 companies, with 4,400 employees and a 62 per cent annual international sales growth per annum over two years. ATG is an internationally recognised and award-winning producer and operates a market-leading theatre ticketing business. Williamson is an HR professional with experience devising and
implementing learning and development strategy for a global live- entertainment business. He has worked in the theatre industry for more than 20 years, enjoying leadership roles in sales and ticketing prior to moving into HR. “I have spent all my life in the theatre and a lot of the language we use in the theatre also gets used in business,” he says. “The language of performing at our best is at the heart of our business – our business is about getting fantastic performances on stage. It’s about inspiring people – if actors are not performing to their very best, the audience know about it.”
EXPERIENCING DIFFERENT WORKING ENVIRONMENTS That commitment to inspiration and excellence is echoed across the globe, with staff from ATG moving between venues and experiencing different working environments as part of their personal and professional development. “We are asking that of people in organisations all over the world,” he says. “We are asking them to perform at their best all of the time. I am interested in how that works in terms of being creative and innovative, something that many businesses are now having to embrace. There is so much change going on, and the need to adapt and develop. It’s about how to create an environment where we can innovate.” One of Williamson’s particular interests is on new ways to lead
and what leadership means in the 21st century. “In terms of leadership, the culture of an organisation can be affected, for good or bad, by how receptive its leaders are to new ideas,” he says. “Leaders are having to become more like coaches – the ‘hero’ style of leadership is becoming quite outdated.”
Andy Lawson, Technical Manager, Lyceum Theatre, presented ‘The show must go on – my leadership journey’ at the Festival of Global People.
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