It was the hottest September day since 1911. The date was 13th September 2016, and inside a stiflingly warm studio theatre in Wimbledon, South London, something extraordinary was happening…

Having completed a two-year leadership development program called Rising Stars, eight young ATG leaders were taking their moment in the spotlight, and speaking to an invited audience of senior managers, family, friends, and colleagues. Each Rising Star took to the stage that day to tell their personal leadership story.

Despite having an identical brief, no two presentations were the same. Each young leader showed vulnerability, shared moments of insight, learning, and challenge, and spoke with passion, confidence, and purpose in a voice totally their own.

It was the first time an event like this had taken place in the organization, and looking back, one of the reasons it packed such a punch was that, at some fundamental level, it was so congruent with the business's purpose.

The business revolves around telling engaging stories and expressing thoughts, actions, and emotions at the moment to connect human beings..

ATG Entertainment owns or operates 64 iconic venues worldwide, produces shows, and sells tickets through a large ticketing operation. At its heart, though, whether through theatre, music, or comedy, the business revolves around telling engaging stories and expressing thoughts, actions, and emotions ‘at the moment’ to connect human beings in a darkened auditorium. The self-same thing was happening on that oppressively hot day in 2016, and the impact would prove to be swift and far-reaching.

It stirred something inside the audience that day, particularly senior managers within the business. They looked at these young, impressive leaders, and they felt inspired. They wanted to know how they too could engage an audience like that. They were intrigued by the concepts and learning experiences shared that day, and they wanted to experience something similar. A movement had started.

Interestingly, received wisdom would have us believe that cultural change within an organization must happen at the top first and work down. The reverse was true for us, and future development programs were sanctioned on the strength of the success of Rising Stars which proves you can positively influence leadership culture from any position in the system.

The Rising Stars story started in 2014, with a seemingly straightforward objective around developing our ‘leaders of tomorrow’. We wanted to spot and retain talented people early in their careers and remove barriers preventing internal progression. We wanted to break down silos within the business too and create a trusted talent pipeline.

Alumni now sit on Rising Stars interview panels, and some join our coaching faculty, all of which create a virtuous circle of development and support.

We also wanted to involve as much of the business as possible in the identification and selection of talent. Anyone could apply for the scheme, as long as their application was endorsed by their line manager and another senior sponsor within the business. This encouraged discussions to take place throughout ATG about performance, ambition, leadership potential, and learning. Key senior managers were also involved in the selection process. In readiness for the program launch in 2014, we trained a group of managers to be able to have one-on-one coaching conversations with our Rising Stars and further support their growth. For this, we partnered with the Academy of Executive Coaching (AoEC), which ran an in-house certificate program for us. This element has gone from strength to strength, and in 2021, sixteen managers completed the AoEC Practitioner Diploma in Executive Coaching, becoming qualified executive coaches. An ATG internal coaching faculty is now in operation supporting all our Rising Stars, and providing coaching services to the wider business.

Leading Lights has been described as ‘transformational’ and ‘life-changing’ by participants.

Care is taken selecting each cohort of Rising Stars. First, there is an application form that asks key questions, testing leadership potential and alignment with the company’s vision and values. Stage two is a presentation and interview to a small panel. Here we set applicants a creative presentation brief, often asking them to play with metaphor to help describe their aspirations.

As the years progressed, leaders who had completed Rising Stars joined an alumni group and got actively involved in the selection process for future participants. Alumni now score application forms, sit on Rising Stars interview panels, and join our coaching faculty, all of which create a virtuous circle of development and support.

Each cohort is carefully chosen, ensuring there is a good mix of people from different disciplines across the organization. We also aim to get a good geographical spread, with people taking part everywhere from Torquay to Glasgow. This is important for a big organization like ours. Building a groupwide network helps to break down silos, give people a clearer sense of the bigger picture, and a greater feeling of belonging.

The slightest trace of self-doubt, indecision, or a lack of commitment and the horse will stop and refuse to move until you are bringing your best.

We have found that an early focus on presentation skills seems to accelerate leadership growth with our emerging leaders. Early on, we ask our Rising Stars to prepare a five-minute presentation on something they are passionate about – and we have had everything from Lego to Lord of the Rings! This is often an early turning point for many participants. So much of what naturally comes out of a person when they are talking about something they are passionate about, once identified and remembered, can be applied to any presentation. We share grounding techniques to lower the stakes for people, so they can be at ease and present in a way that feels true to who they are.

Before the group does their ‘passion’ presentations we always do an exercise where they close their eyes, and are then taken on a guided experience, which culminates in them identifying a time, or place, where they have felt calm, safe, confident, and loved. They are asked to conjure up an image and feel it somatically something that can be summoned up when required. I will never forget one of our Rising Stars lost his way during his presentation but rather than panic and potentially give up, he took a moment, paused, closed his eyes, and remembered his grounding image from the morning exercise (for him it was his young kids)… He was able to quickly re-group and get back into the flow of his presentation.

I co-facilitated the program with an external coach/facilitator called Nicky Stone. Nicky brings knowledge, stories, and expertise from other sectors and industries, and I bring over 25 years of experience working at ATG. In another example of the virtuous circle, I now have an L&D Manager called Rosie Preston, who was herself a Rising Star in Cohort 3 of the program. Rosie now fulfills the internal facilitation role, as I turn my attention to new programs and initiatives.

A series of day-long workshops on a variety of subjects from creative thinking to time management are delivered (around six a year) as part of Rising Stars. Crucially though, at the beginning of every session, participants are given time to check in with one another, talk about how they have applied the learning from previous sessions, and share the highs and lows. This, without a doubt, has helped to create a psychologically safe environment and enabled our leaders to show vulnerability, gain support, and grow as individuals and as a collective.

At the beginning of the second year, Rising Stars complete a Hogan Personality Assessment and are given feedback on the results in a one-to-one coaching session. Being aware of your ‘derailers’ and knowing how certain strengths can be overplayed, causing reputational damage, is powerful learning. Raising awareness of this and finding ways to effectively ‘turn down the volume’ on derailing behavior can be a real game-changer. Having a report that essentially tells you what your drivers are and what needs to be present in your life and work to create a sense of fulfillment, can also be reassuring and instructive, unlocking insight into why a person might get drawn to certain types of work, or equally, the kind of work someone might struggle with.

Following the success of Rising Stars I was asked to develop a leadership development programme for senior managers at ATG. This eventually became Leading Lights, which consists of a Hogan personality assessment with feedback before commencement, two separate residential weeks of learning, and six one-to-one coaching sessions with an external executive coach in between.

Leading Lights has been described as ‘transformational’ and ‘life-changing’ by participants. The first week focuses on emotional intelligence and coaching skills for leaders and week two is themed around storytelling and creativity in leadership. In addition to our core facilitation team of Zoe Cogan, Caroline Lansbury, and Nicky Stone, each week includes sessions with influential master coaches, thought leaders, and authors like Dr John Blakey, Sheila Campbell-Lloyd, Dr Sarah Hill, and Dr Carole Pemberton. These incredible contributors not only share their insights on key subjects such as trust, neuroscience, childhood stories, and resilience, but they also model how to hold a space, listen, ask questions, and be curious.

Some people doubt the long-term impact a leadership program can have on a person, and maybe the effect can be short-lived for some, but for others, it can be something else entirely. I remember one Leading Lights participant describing himself as ‘authoritarian’ and ‘a bit of a dictator’ before attending the course. He also reported severe pain in his neck and shoulder a physical manifestation of the stress he felt at work. Learning coaching skills and hearing from successful people who used coaching as a way of leading, led to a transformational change in him. He realized how wasteful it was to resort to ‘telling people what to do’ and not tapping into the creativity and resourcefulness of his team. He also realized the negative impact his behavior was having on people who worked for him and wanted to change. He bravely went back to his venue and told people what he had learned, and the changes he wanted to make, and sought their help. He asked them to tell him if his ‘old’ behaviors started to creep back in. Sure enough, they told him when they saw signs of retrenchment, he would thank them, go off to his office, shut the door, and ground himself, using mindfulness techniques he had learned on the program. A year later he said, ‘If you talked to people that worked for me pre and post-Leading Lights, they’ll tell you I’m a different person.’ Seven years later he is still maintaining a more people-focused approach and reports that he has not experienced the pain in his neck and shoulder since doing Leading Lights.

By 2018 we had two highly successful leadership development programs, but many middle managers felt excluded. In response, we launched Interval in November 2019.

‘Interval’ means ‘the space between two things’, and the concept behind the program was to provide a space for experienced managers to take time out, reflect, and engage with up-to-date leadership approaches and techniques, connect with their purpose, and lead with greater authenticity and confidence. I co-facilitate the program with Sarah Rozenthuler, a chartered psychologist, leadership coach, and author of ‘Powered by Purpose’. Here we use David Kantor’s Structural Dynamics and participants complete a bMaps psychometric to examine behavioural patterns in low and high stakes. Knowledge of Kantor’s model provides leaders a chance to read rooms and expand their behavioral and communicative repertoire to get better outcomes.

The unique feature of Interval is an outdoor workshop in Staffordshire with Jude Jennison and her herd of horses. The horse workshops are incredibly powerful and provide experiences that stay in the memory of a lifetime (just like great theatre). What is so fascinating is that the degree to which a horse will allow you to lead them depends on several key things. The first is the energy you bring and whether the horses feel safe with you. Then it is the quality of the relationship you build – do you take time to build rapport, show respect, and build trust? Or do you move straight into action and attempt to ‘pull’ the horse along? You also need to be clear on direction, make decisions, and confidently bring the horse with you. The slightest trace of self-doubt, indecision, or a lack of commitment and the horse will stop and refuse to move until you are bringing your best. Jude is incredibly skilled as a coach and facilitator and can quickly draw out the parallels between what is happening in the arena with her horses and what might be taking place for you in the workplace. With uncanny accuracy, the horses provide crystal-clear non-verbal feedback to participants, which, once interpreted, can be applied to human interactions back in the office. The results have been profound. One participant told us,

‘I was very skeptical before the horse workshop but was blown away by what I gained from that session. I like to think it has made me both a better leader, but also a better manager who continually supports and encourages their team to be better leaders and team members themselves.’

In addition to these four core programs, we have also added Open Space, a virtual program, which concentrates on inclusive leadership. Led by coach, facilitator, and author Salma Shah, Open Space has been designed to help leaders build equitable, inclusive, and diverse workplaces for all. This program creates a safe space for a culturally diverse group of leaders to share different lived experiences, and explore identity, belonging, and how this can impact on our personal and work systems. It ends with a showcase event, where participants will invite allies and influential ATG leaders to join them, hear what they have learned, how they have applied it, and what more can be done to support this tremendously important work.

So, what has been learned from the story so far here at ATG Entertainment?

1. Leadership development can start anywhere. You don’t necessarily have to start at the top and work down. You can start anywhere, but make sure you ask something of your leaders and give them a means to talk about how they have applied the learning and thereby, amplify their great work, and inspire others.

2. Involve the wider business. The more people get involved, talking about what great leadership looks like, talking about who has potential and what they might need to grow and thrive, the more the organization benefits.

3. Coaching supports growth and accelerates development. Coaching is a golden thread running through all our programs and teaching leaders coaching skills and giving them access to a coach themselves, makes all the difference. Leaders need to work on themselves just as hard as they work on projects, tasks, and other people.

4. Don’t write people off. Avoid making assumptions about people and change. Keep an open mind. In my experience, it is often the most unlikely people who end up connecting with a subject or technique and changing the most.

5. Create unique, memorable, learning experiences that make learning stick and potentially stay with learners for a lifetime.

Which brings me neatly back to the beginning. Being in that audience in 2016, watching young leaders in their element, presenting with passion and integrity. Just like the memory of a great show – it still makes me tingle.