You've got a good job - great money, fun colleagues, interesting clients, lots of travel... So what would make you want give all that up to manage the Institute of Contemporary Arts?
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Date: 12 February 2007
You've got a good job - great money, fun colleagues, interesting clients, lots of travel... So what would make you want give all that up to manage the Institute of Contemporary Arts?
Here's the deal. You've just turned forty. You have everything you ever wanted in your personal life - loving wife, fabulous children, nice home - the works. You've got a good job - great money, fun colleagues, interesting clients, lots of travel. Your bosses leave you pretty much to your own devices. You work hard, but you can afford wonderful holidays and relaxation. You have all the "stuff" you need or want. You're in cruise control.
So what would make you want give all that up to manage the Institute of Contemporary Arts?
For me it was a no brainer. After working for 20 years in the City, I reached that point (like many others) when I realised I had a lot of "stuff", and yet going to work every day was getting harder and harder. Before any divorce lawyers try to contact my wife as a potential client, let me say that I had and have absolutely no complaints on the home front - I consider myself blessed. Work was the problem, and the way my life had had to be relegated to meet the demands of the job. Of course, I liked the money and the travel. It's all very well accumulating enough air miles to fly your family first class to the planet Neptune and back, but when the check-in staff at Heathrow start to recognise you and call you by your first name, you know it's time to give up your business class seat to the next young Turk.
I trained as a lawyer, and I've always believed in the importance of honouring your contracts - pacta sunt servanda, don't you know. I made my contract with the City. I was happy to sign on, and the deal was very clear. Obligations of the employer: to pay you a lot of money. Obligations of the employee: to agree to miss your children's' birthdays and school events, to cancel or cut short holidays, to spend not less than two hours per day on holiday answering emails and faxes, to stand your partner up at social events with little or no warning, to disappoint your friends, to endure the often irrational demands of clients with no demur, to belittle the efforts of competitors and colleagues for the sake of advancement. Not much of a trade. But for 20 years I thought it was, and I enjoyed it. It was exciting, it was interesting, I met some fascinating people and travelled to amazing places. But then the contract started to seem too one-sided. The company seemed to be getting a lot more from our relationship than I was - a dangerous development in any relationship. So I had to break it off. I flattered myself into thinking the company would be heart-broken by my departure. I told the company she would get over me quickly, and find someone better, smarter, more dynamic. And, sure enough, she did: thousands of them. But what could I find?
Sadly, I quickly had to rule out playing football in the Premiership, or training to be an astronaut, or dancing at Covent Garden. But then I got very lucky. I saw an ad in the Guardian for the MD position at the ICA. I knew it was a great place, and I had very happy memories of it (e.g. going to an exhibition there to try to impress an early date and almost succeeding). Before you could say "corporate finance" I had my CV in the post. My initial hopes were modest: I would have been happy simply to be called for an interview. But things appeared to go well, and before I knew it (and actually before telling my close family) I received the offer from the ICA. In fact, I received the call from the ICA's chairman, Alan Yentob, while I was driving back from Heathrow after what felt like my 651st business trip to Warsaw. I was driving on the Earl's Court Road when I took the call, and I got so excited, that it was almost the last call I ever took.
I resigned from my job - to the bewilderment of my colleagues - and took the longest holiday I had ever taken since I started working in 1985. I began to think about my new job, and my new life, and I started to worry. Could I make the transition? Would I suffer by not having an "arts" background? How would my new colleagues react to having a City type in their midst? What would I do with all my business suits? (You'll have to read future blogs to get some of these answers).
Fast forward 15 months and here I am. Happy. I meet my City friends and some of them inevitably ask "was it worth it?", secretly hoping I will say "Oh my God, what a mistake, pleeeease let me come back". I hate to disappoint my erstwhile companions, but - yes, it was definitely worth it... My job at the ICA is exciting, interesting, challenging and fun - and the same could be said of my new colleagues. Of course I miss the money the City gives you, but there's a lot I don't miss. Like the annual year-end pantomime that is the bonus round. Like all good pantos, it's always the same routine:
Employee: I want a bigger bonus !!
Employer: There's no more money left !!
Employee: Oh yes there is !!
Employer: Oh no there isn't !!
Employee: Oh yes there is !!
And so on until the usual resignation threats are made. In all the years I worked in the City, I could count the number of people who were actually happy with their lot on the fingers of one hand - provided that hand had had a number of digits amputated. I knew a lot of dissatisfied people, who usually believed their "true value" was not being fully recognised, and that everyone else was doing better than they were. Perhaps it is precisely this paranoid insatiability that drives the industry and makes the City the commercial success it is, but that doesn't make it any easier to work there. And let's face it, most people would find it pretty difficult to feel sorry for a thirty-plus year old who's making £1 million a year but feels he should be making £2 million. So now, I'm much happier to find myself in an environment where people do the job not because of the money, but despite it. That's not to say money isn't important - of course it is. We want and we need better conditions to attract and retain staff. But the attitude is different. Our staff care about the ICA. There is a loyalty born out of affection for the institution and the role it strives to play. That is such a refreshing change for me, and it is an attitude which as Managing Director I want to encourage and reinforce.
So I've hung up my Hermes ties, handed back my Blackberry, cancelled my subscription to the FT and (most painfully) relinquished my British Airways Gold Card. The City was great fun, but it's well and truly behind me. Oh yes it is.