Knowing When to Leave The Stage
I LOVED my career at The Metropolitan Museum of Art for the majority of my 28.5 years there. I say majority since there were a few years of ‘not love’ but that’s not the point of this story (plus who can love something 100% of the time — anyone reading this ever been married?). During these decades of LOVE I had the privilege to work side by side with the frontline teams who welcomed more than 150,000,000 visitors in that period of time. This story is dedicated to them since they made me the leader/human I am today.
Last year I decided it was time to end the love fest in pursuit of something new, something unknown, something different, something quite frankly I cannot explain. My inner voice started screaming “it’s time for a bigger stage, Will” is the best I can do in terms of an explanation. Many will categorize this story as The Great Resignation but that was not even on my radar when my decision was made last Spring.
For most of my career I was part of an ecosystem which interviewed, hired, developed, promoted, coached, and encouraged thousands of people who are now out in the universe doing great things. All of these people welcomed and served millions of people each year into three museum locations and multiple retail stores throughout the USA. None of this ever felt like work to me, it just felt right so getting up to go to work each day was pure joy. The cumulative effect of all these human interactions has left a permanent mark on my soul in a way that is unique — honestly do not know of anyone who can say they have done what I have in this world. Maybe some folks at Disney?! What a Masters Class in humanities!
Now about the people I love and how they shaped me. Living in NYC is amazing since we get to meet people from around the globe in nearly every corner of the city. First, the visitors to The Met come from far and wide so English was often a second language in The Great Hall — body language, smiles, and hand gestures communicate so much when words fail. Second, the frontline teams I stood with represent the five boroughs in a way that the executive teams do not (yes, they are working on that but again that’s not this story). I often think about the small everyday things I learned from visitors and staff which is not taught in a classroom, like how different cultures celebrate birthdays, arrange weddings, deal with loss, or prefer to be greeted. No one taught me or the team how to anticipate, read, or “feel” what the customer wanted – you learn by doing it not talking about it. The best people in the service industry do it from a human place, an empathetic place, a kind place. Without all of these human interactions I would not have become the leader and ‘expert’ I am today. I’m not an expert because I know more than others, I’m an expert because I can literally ‘feel’ a room and understand the vibe of a team or a crowd from an instinctual place. Those 150M+ souls are part of me now and the energy from them needs to be put to better use.
So in summary I write this story truly for myself to better define who I am as a leader and help me shape the company I formed, aspiring better human™️. I named the company as a nod to all the ‘aspiring’ actors, singers, dancers, lawyers, curators, etc. who I hired over the years – all of them came to NYC with a dream to be better, to make it big. I too at this stage in life have aspirations to be a better human. So darn lucky to have had such a wonderful classroom.
Hope this story can help someone reading this to also step into their own light.
