by Lisa Richards Toney, President and CEO of APAP
When this article is published, the team at APAP will be getting ready for a break following our massive annual conference. Or, if you happen to read this article in February, we will already be on that break—for a full month. Yes, you read that correctly: no tasks to execute and no emails to check, for an entire month.
Depending on where you live and the work culture you’re accustomed to, you might react very differently to this news.
But of course! It is only right to let workers who have been putting in extra hours take off time, in addition to our legally protected summer and holiday breaks.
Hmmm. That’s an interesting idea. I’m curious, how will that work? What’s the ROI on that?
OMG! Are you sure that’s possible? What if something happens? I realise we’re not first responders, but…
I’ll be honest, even among my staff, there is a range of emotions surrounding this break. As Americans, the Puritanical work ethic tends to dominate our mindset; it feels unnatural not to work all the time. And because APAP is a service organisation, it can feel counter to our charge.
And that is precisely why we need this break.
The “Why” of rest
Anyone who has had the privilege of a sabbatical of any kind knows the benefits. According to AI, “A sabbatical can benefit employees by allowing them to recharge, reduce burnout, gain new skills and perspectives, improve work-life balance, boost creativity and potentially enhance job satisfaction and loyalty, ultimately leading to increased productivity and retention within a company; essentially providing a chance to refresh and return with renewed focus and motivation.”
As a team, APAP is taking what we call a “purposeful pause” for the entire month of February, following our 2025 conference. As we gear up this Spring to complete the first-year milestones of our five-year Sustainability Plan and upgrade our CRM database—the backbone of any membership organisation’s operational infrastructure—we are about to face substantial work apart from our normal day-to-day activites.
With so much accomplished and so much work to do ahead, I find myself asking, “How can we take this break?” and then responding to myself, “How can we not take this break?”
We at APAP are used to being the givers, the rescuers, the bringers of energy, hope, resources and solutions. That most of our team’s leaders are women, and many, women of colour, only adds to the spoken and unspoken expectations. It almost goes without saying (but there, I said it) that we’ve had to pull deep from our professional and emotional well over the last five years, given the pandemic and recovery.
Now, we are being called to expand and evolve. This time of pause—of rest—is an essential next step so we can be at our best to serve the field.
Good for whose health?
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) champions the arts in America as providing many positive outcomes, not the least of which is good health and wellbeing. This is not surprising given that the arts are human-centred, especially the live performing arts.
The flip side of that equation is that, like other human-centred occupations, working in the arts takes an extraordinary amount of energy—energy that needs to be replenished.
I know we’re passionate—we love the excitement of working all hours and the challenge of a good hustle—but aren’t we all also a little… burnt out?
Speaking of human energy, we cannot forget that our teams are made of people. Sadly, work culture frequently deems people to be an expendable resource.
By embracing the pause, we are demonstrating that we appreciate and value our people. Centring people is key to our sustainability. (No one ever talks about the people doing the work, so it is worth highlighting that we want to invest in our people.) For APAP, our members benefit when we are at our best. Our Sustainability Plan can be executed because of our readiness.
Futhermore, the only way the arts can support the health and wellbeing of our communities is for us to also take care of our own health and wellbeing.
We need to model good health and put on our own oxygen masks first.
Moving forward authentically
The pandemic tore down the fourth wall between us as professional colleagues. In a strangely revealing way, while we were apart, in our hermetically sealed Zoom squares, we saw each other as real people—at home, in the context of our everyday lives, often accompanied by curious children or furry animals.
As a CEO, there’s a role that I play. There is a CEO outfit, there’s a CEO persona, there’s a CEO voice. If defined by title alone, this can feel prescriptive and performative. However, the removal of that fourth wall opened us to being more relatable and authentic. We can see each other more clearly and experience each other more truthfully.
To be more present, more authentic, better leaders, we owe it to ourselves to also rest. And the rest will follow.
And so, here we are—just being, before we get back to all the doing. Whether or not I have made a new convert by the end of this article may not be the point.
To that end, I’ll see you again in March.
To learn more, visit: