Diane Lees

Creative Choicesº: I'm Kate Brockhurst, welcome to the Creative Choices podcast. The Imperial War Museum is a national museum of 20th-century conflict, founded in 1917. The museum and its governing body, the board of trustees, were formally established by an act of Parliament in 1920. I spoke to Director-General Dianne Lees to hear more.

"You were director of the V&A Museum of Childhood before being appointed as new Director-General of the Imperial War Museum in 2008. How did that transition occur?"

Diane Lees: "It was an interesting recruitment process, I think, because I actually ruled myself out of the job. I thought they wouldn't look at me because I'd not managed an organisation that was multi-site and was quite as big as this one, so I kind of stepped back. And the Director-General Sir Robert Crawford actually said to me that I should put my hat in the ring and have a go, which was hugely encouraging of him, and he didn't have to do that. But I was still quite shocked when they actually gave me the job."

Creative Choicesº: "It must have been a great honour to take on a role which requires approval from the Prime Minister as well."

Diane Lees: "Yes, I didn't quite realise that you get this official letter from Number 10, and then you get a Christmas card every year, so my mother's terribly proud. The honour in it is that you're doing something that's relevant to people as well as having the status of working for a national museum that has a global reach. But also there's a huge amount of honour in being responsible for such a respected brand, and I remember that every day."

Creative Choicesº: "What made you get into the cultural heritage sector?"

Diane Lees: "I'm a second-generation museum curator, which means actually it was not an option. My mother used to take me to work when she worked at Stockport Museum as an education officer. From being eight years old I never wanted to do anything else, so it's kind of in the family blood, really. But I can't imagine being fit for anything else, really. It kind of suits my values and suits the way I think about communication and education and things, so it feels like home."

Creative Choicesº: "What would you say was your typical working day?"

Diane Lees: "There isn't one, actually, and I think that's characteristic of the spread of the organisation. So it can be some of the most fantastic things like an airshow day at Duxford where the Spitfires are flying over, or an American air day when helicopters are landing and the American Air Force are invading Cambridgeshire, which is great. Or it can be a normal day today, business, financial, accounts-based, staffing issues, etc. etc., or it's our relationship with government or military, so it has a huge range. And I certainly think as a museum curator, I didn't expect to have a job that had such a range of diversity."

Creative Choicesº: "As Director-General, you actually oversee five branches and collections archives, how do you manage that responsibility?"

Diane Lees: "Well I couldn't do it unless I had a really strong senior management team, and the directors of the branches plus our corporate directors, and they're all incredibly talented people. And the thing about having them is actually you don't have to do a lot in that sense -- you agree what the priorities are, the targets are set, and then it's their responsibility to deliver. And then it becomes a question of pushing or pulling or troubleshooting or, which I prefer to do, the praising bit, which says 'Well done, it's achieved and it's fantastic.' So although it's a massive responsibility, I couldn't do it without having that strong team that are actually doing the delivery."

Creative Choicesº: "What would you say was the most challenging aspect of the job?"

Diane Lees: "I think there are always challenges where we're facing the public sector cuts that are facing us. I think it's keeping everybody with you more than anything else, because we're a very diverse employer, we have people with lots of different desires and wishes and you can't really please everybody. But we're going through a massive change process because we're building to the centenary of the first World War, which for us is a huge thing. And I think keeping everybody moving forward despite all this stuff that's going on with budgets, I think is probably the biggest challenge. And keeping everybody motivated and assuring them as far as possible that they're not going to be out of work."

Creative Choicesº: "The museum actually does have a wide range of exhibitions and events that cater for all ages. Where do you get your inspiration for maintaining that kind of variety?"

Diane Lees: "Lots of our exhibition ideas come from individuals within the team. And we're encouraging that more, actually. Some of them are very very specific and we have to be careful about making sure there's an audience for them. And some of them like the Ministry of Food came about from a resurgence in people having conversations about home-grown, going a little bit anti-consumer and going 'Well what was it like during the war?' You couldn't automatically go out and buy clothes or food, etc. So some of them are a direct response to what's going off in society, and some of them are just ideas from experts within the collections who go 'This is a really great story.'"

Creative Choicesº: "With war being the focus on some of the exhibitions, do you have to censor certain aspects for the younger audience?"

Diane Lees: "It's difficult with some of the exhibitions. So if you look at the Holocaust exhibition which is now coming up to ten years old, there is a suggested age restriction of not allowing under-14s, and our Crimes Against Humanity gallery which has some pretty powerful filmmaking is the same, but we do allow parents to make the decision. But yes, we do have to think about the appropriateness of what we do."

Creative Choicesº: "You yourself have got a long list of notable achievements within the cultural heritage industry. You were responsible for creating the Galleries of Justice in Nottingham, a trustee of the Story Museum in Oxford, and vice-chair of the Association of Independent Museums. What drives you do take on all these different responsibilities, and how many are you still involved with?"

Diane Lees: "I have a smaller number of external projects, if you like. So I'm no longer the vice-chair of the Association of Independent Museums and I've had to step down from the Story Museum because it related much more to being the director of the Museum of Childhood than it does the Imperial War Museum. And also with this job you get a lot of trusteeships anyway, so there's a balance to how much time you can spend outside the museum. But I've always believed that lots of people throughout my career have shared a huge amount of their time, their advice and their guidance, and I think it's my job to do the same where I can. So if I can help people not make the same mistakes that I've made, or if I can help somebody up the ladder in the same way that I was helped up the ladder, then I think that's the right thing to do. And I think it's one of the great characteristics of working in our sector -- that spirit of generosity is huge. I really firmly believe it's part of my job to give back in that way. I don't want to sound like some charitable gift aid kind of thing, but it really is about supporting the future of the sector."

Creative Choicesº: "What would be your advice to somebody who'd like to take on a leading role within the industry?"

Diane Lees: "I think everybody should judge it from their own perspective, because I get very concerned about all the conversations about leadership being about being at the top of a big organisation. Actually leadership is a characteristic that you can demonstrate anywhere in an organisation. And also I admire those people who don't take the next step up, because actually they believe very firmly in what they're doing where they are. And so my advice would be to be true to yourself, because we all have things going off in our personal lives, we have families, we all have a whole raft of things that influence the decisions we make. I wouldn't want anybody to feel like there's this expectation that you've not achieved anything if you're not sitting at the top of a big organisation, because I think that's self-defeating."

Creative Choicesº: "Our thanks to Dianne Lees for taking time out to talk to us. For more information on the Imperial War Museum, go to www.iwm.org.uk. To listen to other podcasts in this series, visit www.creative-choices.co.uk.