In this episode, theatre director and experience designer Donnacadh O’Briain shares the story of a radical leadership programme that replaced slides and classrooms with a fully immersive, story-led experience. Leaders were thrown into a live theatrical world, forced to navigate real conversations, power dynamics, and decisions in real time.
This conversation explores why experiential learning creates deeper behavioural change and what organisations can learn from the rehearsal room about leadership, trust, and human connection.
• 00:00 – From Theatre to Leadership Learning
• 07:10 – Why Traditional Leadership Training Falls Short
• 14:30 – Inside the Live Theatre Leadership Experiment
• 24:40 – Freezing Time: Learning Through Real Decisions
• 34:50 – The Impact on Leaders and Organisational Culture
• 44:10 – What Theatre Teaches Us About Leading Humans
• 51:00 – The Future of Experiential Leadership Development
Bio:
Donnacadh is an Olivier and Offie Award-winning Director, Experience Designer and Story Architect specialising in live theatre, immersive experiences and experiential learning. He is a cross-industry expert in story and narrative. His wide-ranging career has seen him working on everything from musicals, Shakespeare, West End comedies, and large-scale immersive LBE's, to consulting on story and branding and creating innovative learning projects for major companies in the US and Europe.
Recent clients have ranged from entertainment IP giants to Fortune 500 finance and tech companies and Hollywood production houses. He is a TEDx speaker, has given lectures and mentored at institutions such as Cambridge University & RADA, and spent a year as an Associate Fellow of Creativity at Warwick University.
Connect with Donnacadh
https://www.linkedin.com/in/donnacadh-o-briain-35788837/