Chris Norton: 1:04

Most leaders know that people are the biggest driver of change. Yet when businesses scale fast, leadership often lags behind. Cultures freeze, silos form, and ROI quietly dies. Today's guest has seen this happen everywhere, from FTSE100 giants to founder scale-led startups. Claire Koryczan, founder and director of Imagine Beyond, has spent 25 years helping leaders unlock creativity, curiosity, and clarity through the lens of neuroscience and human behaviour. But as she'll share, her own path into leadership wasn't straight, and the mistakes along the way have taught her lessons that every CMO needs right now. Welcome to Embracing Marketing Mistakes, the podcast that helps you grow your brand faster by learning from the mistakes of the world's top marketers and leaders. I'm Chris Norton, and my mission is to help you, the senior marketer, avoid the traps others have fallen into so you can build a thriving brand. Today, Claire joins us to talk about the neuroscience behind persuasion, why teams stall in the so-called frozen middle, and the leadership blind spots that quietly kill ROI. We'll explore her backstory, what drove her into this space, plus the biggest mistakes she's seen at the top level of business, and of course her own mistakes too. Claire will break down how to build agile, curious teams that thrive through disruption, the brain-based hacks leaders can use to boost creativity in campaign ROI, and the hidden traps every marketer should watch for. So, as always, sit back, relax, and let's hear how you can avoid the mistakes that derail both campaigns and in this case, cultures. Enjoy. Claire Koryczan, welcome to the show.

Claire: 2:51

Thank you, Chris. And Will, hello, good morning. It's great to be here with you.

Chris Norton: 2:56

Yeah, good. Um, so can you I mean, you you you you're an expert in neuroscience. I'm gonna just play the total layman's term for the listeners and myself. Can you please explain what the hell neuroscience is and why it's important to what we do?

Claire: 3:12

So it's the study of how the brain works, and the way that I like to think about it is it really helps us to understand why we do the things that we do at a much deeper level than psychology. So it looks at what's happening in your physiology, how that links to your brain, your thoughts, your emotions, your actions. And the more that we can understand what's going on for us at a scientific level, the more informed we'll be, but also the greater the decisions we will be able to take moving forward.

Chris Norton: 3:48

And you and is this more for leaders? Like, and and we're talking obviously ours as a marketing podcast, but we've got leaders in, you've got CEOs and we've got marketing directors and things, and they've got lead teams. So is it like useful for motivating staff? Because we've we've all a lot of us have done disc training. And are you a blah, are you a blue, are you a yellow, are you a red? I can't remember what that training's called. I've read a book on it as well. Um, but the you know, the personality training, we've all sort of done that. How does this sort of relate to that, or is it very, very similar?

Claire: 4:19

It does relate to that, and it looks at things not just in terms of your preferences, which is what DISC and Insights and the Psychometrics do. They tell you how you like to work, how you like to communicate, how that might be different from somebody who's a different colour or a different type to you. What neuroscience does is looks at, you know, how you're showing up as a leader. So it is for leaders, but it's also for everyone. And I only learn, um, so I studied neuroscience in leadership back in 2019. And prior to that, I was leading teams, you know, loving doing all of that, motivating, inspiring people to do their best work, helping them on their career journeys. But if I'd have known then what I knew now, what I know now in terms of what I've learned through the study of neuroscience, I would have been able to not only show up even better as a leader, but also understand what those triggers are in terms of that threat reward system, which would help me to motivate the teams even more, but also take people on that journey as well in a way that's going to get the best out of them. So, yeah, it's it's for everyone, even more so for leaders, I would say, that are managing and leading teams.

Will Ockenden: 5:41

So, would you um if you're working with a leader and you were looking at kind of assessing how effective they are and how they can improve, how do you go about kind of, I suppose, auditing their leadership style? And how would you apply neuroscience to that? Is there a one-size-fits-all or is it a completely bespoke approach?

Claire: 6:00

Well, what I would say, Will, is that every leader is different and their leadership style is going to be based on their values, their strengths, their preferences, this their communication style. So all of those things come from those psychometrics that you can that you can determine. But the thing that makes neuroscience different and interesting, and I like to think of it like this: as leaders, we are broadcasting all the time in terms of our energy, in terms of, you know, when we walk into a room, that energy transference, even if it's just a virtual room, as the leader, everyone is looking at you for the tone and to role model the behaviors that that everyone else then um looks towards. And so recognizing how you are walking into that room from a brain science perspective. So, for example, imagine you've had you've had a tricky morning, you know, your kids have been challenging in terms of getting them to school. Uh, you know, you've got a 9 a.m. meeting that you need to prepare for, you're running late, you know, the stress is high, the cortisol is racing around your bloodstream. Why do you have been watching my morning? Every morning. You want to show up in that meeting in the best possible way, but you've been juggling and cognitively, that's a lot that's going on, not just emotionally, but physically, mentally. You need to go into that meeting, showing up as your best possible self and for your brain to be working optimally. What you don't want to be doing is bringing all of that into the meeting so that everyone who's in that meeting can really feel what's going on. And the reason that they can feel what's going on is because of mirror neurons in our brain. Mirror neurons are like the activating cells that pick up the actions that are happening in others, and it's particularly important when it comes to leaders because everyone's looking at you to set the tone. So when you're coming in, maybe frustrated, I'm not saying you're doing this well, but I'm just sort of uh hypothetically speaking, you know, if you if we're bringing any of that sort of negative energy or stress or anxiety into that meeting, first of all, that's going to transfer in terms of um the rest of the group dynamics. And so recognizing and just taking a pause, maybe it's just you know, a couple of seconds, five deep breaths in and out, so you regulate that stress hormone, you can just think much more clearly so that you can go into that meeting as the best version of yourself, and it's just small things like that that can make a massive difference.

Will Ockenden: 8:56

Yeah, I was gonna say, I mean, what you know, it's quite I think people will be quite interested in that. That's something a lot of us go through. You know, you hit you have a horrendous phone caller, then you've got to go and do a presentation in front of the whole company or or whatever it may be. So, what else can leaders do to try and um I suppose separate that stress? You know, you talked about kind of breathing exercises and things like that. What what else can they do to kind of show up um as their most positive self in in those scenarios?

Claire: 9:24

Well, the first the first thing is absolutely pause. Don't do anything when you're sort of shooting from the hip in that heightened state of emotion or stress. One thing I would do is um just very quickly before I answer that question, is just talk about the how the how the brain operates. So I like to um when I share about this for learners, I like uh sorry, for leaders. When I share this for leaders, I like to look at the brain in in these two ways. So you've got the prefrontal cortex, which is your executive functioning, this part of the brain right at the front, which is where we do our most strategic, creative, complex problem solving. You know, that part is metabolically demanding, it has a finite about amount of resource. It needs glucose, it needs oxygen, you know, and we want that as leaders to be functioning as optimally as possible. And then you have the limbic region, which is your emotional core, that sits deeper in the brain, and in there you've got um your memory in terms of you know, that emotional memory, you've got the amygdala, which is the threat response that can trigger, you've got that your hormones, which is why your hormones kind of like connect to your motion emotions. And if you, you know, if you've got someone that's in perimorse, sorry, somebody that's in perimenopause like I am, and you've got teenage kids, you know, that heightened state of emotions can be a an interesting cocktail of you know interactions, and then you've got the basal ganglia, which is your reward habit-forming centers. And the reason why I share that with you both and and for your listeners is that that limbic region, that emotional center, is five times stronger than your rational executive functioning pre-frontal cortex. So when you're you're triggered by something that overrides and shuts down this part of the brain, you go into like activation for fight, flight, freeze. And you know, there's uh there's a lovely kind of the pause is really important, which is why I said do five long deep breaths. And when we're only operating from our emotional center, we're never gonna be making good judgments or good decisions, we're gonna be acting on emotion, and that might be more reactive uh rather than considered irresponsive. So to give yourself that pause is really powerful, but also I say there's a 90-second rule. If you can just give yourself 90 seconds in between going into that meeting and actually stepping into that meeting, either physically or um virtually, that 90-second pause is a really powerful antidote to what is going on in terms of you know you being able to bring the best version of yourself into that meeting. So I would say 90 seconds, do some deep breathing, change your environment, even if it's just stepping outside, getting some fresh air, you know, changing your environment changes your perspective, it changes your mindset, it does it sort of physically and mentally and emotionally, and all of these things can just help you show up in the best way.

Chris Norton: 12:46

Would you would you say then that meetings back to back is an awful decision and you should always have some sort of buffer between two meetings? Because client meetings, sometimes people put them in in your diary and they're just back to back to back to back. And I try to put like a 10-minute buffer, so I try to put meetings in for 50 minutes if I can, but clients love clients love an hour. Everyone seems to love to put a nice round number in. And actually, I always think you could probably do it in 45 minutes, and um, and then you could have 15 minutes to five minutes to catch up and five minutes to relax. And I don't know, what's your hot tip there then?

Claire: 13:50

Yeah, I would say any, even if it's just a minute, right? That 90 seconds, if you can give yourself that time to pause, that just resets the nervous system, which means that you can come in with your optimum cognitive functioning, which is going to mean that you can, you know, problem solve or think creatively and connect the dots in different and interesting ways, and and feel relaxed because when we're going from meeting to meeting to meeting, your adrenaline is getting higher, the stress is getting higher, and when we're constantly sort of like pushing the boundaries in terms of uh cortisol and adrenaline, that can impair our decision making. It can, you know, we might become a bit more conflicted or you know um reactive in those conversations because we haven't given our brains and our bodies the opportunity just to, you know, reset.

Chris Norton: 14:47

So, what is it then that you do that you do then? Is you walk leaders, whatever, whatever sector they're in, marketing, leadership and CEOs or whatever. Are you putting together like a program to help coach them through the day-to-day? Or is it how how how does it work? What sort of things do you do for leaders?

Claire: 15:06

So there's a couple of things I do specifically around neuroscience. So I have my entrepreneurial leader program, which is all about understanding the entrepreneurial mindset, but also how you are showing up as a leader. And that is all grounded in neuroscience in terms of you know recognizing the triggers that move people towards or move people away in terms of that threat reward response, the energy, the mirror neurons, all the things that I've shared with you. Um, and then I also have specifically a neuroscience program which looks at all of the depth of things around neuroscience in leadership, you know, how you show up on a good day versus how you show up on a bad day, what happens within a social dynamic, and how, if there are things that are really challenging, like organizations going through change, which most organizations are now, how you can understand the science behind what is gonna switch people on and what's gonna switch people off. So, yeah, there are various different ways, but it's such an absolute passion and lifelong quest of mine in terms of understanding why we do the things that we do, that everything I do will always be sprinkled with some sort of science-based, brain-based um insights, because that's what I love. So yeah.

Chris Norton: 16:29

And what and what about I love the fact that you're taking 90 seconds to calm down. Will and I rush in and out of meetings back to back. I mean, I was literally while you were talking about that, I was cringing because I was just thinking that is basically me. I'm jumping out of the meeting into another meeting, bringing all the um, you know, because if you're an emotional Will's a bit less not as emotional as me, I'd say he's he's much more compartmentalized than I am. Um, but that's probably why we work quite well together. Um, but it it's quite hard to do that. What about an email as well? Because I see so many people send emails in in anger sometimes, or you know, um uh um and you should I had tried never to do that, but it's it's quite hard if a client hasn't paid you for six months and uh you're chasing payment, which we've all been through uh at some point. Um you're trying to get hold of things that people owe you or something, trying not to react is a really difficult thing for most people, I think. So what's your advice there? Is it just take a moment again?

Claire: 17:29

Uh yes, but also you know, you you in those moments we we we kind of need to channel that emotion, otherwise it stays inside, doesn't it? And then it just kind of like boils and boils and boils until we get over the tipping point. So in those moments, in those heightened, triggered state emo um moments, maybe it's about, you know, in in my living room, I've got a few dumbbells in there where I do my strength training. It's like literally a minute, go and pick one of those up, do some low strength training, even if it's just for 60 seconds, something that enables you to channel that emotion rather than hold it inside. Um, and so it doesn't have to be, you know, you don't have to go to the gym for half an hour or anything like that. It could be something so small. I also find talking to a really trusted friend, again, even if it's just for a couple of minutes, just to get it out of here. Because when things are buzzing around in our mind, you know, that we and especially if we are working either from home or not in a in a shared space or office, you know, we can get caught down that rumination rabbit hole in terms of overthinking, overanalyzing, and that just compounds the frustration and you know, and then you start to see things through that lens, that becomes your lens and the confirmation bias, isn't it? We start to just see the things that confirm our beliefs, and if we've let it kind of ruminate over and over, then we're just gonna be looking for those things. So, yeah, I also find journaling, and I guess it's similar to writing the email, but I I like the physicality of a pen and paper and just getting a blank sheet and you know, posing a question at the top, why is this frustrating me so much? And then just letting it all come out. Um, and the just the physical process of doing that as well as that connection to what's going on in my thoughts, again, can just be really helpful in channeling it in a constructive rather than destructive way.

Chris Norton: 19:38

How did you get into this, Claire? How did this happen? Uh what you know, because it's such a it's quite a niche area. I can see why it's an area of expertise and people want to speak to you about it. How how do you get into something like that? Is it what did you what did you do your degree in? How did you end up in this area?

Claire: 19:53

Well, thank you for that question, Chris. I guess it all began when I was a teenager, actually. And um when my when my parents divorced, I was 14, 15, and I really and it was also that that sort of age is when this part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, really starts to get development into a much more sophisticated way of understanding our sense of self and others. And and so I guess it was around all of that time that I just started becoming very curious in terms of reading books around psychology and you know, difficult relationships and why we do the things that we do. And it was ever since then that I've always read lots of different books and and sort of followed that curiosity. I I didn't do a um psychology degree, I did a creative degree. Uh and um and yet through all of that time, through university, through my early career, into then managing and leading others and then into my own business, I've always been sort of self-taught and curious to continuously learn. And it was only in 2019 that I studied neuroscience in leadership. I did a um practitioner and trainer qualification, and that was just it was like the door had opened to an even deeper level of understanding about self. And I've just, you know, I've just loved learning more and more ever since then.

Chris Norton: 21:23

Do you not find yourself psychoanalysing everything that you do now, though? That's what you do when you do psychology or psychology, you start analyzing everything you're doing and your partner's doing, which would just suddenly be nuts.

Claire: 21:35

Well, the the no, I I definitely don't do that, but I think what you do learn is that there are patterns in human behaviour. And I guess this is a little bit like what's happening in the world of AI, is all looking at patterns, isn't it? And I guess what I've learned is that there are certainly patterns. Um, but having said that, everybody is different because of, you know, if I look at me and my sister, we both grew up in in the same household, and yet we have different experiences of you know that same shared um upbringing. And so and so recognizing that everybody is different, but there are patterns is is key to all of this.

Will Ockenden: 22:13

Moving away from you know working with individual leaders for a moment and and look and I know you do sort of all sorts of kind of consultancy and training. You um you talk about the importance of developing a culture of learning within an organization. Now that's I think that's something most companies would strive for, but but practically speaking, how would one go about that? You know, is is it a case of just sending everybody on lots and lots of training courses? You know, how how do we kind of nurture that and and why is that desirable to have a culture of learning in an organization?

Claire: 22:46

Yeah, well, a coach, a culture of learning is gonna enable you to be adaptable. When you've got a workforce that is naturally curious and wants to learn and grow individually as well as collectively, they're gonna be building new neural pathways in terms of learning new things, challenging themselves, stretching themselves out of the comfort zone. And actually, that is really important mental muscle in terms of change. And the organizations that are the most adaptable and are the most resilient are the ones that have the most curious-minded, uh, collaborative, continuously learning mindsets within their organization. So it doesn't have to be sign up for lots of training courses, you know, but it does need to be encouraging, and this comes from the leaders, encouraging people to be learning, encouraging people to connect the dots in different ways. You know, it could be something as simple as what did you see at the weekend that you thought was really interesting? And how can we connect that into what we're doing now, even though it's a really random connection? So you're just inviting that curiosity and that sense of things aren't just fixed and finite, things are always evolving, always changing. And it's about innovating yourself in this day and age as much as it is about in um innovating organizations as well. And through that curiosity, that's where you will move people because curiosity will help to bring in the novel amidst certainty and uncertainty. And again, it's just building that muscle for agility and change.

Will Ockenden: 24:29

So, can you teach uh curiosity, or is it something that you're innately um kind of innately born with?

Claire: 24:41

Uh I believe that you can uh teach pretty much anything as long as somebody has the will to want to be open to learn. So, yes, I do believe that you can teach curiosity. And there was a a really interesting book which I which I enjoyed reading by um uh Ian Leslie. It's called Curiosity, and it he talks about the fact that curiosity is the fourth human drive. So, over the essentials of food, shelter, procreation, you know, human beings are one of the only species on the planet that are actually driven by curiosity and wonder. And that kind of, you know, how how did how did we get here in terms of the universe? And we look up at the stars and you know, we kind of imagine and hypothesize and really want to understand. And that curiosity is part of human nature, and that's what enables us to progress and to move forward. So, yeah, specifically, I think you can teach curiosity, but I I believe it's innate in all of us in varying degrees.

Will Ockenden: 25:52

And as a mockta or a creative, I mean, the very best creatives are incredibly curious people, they're they're questioning everything, they're constantly wondering why something is done like it is. So that's that's really interesting to hear.

Chris Norton: 26:06

Um can I ask a question? I just wanted to ask about you talked of in you when I've looked at various bits and pieces you've put online, you've talked you talk about the frozen middle a lot. And I'm curious. See what I did there. Uh what is what is the frozen middle and how does it how does it connect? Because I feel like I might have a frozen middle.

Claire: 26:26

So the frozen middle is a metaphorical term for within large organizations, the sort of middle management. And I was uh I was in conversation on a on a podcast about the frozen middle, actually, and what we were looking at there was how we how we get stuck in that frozen middle when we get to a certain point in our career. And and for me, it's about seeing that there is this illusion of safety that comes in that sort of middle part where we've got to a certain level in our career, you know, we know what we're doing, we're kind of like quite comfortable, we're really happy with the paycheck that's coming, maybe we've got a lifestyle that we that we enjoy. And and so, you know, that frozen middle is how we can get stuck in autopilot and habits that and then we kind of look up and we go, oh my goodness, like five years has passed and and I haven't you know done what I meant to be doing on this planet, you know, my purpose. And so that's what the frozen middle in that context is all about. And and so, you know, when we're in that autopilot, when we're in those habitual behaviors, we're not really thinking too much. We're in that comfort zone, you know, and the world is changing so rapidly that actually we can't afford to get too comfortable in that comfort zone because we need to lean more into that discomfort. We need to lean more into, you know, exploring and developing ourselves so that whatever happens on the road ahead, we have that muscle, that mental muscle in terms of the agility to be able to navigate uncertainty and change and ride that wave and learn and grow and develop along that journey. So yeah, the frozen middle is all about when we get stuck in the illusion of safety and it's sort of halfway through our careers.

Chris Norton: 28:31

I I've actually got quite a few people I know who are like my age of a certain age now. I'm near I'm 48, so I'm getting but I'm seeing people who are quite everyone in my age group now, Bracket, tend to be quite, they've they've done their they're they're into senior positions and they're doing quite well for themselves. And I'm starting to see people that I'm and I know because me Will and I run a run a company, obviously, and um that can be a little bit lonely, lead lonely leadership and things like that. But also that that's one part of owning a business that's quite tough. And some of the things you've talked about have really resonated me with me. But some people that are in jobs in the frozen middle that are are moving up to director level. I I think I think I'd worry that if I was in that sort of role uh today, because um you you get quite expensive because you've been in a right, you you're good at your job, you're getting well paid, and um in the era of AI and in the era of innovation, and people are looking to cut costs, and you don't you definitely don't want to stop being curious and be getting comfortable, like you've said, because you never know if you're in if you work for somebody else when they do somebody else might buy the company or somebody the company's strategy might change. And I've seen quite a few of my friends and people that I know um of this, like I say, of this age group, there that are are not as comfortable or as safe as as they thought they were, and they've lost their jobs because it just the way it goes. So I completely buy into everything you've said there. It's it it's interesting, but so basically you're saying don't get too comfortable. Is that you've got to be a little bit uncomfortable? Is that what we're saying? Tighten up that middle.

Claire: 30:09

Yeah, embrace the discomfort, yeah.

Chris Norton: 30:12

Well, that's good, couldn't you? And we're all discomforted every day. That's not even a phrase, is it?

Claire: 30:19

I live in that place of discomfort. So um one of the biggest lessons that I uh had around all of that was tying my identity to businesses that were not my own. And when I came out of those experiences, actually, you know, it was such a massive like shift of identity because I had tied so much of my sense of worth and who I was to those organizations that it was a big wake-up call in terms of actually, no, now you need to figure out what your unique gifts and talents are that you want to bring to the world, who you are, what's the value that you can bring and build upon for your own business. And yeah, and so that frozen middle part is, you know, especially when we've got families, you know, we we kind of want that security. Actually, it's important to challenge yourself. And this was something that I learned the hard way on, you know, to think about okay, a bit like Ikigai, you know, the Japanese conversation. Concept of, you know, what do you love? What does the world need? What does the world need? What can you get paid for? It's almost like, what is the icky guy in terms of your unique gifts and talents and purpose that you want to bring to the world outside of what your day-to-day is, if you're in a sort of corporate organization?

Chris Norton: 31:54

Will and I have been trying to figure that out for the last 20 years that we've been working together. Um, what do we bring?

Claire: 32:00

I have to say.

Chris Norton: 32:01

Yeah, well, you're right. I think I think people attach their identities. So people that have been working in a professional environment, uh, as in like they've gone to university, people that have got careers, you do attach your personality to your career. Not just not to just the company, like you said there, the company identity, but actually to your career. And like if you take a step out of like we've I've been in agency a lot of my life, and you take a step out of agency to be freelance, and then you're you're doing exactly what you're talking about. Like, oh, what am I about? Who am I? Why I can complete if there's anyone listening to this that is freelance, they'll know exactly what we're talking about. Like, because suddenly you're not attached to the the career, you sort of like you've got to review what your career is, and actually, where am I going? It it you it's a bit of a midlife crisis type thing, depending on how old you are when it happens. Do you know what I mean?

Claire: 32:50

Yeah, and you need to reinvent, you need to really dig deep into who am I and what do I want to bring to the world that's unique in terms of my point of view, that combines all of my experience, that means that I can credibly and confidently solve problems in really interesting ways?

Chris Norton: 33:11

So well, that ties nicely to who am I? So, our show is we discuss where people have made a mistake in their career and what have they taken and learned from that mistake and built on it, you know, it's to help others who so they don't have to experience the same. We're all learning from mistakes. So uh is there anything in your career that you've done or learnt from that you think would be worth sharing with with people on here? It's a cathartic experience, it's a friendly environment, Claire.

Claire: 33:40

Thank you, Chris. Well, I've made lots of mistakes over the years, but as somebody who loves to learn, I guess that's you know, I see mistakes as once I've got over the the discomfort, the the extreme discomfort, um, I look for what's the learning here, and I think that's really key. That that one that I shared a few minutes ago around attaching my identity to others' businesses was was probably one of the most profound experiences in terms of mistakes because I stayed somewhere longer than I should have done. And it it cost me a lot in terms of you know, burnout, overcompensating, you know, lots of different things I was trying to do in order to sort of stay where I was and stay hold on like to that safety. Um because I wasn't brave enough actually to go and do what I really wanted to do at that time. And yeah, and so so much of what I do now is leaning into the courage because I've learned the lesson the hard way, uh, in terms of um playing it safe and keeping in the status quo bias and keeping everything as they are. They often say, don't they, better the devil you know than the devil you don't, but I don't agree with that at all now, having learned having learned that lesson. Uh so yeah, I would say that was probably one of the biggest lessons in my career. Another lesson was um coming back after maternity leave. So I left a master of my arts. I was smashing it out of the park as a leader, you know, doing some incredible things. And I didn't, because I hadn't studied neuroscience at that point, I didn't have any idea what was going on in terms of the brain chemistry, the hormones, emotions, how lack of sleep would be impacting my cognitive functioning, and how it's it's a process that you go through in terms of um of all of that. And so when I came back into the workplace, I just felt like I'd come back as an apprentice and was really hard on myself. Like, what's happened to you? What's going on? Why are you why are you not performing in the way that you used to? And uh it was only my boss at the time who pushed me out of my comfort zone and got me to do something that felt so wildly uncomfortable that I never would have put myself forward for, that that started to build in the discomfort the belief, the confidence, and all of those things. And so, so yeah, they're probably my biggest, biggest lessons in terms of my career.

Chris Norton: 36:35

Matern maternity cover. I mean, obviously, uh Will and I run a PR agency, and I'd say it's normally 80% female, it always has been, not through choice, it's just the way that the industry is. It's um it's always been that way, but actually it's about 60, 40 um female now. Um but obviously with that, we've got girls and ladies of different ages, and we have um uh um, I think we've got two or three on maternity at the moment, so we're used to juggling, you know, and I we see that quite a lot that they um you know they go off and then they'd come back, and they have a bit of that, and I always feel for them, and we try to be as you know, as welcoming as we can as they're coming back, because it obviously you've been off with the looking after your baby, uh caring for it, and then they all um a lot of this, a lot of the team, they they when they come back, they they do overanalyse it, and we're we're quite laid back about it, like because obviously it's gonna take a while to get back up to speed to to to run at 9,000 all this stuff we were talking about earlier, where you have to take the 90 seconds to get back up to that pace. Um, but yeah, I I do find a lot a lot of people when they come back from maternity um do overanalyse themselves, and they don't need to, because at the end of the day, the reason they were in the job in the first place is they had the talent and they could do the job. So it's just it's just a case of getting back up to to speed. And so I don't think they need to over I don't think they need to be so overly harsh on themselves.

Claire: 37:58

Yeah.

Chris Norton: 37:59

Um I do.

Claire: 38:02

We're our own worst enemy. You know, there's a lot of pressure that we put on ourselves to get back up. Well, I certainly do, to get back up to that level. But here's the thing, and this is what I learned that I love so much. Once you're able to push past that discomfort and you start to rebuild that confidence, my God, does that fire in your belly come back even better than before? So, you know, if I think I was performing at like 100% before I went off, now my son is 10 years old, I'm like 150, 200% in terms of what I know that I'm capable of. And that came through, pushing through that discomfort, rebuilding those neural pathways, like retraining my brain so that it wouldn't go down that negative, you're not good enough, what's happened to you, you know, berating kind of thought process and pattern that I was in at the very beginning. It's kind of like rewiring those neural pathways to then build and build and build and constantly put yourself in that comfort out of the comfort zone so that you're stretching your growth and learning and really able to unlock your potential in ways that you can't even imagine yet. So I would say to all those mothers that are new on that journey, coming back into the workplace, you know, you're gonna get it back way better than what you ever did before.

Chris Norton: 39:26

Maybe we should make it part of our maternity cover when they come back, they've got to listen to this podcast. Well hell.

Claire: 39:33

It takes a little time, but you know, if you love your career, and all of us do, like I I love what I do, and and I also deeply love being a mum. Yeah, the two worlds can live together. Of course they can. Yeah, and it's just about you know recognizing that it's a process and it's a journey.

Will Ockenden: 39:51

So um um moving on to another sort of topic, which I found quite interesting that you talk about. Um you when it when it comes to kind of team, um, you know, team and company performance. So again, moving away from the individual, more towards the the team as a whole. You talk about um productivity and communication roadblocks are quite common in organizations. So what are those roadblocks when it comes to productivity and communication and and how practically speaking, how can we solve them and why should we be interested in solving them?

Claire: 40:26

Well, productivity links to uh competencies, and competencies are the skills and behaviors and and also the strengths. So for me, when I think about productivity, the question is do you have the right people doing the right things? So if if things are not productive, I mean there's a whole bunch of things, but at the core, at an individual and team level, are people playing to their strengths? And if they're not, they're going to be less productive because it takes more energy and more effort to do the things that we are not naturally gifted and talented with. So as a leader looking at a team, I would be thinking, okay, where are the strengths? What are the strengths I have within the team? And are the team playing to their strengths? If not, can I shift different projects or tasks to enable them to play to their strengths? Because that's going to have an impact on productivity. Linked to that also is motivation. You know, what is it that really energizes and excites people to want to move towards the activities that they're doing? And that for me also links back to strengths because when we are doing things that are those gifts and talents that we bring that we're naturally good at, we're going to be more motivated to do them anyway, because they're part of who we are and what we want to bring to the world at sort of a deep human level. So when when I'm looking at teams, it's it's those two things. Are people playing to their strengths? What motivates them individually? Because everyone is going to be motivated by different things. And also, what's going to get the best out of those people? So a question that I love to ask is, you know, when are you at your best? What brings out the best in you? Because that, as a manager and leader, is going to give you beautiful clues into what it is that they are motivated, what their strengths are, it all kind of connects together. So that's the productivity piece. And also ensuring that people are challenged so that they're stretching out of their comfort zone, but playing to their strengths, so that you're constantly growing and developing them in that area. The second part around communication is um so communication. There's a lovely book called Conversational Intelligence by Judith Glazer. Um, and she talks about that the our relationships are a consequence essentially of how we are interacting through communication. So the strength of your relationship is to do with the strength of how you're communicating. And so the way that we communicate is different, though, because you'll know this from the disc and insights psychometrics. There are different ways in which somebody who's a red, who's a driver, who's task-oriented, who's you know, results and goal-driven, wants to move fast, they're gonna have a very different style of communicating to somebody who's pillar opposite, uh, who might be more people-oriented, might be a slower pace, might want to have a you know, rapport-building conversation first at the beginning of a meeting before you get straight to it. And so when we are communicating in these different styles, you know, often we can be speaking a different language. So I was working with uh a leader and her team where she were identified as a very expressive big picture communicator, and her entire team were all analytical communicators. So they were always coming to her with all of the detail and the depth of information in terms of the way they were communicating. And she would just, you know, I just need to know this bit, you know, the bigger picture stuff and how it relates to that. I trust that you've got all of that, you know, detail. And vice versa. When she was communicating with them, they needed, they wanted more detail, more depth, more structure, and you know, all of that, all of that. And so just recognizing those different styles can be so helpful in terms of, you know, you as a leader, what's your natural style? It's likely to be more fast-paced, more results-oriented, um, um more confident than than others in your team, but but know where the rub is in terms of where the frustration or where the misunderstanding comes from, because it's in that that we can then start to appreciate and understand those differences and recognize that actually it's not a personal thing. It's actually just two people speaking different languages in many ways. And the more that we understand each other and those differences, the better the relationships we are gonna have. And the better the relationships we're gonna have, the more trust there's gonna be within teams. There's more the more collaboration, therefore, the more we've got each other's back, the more we're gonna be more productive. And so it all kind of interlinks together. So, yeah, that's how I see productivity and communication. The two go absolutely hand in hand.

Chris Norton: 45:42

Well, that ties back to like with client relationships as well. You might remember a client that we had years ago that used to love a graphic. Do you remember? Like, we'd talk about we talk he loved the fact that Will and I would produce these reports for like social media campaigns we'd deliver in, but he just bored. He was got as soon as you got he loved looking at the the data, right? But as soon as you got three slides in, it turned off. But as soon as you brought a graphic up with just the overarching, he was like, he was in, he was like, Oh, yeah, this is brilliant, this is great. Can you send me this? And we and he was like, we so after that we knew, right? Basically, if you ever send him anything, just send him some graphs to show him to illustrate it, and he'll sign off the next project, which is very true. And if it if you can tap into what sort of, I mean that's bringing it down to a very um uh molecular level, but you it it is if you understand your clients, understand your you're talking about understanding your staff, but understanding your clients as well. Some people want loads of detail, some people don't want detail at all, they just want the bare the bare results, don't they? Don't they well?

Will Ockenden: 46:43

There's a really good book actually, which I think touches on this. It's called The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard, and it's all about situational leadership, and it's the idea that you know bad leaders have this kind of one mode that it might be super directive leadership. I'll tell you how it's going to be done and I'll tell you when it needs to be done. And for anyone that isn't doesn't need directional leadership, it's an absolute disaster, isn't it? Because people want to work it out for themselves and it's completely motivating. So it's yeah, that really resonates with me that idea that I mean it it's time consuming and it requires a lot of energy, but it's so important, isn't it, to understand how people communicate, how they like to be led, you know, and and there should never be a one size fits all, should there?

Claire: 47:25

Yeah, and one of the best conversations I had with a team member many, many years ago, in um she was an amazing talent. I brought her in to join the team in our first one-to-one meeting. She said, the way that you're gonna get the best out of me, Claire, is to give me recognition when I've done something well. Tell me when I haven't done something so well, so give me constructive feedback so that I can get better and give me the autonomy to work things out myself because I like to, you know, be thrown a problem and then figure out how I'm gonna solve it. And that really motivates me. And that was one of the best conversations I could have ever had because as the leader, I was then able to adapt my style in order to get the best out of her. But then on the flip side, you know, it's also about saying, this is what's important to me as a leader, this is how you're gonna get the best out of me. And that ties to values in terms of, you know, I really value collaboration, creativity, your growth mindset, you know, all of those things. And it is about that two-way exchange in terms of understanding your team and those differences and what's gonna get the best out of them, but also them understanding you and how they can work better with you as well.

Will Ockenden: 48:40

That kind of self-awareness, though, I mean, it's brilliant if somebody's got it, but it's it's not always so forthcoming, is it? I think people some people probably lack the confidence to be that forthcoming, but in actual facts is hugely beneficial if they are. So that yeah, that that sort of self-awareness is is is amazing if somebody's got that.

Claire: 48:58

Yeah, and and you're right, Well, it we don't always have it. And what makes it harder now, in this moment in time that we're living in, is that technology takes us, well, it gives us permission not to figure out who we are, because we can be constantly distracted by technology, by social media, by you know, reading and learning and all of these things that don't enable us to just be and reflect and figure out why we do the things that we do, because we can constantly be distracted 24-7 if we don't want to deal with that sense of self. And you know, sort of getting quite philosophical and deep now, but that sort of self-reflection is an important part of decoding who you are so that you can take that insight and apply it moving forward in terms of you know, the lessons circling back to you know the the whole premise of this this wonderful podcast in terms of mistakes and lessons. We only know, we only learn about ourselves when we actually stop and ask the question. You know, why did that happen? What did I do? What could I do differently? What you know, what do I never want to do moving forward as a result of the discomfort from that painful mistake and lesson? You know, and that comes through self-reflection and just giving yourself that moment to sort of pause and ask the question of yourself.

Chris Norton: 50:32

We're never bored. That's what I find in 2025. Like, you know, the technology just means you kids kids are never bored. Yeah. You know, when your parents used to say, just do some drawing or do you just you know, play with that cardboard box. Now it's just play with that Xbox. You're never bored, then no one's ever bored, are they, these days? That's the difference. You haven't got that moment to sit down and think about it.

Claire: 50:57

Yeah, so we're constantly just on that point, Chris, we're constantly in our beta brainwave mode. So that higher frequency, like real productivity. I like to kind of say it in the in the sound, because for me, it's like the whirring of like doing, doing, doing, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. That's the higher frequency brainwave, which is really productive, it's really rewarding. You know, it feels good to feel like we've achieved a lot. The brain rewards us for that. But what you're speaking to there, Chris, in terms of that space is, you know, if we're able to give ourselves that tiny pocket of time, whether that's going out for a jog or for a like a 10-minute walk at lunchtime, just to get away from your desk, you know, without looking at your phone, without listening to music, just get into that sort of slightly slower alpha brainwave. Because in the alpha, when we're not distracted, that's where the brain is in the um default mode network, and that's where it's making the random connections between all of the information that it's collecting on a second by second basis of your environment and of the things that you're doing. The more that you can give it the space and time just to connect into alpha, like where do we get our best ideas? When we're in the shower, right? When we're not distracted by technology, when we're just the brain is free just to like fizz and connect in random ways. We we're problem solving. That's the alpha brain waves, and and create creativity comes in that place as well, you know, where we need to do something completely different and make those novel random connections between things. It's not when we're sitting in front of a screen, it's actually when we are in that alpha brainwave mode or even deeper um into theta in meditation. If we get into real deep meditation, we can harness parts of our brain and intuition and creativity that um the famous, you know, Einstein and Nikola Tesla, the famous kind of inventors of our um of humanity, that's the that's the the wisdom and insight that they were able to tap into. But nowadays, to your point, Chris, we we're so distracted that we're just constantly in beta brainwave. We're not, you know, even just painting, you know. I don't know if anyone does any sort of DIY, but even just sort of painting a wall or something that then it's just slowing the brainwave down, and the brain will kind of work its magic in the background for you.

Chris Norton: 53:27

I hope so, because I haven't been able to tap into my alpha for ages. I'm always in living beta. That's my that's the lesson I've taken from this podcast is get be more alpha. So, how can you be more to be more alpha? You need to do things that are a little bit boring, that get you that get you out of distra. So turn your phone off, meditation. What are the what are the hot tips have you got to be more alpha? Because Will and I are always trying to find ways to, you know, to for creative ideas. We've got to come up with creative campaigns and things like that. And you know, you have a brainstorm, which is a forced environment. How can you we try to what we try to do is we try to give somebody a heads up a day before a brainstorm, um so they've got time to go into you know, go away, think about it, and then hopefully they have that shower moment that you just talked about. But is there ways that you can tap into the alpha more? Because I I don't feel like me or Will do it very well. Will does it on running runs, actually, which is a way to do it. I might do it punching a punch bag or something like that. I don't know.

Claire: 54:31

Yeah. Um, so do you do you ever have walking meetings where you should on a call rather than in front of a screen outside? If you can if you can go somewhere that is either near water or near nature, doesn't it doesn't have to be like a beautiful lake or anything like that. It can just be you know somewhere close by that's not sort of super high street urban, um, very noisy, somewhere that just gives you a little bit of an opportunity to be a bit more mindful. And in a walking call, that again just the slowing your pace down, and this is hard for me because I I was always and still am to a certain degree, running at a million miles an hour. Like I enjoy the pace of life and growth and all of those things, but slowing that pace down, you know, you start to notice things that you never would have noticed before. So I challenge you both and to your listeners, the next time you go out on a break, like or even walking to work or walking to the what a whatever, the next time you've got a couple of minutes where you're not sitting at your desk, just go outside, take a walk, five minutes, and just notice slow your pace down, see what you can notice that every single day you'd walk past and that you would just wouldn't even you wouldn't even pay any attention to because the brain is filtering out all the information that's around you to only focus on what's important for you and what's going on for you. And so the challenge is slow the pace down, notice what's around you. And that for me helps alpha and it helps me tap into way more creativity because I'm seeing the beauty in nature, like I'm seeing the sun twinkling on the water and just the way in which it's just so mesmerizing. Like when I slow the pace and look at those things, or the green on the leaf of a tree that I just walked past a million times, it it just helps you center back into being human, I guess, in many ways, and tapping into that alpha frame mode. So that's something really simple that you can do.

Will Ockenden: 56:47

That's some homework for all of our listeners to do after listening to this, then, isn't it?

Chris Norton: 56:51

One of the final questions, it's a penultimate question. Um, you've been on the show now, um, and I gave you a heads up on this question before we started recording. If there's one it um we've obviously talked a lot about mistakes and learnings on this show. Um, if there was one guest that you would, if you were us, who would you invite onto the show next and why?

Claire: 57:11

You know, I would love to suggest Gemma Greaves because she's a very dear friend of mine and a phenomenal human being, and also one of the most authentic people I know in terms of just being human, being real, and I think that her stories and just who she is, because she, you know, she's taught me so many different things about being authentic. And in fact, she was the person that I was speaking to before I come on the show today, and her advice was just absolutely fantastic, and so yeah, she's just such an inspiration, and I admire her greatly in terms of how she shows up as a leader and what she's been able to do, and the fact that she is just so genuinely human in terms of you know being real and encouraging others and giving others permission to show up in that authentic space themselves. So, yeah.

Chris Norton: 58:14

Okay, excellent. Um, and if people want to get hold of you, Claire, how can they find you um to drop you a line?

Claire: 58:23

Yeah, so my website, imagine high from beyond.co.uk, you can have a look at the things I'm doing on there, but also on LinkedIn, I am Claire Koryczan, K-O-R-Y-C-Z-A-N. It's the C Z that kind of uh always um is getting in the way, I think, sometimes. So yeah, on LinkedIn I post loads of different things around all the stuff that we've been speaking about today and more in terms of my lens on the world. Dead too.

Chris Norton: 58:53

Well, Thal, thanks for thanks for coming on the show. And um, really good. Thanks, thanks so much for your time.

Claire: 59:00

Absolute pleasure. What a joy it has been to wax the record around all this stuff that I love this morning. Thank you so much, Chris and Will, for the opportunity to have this conversation. I'm literally beaming from having done it together.