82. COACH - Brian Ballantyne - redundancy from Amazon - opportunities on gardening leave - psychology of being 'at risk' of redundancy

Hello Bright Minds, this is a very different episode to anything I’ve done before. Brian is a chap whose energy, openness and actions around supporting fathers I’ve admired on LinkedIn for quite some time. Throughout the time Brian and I have been in each others’ orbits he’s worked for Amazon as a Program Manager in Luxembourg, whilst also training to be a coach. In June last year (2023) I spotted a very candid post from Brian about expecting to be made redundant so I got in touch to offer my condolences and to tell him how much I liked reading what he was writing about what he was anticipating and we started swapping voice notes. I do love a voice note!

I asked Brian whether he’d be up for coming on the podcast later in the year when he’d made his comeback and then a thought occurred to me: why don’t we document, through voice notes, what’s happening for Brian on the run up to redundancy and what happens next. I do all of this with you in mind dear listener – I’m constantly thinking about how I can bring you ideas, insights and tips to make your comeback smoother, easier and more enjoyable. I’m also always wanting to bring you the hard stuff that people are going through and the emotions they’re experiencing as a way to give you hope when you’re going through similar struggles. 

At the end of the episode you’re also going to hear from Dr Madeline Stevens who is the author of Strategic Redundancy Implementation: Re-Focus, Re-Organise and Re-Build. She knows a lot about how to help people through redundancy.
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