Corey-osity Unleashed

Corey-osity Unleashed isn’t your typical leadership podcast - no corporate fluff, no HR jargon. Just raw, real, and unfiltered conversations about how we can (and should) treat our people in today’s messy, complex workplaces.With our guests, we get curious by challenging the norm and questioning the status quo, exploring and unleashing bold new ways to think and act about people and work.Expect tough truths, honest insights, a few laughs, and maybe even a well-placed swear word or two—because let’s be real, our people deserve better, and our businesses can’t afford to keep getting it wrong

Corey-osity Unleashed is a business podcast hosted by Debra & Ken Corey, with 23 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Debra & Ken Corey hosts Corey-osity Unleashed, a business show with 23 episodes published.

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  Episode #2

  Corey-osity Unleashed with Helen Beedham

  Sep 25, 202646 minS3

  Hold On to Your Best People by Setting Them Free: Helen Beedham on People Glue "CEOs don't care about retention anymore." That's what a CEO friend told Helen Beedham. Everyone's slashing headcount, betting on AI, planning for one person where they used to need a hundred. So Helen went and asked them. The CEOs, COOs and chief people officers she interviewed told her the opposite: AI or not, losing the people who carry the skills and knowledge the business runs on is still one of the most expensive things that can happen to them. And if AI swallows the entry-level jobs, where exactly are tomorrow's managers going to come from? Her answer to "what makes people stay when they could leave tomorrow?" is freedom. Not a free-for-all: four specific freedoms, inside clear tram lines, with lots of accountability. Autonomy over how, when and where you work. Room to grow. The freedom to speak up and be yourself. And freedom from the hamster wheel of work about work, so you can do something that actually matters. Ken asks how many of the four you need before people stop walking. The answer depends on who's asking, and the gender split in Helen's research is not the one you'd guess. Then there's the bill: a 100-person company on an average 50,000 salary, at average UK turnover, is losing roughly 1.75 million a year. That's before counting the knowledge nobody wrote down, or the day Debra's office ran out of coffee because the one person who bought it had left. You'll leave with a way to price your own turnover, a quick diagnostic for the forces quietly killing freedom in your organisation, a weekly ritual that takes the stigma out of failure, and the one investment Helen says pays back more than any other. Helen Beedham is an organisational expert, host of the Business of Being Brilliant podcast, and author of two Amazon best-sellers: The Future of Time (Business Book Awards People, Culture and Management Book of the Year) and People Glue: Hold On to Your Best People by Setting Them Free (January 2026). Find her on LinkedIn (Helen J. Beedham) and at helenbeedham.com. KEYWORDS employee retention, People Glue, Helen Beedham, freedom at work, four freedoms, autonomy, career growth, self-expression, meaningful work, work about work, high trust culture, accountability, cost of employee turnover, talent retention, AI and jobs, talent crunch, manager development, fear of failure, learning culture, psychological safety, sticky organisation, anti-freedom forces, Edelman Trust Barometer, job hopping, employee engagement CHAPTERS 00:00 Intro 00:52 Welcome, meet Helen Beedham 02:23 A career of planned and unplanned turns 03:52 Week 12 at Harrods: interpreting for the chairman in Cuba 05:22 Why write People Glue, and why now 07:51 Will AI really empty the desks? 09:31 Big tech layoffs and the coming talent crunch 11:16 The sticky monster: when glue works against you 12:23 People Glue vs Sticky People: high trust, high freedom 14:22 What freedom at work is (and isn't): the four freedoms 16:36 Why freedom matters: the retention business case 18:50 How many freedoms do people need? 21:29 Why leaders get it wrong: letting go of control 24:35 How to win over leaders who don't get it 26:08 The 1.75 million cost of turnover 28:05 Engagement multiplies the ROI 28:45 The hidden job description that walks out the door 31:54 Going off script 32:21 Diagnosing the anti-freedom forces 37:43 Fear of failure and the stumble of the week 41:18 One tip for leaders: invest in your managers 43:50 Where to find Helen

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  Episode #1

  S3E01 Corey-osity Unleashed

  Sep 11, 202652 minS3

  GUEST Advita Patel — award-winning internal communications and employee experience expert. Founder of Comms Rebel. Co-founder of A Leader Like Me, the Belief Builders and the Asian Communications Network. Co-author of the best-selling "Building a Culture of Inclusivity" (2023, with Priya Bates). 2025 President of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. Second book, "Decoding Confidence: The Seven Habits of Confident Leaders", publishes May 2026 and is available for pre-order now. Contact: LinkedIn (DMs open), decodingconfidence.com, plus TikTok and Instagram. SUMMARY Advita Patel spent two decades building a career in communications, ticked every box her performance reviews asked for, and then watched the role she had been working towards get pulled — and quietly handed to someone else after she resigned. What followed she now calls a confidence crash. It ended on the M62 in the rain, on a Monday morning, when a friend refused to take the complaint and asked her instead: what are you going to do about it? That question became a business, a coaching practice, and now a book. In this episode Advita walks Ken and Debra through the BELIEVE framework at the heart of "Decoding Confidence" — Boldness, Empathy, Learning, Integrity, Empowerment, Vulnerability and Energy — and the research behind it: 503 respondents, 82% of whom had worked for a leader lacking confidence, with micromanaging named the number one barrier. The conversation gets sharp where it matters. Boldness and vulnerability aren't opposites: you need boldness to be vulnerable at all. Vulnerability isn't universally safe, and Advita is blunt about doing a safety audit before you open up. Integrity collapses when you don't know your actual values, not the ones you recite in interviews. And energy — her favourite chapter — comes with a practical six-monthly energy audit that names, out of ten, exactly who and what is draining you. Ken shares the meeting where a direct report told him he was wrong in front of his boss's boss, and what admitting it unlocked. Debra brings the Bad Bosses research showing micromanagers at 80% — near-identical to Advita's number, from a completely different sample. CHAPTERS 00:00 Intro 00:53 Welcome — meet Advita Patel 01:35 The book arrived today: Decoding Confidence unboxed 02:45 From IT to HR to comms: a wiggly, squiggly career 05:12 The confidence crash and starting Comms Rebel in 2018 07:55 The M62 moment: "What are you going to do about it?" 11:56 Your personal board of directors — believers and mirror-holders 13:44 Why write a book about workplace confidence 17:43 BELIEVE: the seven habits, unpacked 20:35 Sustainable confidence, not private-jet confidence 23:19 Which habit first? The confidence habit assessment 24:54 The research: 503 people, and micromanaging at 82% 27:55 Boldness and vulnerability are not opposites 33:51 Is it safe for you to be vulnerable? Do the audit first 36:47 Manipulative vulnerability and losing touch with reality 38:56 Integrity under pressure: knowing your real values 43:11 The energy audit: rating everyone out of ten 46:52 The one thing to walk away believing about yourself 48:06 Can't put the phone down? Start with legacy 49:34 Where to find Advita KEYWORDS confidence, leadership confidence, imposter syndrome, micromanaging, psychological safety, vulnerability at work, boldness, internal communications, employee experience, values, integrity, energy audit, burnout, personal board of directors, learning circle, self-advocacy, inclusive leadership, Decoding Confidence, Advita Patel, Comms Rebel, BELIEVE framework, sustainable confidence

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  Episode #9

  S2E9 Corey-osity Unleashed

  Jun 5, 202645 minS2

  <p>The Long-Handled Screwdriver: Why Experts Make the Worst Micromanagers</p><p><br></p><p>What if the best coaching never happens in a booked one-hour session — but in the small, everyday moments most managers walk straight past?</p><p><br></p><p>In this episode of Corey-osity Unleashed, Debra and Ken Corey sit down with Gillian Jones-Williams — CEO, motivational speaker, author of 50 Top Tools for Coaching (now in its sixth edition), and 2024 Businesswoman of the Decade. Gillian left home at 17, built her firm Emerge Development Consultancy across three decades and multiple recessions, and was later diagnosed with bipolar and ADHD...

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  Episode #8

  S2E8 Corey-osity Unleashed with Ian Pettigrew

  Apr 17, 202647 minS2

  <p>Hope is a Strategy: Why Leaders Must Learn to Cultivate It</p><p><br></p><p>What do people all over the world want most from their leaders? According to Gallup's research presented at the World Government Summit, the answer is hope. Not strategy. Not vision decks. Hope. And yet almost no leadership development programme teaches it.</p><p><br></p><p>Ian Pettigrew has spent years researching exactly this gap. In this conversation, he unpacks what hope actually is — and why it's not the same as optimism, positivity, or wishful thinking. Hope, by his definition, is a belief th...

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  Episode #7

  S2E7 Corey-osity Unleashed with Fredrik Haren

  Mar 27, 202645 minS2

  <p>What if the secret to your next breakthrough idea isn't thinking harder — but getting your ego completely out of the way?</p><p><br /></p><p>Fredrik Haren has spent 25 years and visited 75+ countries on a single mission: to understand where the best ideas actually come from. He calls himself the Creativity Explorer, and in this conversation with Debra and Ken, he lives up to the title — dismantling assumptions about creativity, sharing stories from Thailand to Bhutan to Vietnam, and leaving you with one deceptively simple challenge that could change how you think forever.</p><p><br /></p><p>You...

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