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Fellow Progress / For organisations

Good work asks
a lot of people.

When your work depends on ideas, imagination and judgement, people bring a lot of themselves to it.

I help organisations understand what their teams need, make room for honest conversations, and decide what to do next. A talk, a reflective session or a programme shaped around your people.

Let’s talk about your team Explore the services
Colleagues sharing ideas around a laptop
Photo by Jud Mackrill
Richard Buchanan

Why work with Richard

I understand the work
from both sides.

My years in strategy, design and creative environments taught me how much of ourselves we bring to the work, and how easily our own needs slip out of view. As a cognitive hypnotherapist, I help people understand what they’re experiencing. I bring both perspectives to my work with teams and leaders.

More about Richard

Some of the organisations I’ve worked with

Three talks for teams

  • 01
  • 02
  • 03

Fellow Progress

The Creativity
Antidote

Managing anxiety when your work depends on imagination.

A presentation coming up. A difficult conversation. The meeting you’re still replaying that evening.

Creativity and anxiety often travel together. This interactive session explores that relationship, with space for discussion, reflection and practical exercises for the moments before, during and after pressure hits.

Who it’s for: Teams whose work depends on ideas, imagination and judgement, whatever your sector calls itself. That might be a consultancy, a film or production company, a studio, an agency, an architecture practice, or something else entirely.

Good timing: Ahead of a pitch, a launch or a stretch of presentations.

60 minutes In person Fee on enquiry

What you’ll take away

  • A clearer understanding of the relationship between anxiety and creative work.
  • Recognition of your own patterns: the build-up beforehand, pressure in the moment and overthinking afterwards.
  • Experience practising breathing, grounding and reflection exercises you can return to beyond the session.

Let’s find a date that works for your team

Enquire about a team talk

Include the session name, team size, location and preferred dates in your enquiry.

Fellow Progress

Stress as
an Ally

Reading pressure as a signal, and responding with agency.

The deadline that moved. The inbox that won’t stop. The tight chest before you’ve even opened the laptop.

Stress is usually treated as something to get rid of. This session treats it as a guide instead. It looks at how what we believe about pressure shapes how we respond to it, then introduces five practical steps towards a higher-agency mindset, with time for discussion and a breathing exercise to reset.

Who it’s for: Teams working under sustained pressure who want practical ways to respond to it, rather than another reminder to stay calm.

Good timing: During change, a restructure or a crunch, when stress has become the background noise of work.

60 minutes In person Fee on enquiry

What you’ll take away

  • A different way of reading stress: as a signal that something matters, and information about where to act.
  • Five steps towards higher agency: pause and reframe, own the situation, take micro actions, shift your belief, and find the lesson.
  • Experience of a breathing and visualisation exercise you can use to reset in the moment.

Let’s find a date that works for your team

Enquire about a team talk

Include the session name, team size, location and preferred dates in your enquiry.

Richard’s session on stress was insightful and really practical. The group found the idea of seeing stress as a signal—not just something to avoid—really valuable.

Sophie BaconCommunity Manager, Plexal

Fellow Progress

Rethinking
Burnout

Rest and energy as part of how good work gets done.

Pushing hard and feeling depleted rather than accomplished. Small decisions that feel heavy. Ideas that won’t come, however long you sit there.

Burnout is often worn as proof of commitment. This session looks at it as a sign that the way we’re working isn’t sustainable. It explores what prolonged stress does to focus, decision-making and creative thinking, why our best ideas often arrive when we step away, and why managing energy matters as much as managing time, with space for discussion and reflection.

Who it’s for: Teams where long hours and constant availability have become the measure of commitment, and people who want to stay sharp over the long run, not just get through the next deadline.

Good timing: After a long stretch of running hot, or before the next one starts.

60 minutes In person Fee on enquiry

What you’ll take away

  • Recognition of the early signs of burnout: lasting fatigue, reduced focus and creativity, irritability, cynicism and slipping performance.
  • A simple map of four energy zones, performance, survival, burnout and recovery, and a sense of where you tend to spend your time.
  • Practical ways to build rest into the working day, including breaks that follow the brain’s natural rhythms of focus.

Let’s find a date that works for your team

Enquire about a team talk

Include the session name, team size, location and preferred dates in your enquiry.

Four ways to work together

Start with what
would be useful.

You might have a subject in mind, or need help understanding what’s going on. Each service can stand alone, or we can bring them together.

Team insight

Understand what your people need.

A questionnaire to explore the team’s experience, followed by a presentation of the findings and practical recommendations for leadership.

Useful when you want to hear from your team before deciding what support or changes would help.

Questionnaire · Leadership presentation · Recommendations

Discuss team insight
Colleagues talking together around a table
Photo by Brooke Cagle
Talks

Start a useful conversation.

Accessible talks about the human side of work that asks for imagination, judgement and sustained thought.

Choose from three sessions: The Creativity Antidote, Stress as an Ally, and Rethinking Burnout.

Subject-led talk · Format agreed with you

Explore the talks
An audience raising their hands during an event
Photo by Edwin Andrade
Team workshops / Circles

Make space for connection.

Small-group sessions built around a shared subject: a short introduction, an activity-led discussion, and a practical tool to take away.

Explore themes such as belonging, self-talk or vulnerability. Book one circle or build a series around what the team needs.

60 minutes · Around 8 people · Online or in person

Discuss a Circle
People making wreaths together around a shared table
Photo by Hillary Jeanne
Reflective leadership sessions / Mirrors

Step back. Think it through.

Individual reflective sessions for leaders to explore what they’re experiencing, how they respond and the conditions they create for other people.

Space to consider a difficult situation, a decision or a recurring pattern, with someone outside the day-to-day business.

One-to-one · Scope and confidentiality agreed beforehand

Discuss a Mirror session
A hand reflected in a round mirror against a pink sky
Photo by Mohammad Reza Razmpour (Mamazii)

Strategy for humans, at work.

How people feel at work
is also about how work works.

Workload, expectations and relationships matter. I consider people’s experience alongside the structures they work within, so recommendations can include changes for leadership to make as well as support for the team.

A talk can offer understanding. A Circle can create connection. Neither replaces action on the working conditions that need attention.

In practice / An architecture practice

Listen first.
Respond to what matters.

I used a team questionnaire to understand what people needed, then presented the findings and recommendations to leadership. We followed this with a talk on managing anxiety, which was warmly received.

  1. 01

    Hear from the team

    A questionnaire exploring their experience and needs.

  2. 02

    Give leadership a clearer picture

    Findings presented with recommendations.

  3. 03

    Offer something relevant

    A talk on managing anxiety.

Let’s find the right starting point

What does your
team need?

Tell me a little about your organisation, what’s happening for your team and any timing you have in mind. You don’t need a finished brief or a service picked out. A few honest lines are enough.

I’ll reply by email. We’ll agree the scope, format, deliverables and fee before booking.

Your organisation

A few lines about your team and what you have in mind.

Please leave out individual employees’ personal or health information. How your information is handled.