Episodes
March 17, 2024
Preethi Nair on Storytelling
What does storytelling have to do with managing risk? On this episode, I’m speaking to novelist, playwright, and screenwriter Preethi Nair. She also helps people who want to tell their stories to identify the one that will resonate and tell them in...
March 10, 2024
Heather Urquhart on Improvisation Part Two
What can business learn from improvisation? If you listened to the previous episode of the shwo, you'll know the answer. If you haven't yet done so, then I recommend dojgn that before listening to this. Because this is Part Two of my discussion with...
March 3, 2024
Heather Urquhart on Improvisation Part One
What can business learn from improvisation? On the face of it, a form of entertainment that involves making things up as you go along, seems to be filled with human risk and not at all helpful in the business world.
But actually, the skills that...
Feb. 26, 2024
Sabrina Ahmed on Burnout
What is burnout, and how can we prevent it?
We're increasingly hearing about the idea of 'burnout', which the World Health Organisation has defined as a condition "resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed"....
Feb. 18, 2024
Dr Ollie Hart on Healthcare Coaching
What is Healthcare Coaching?
If I say the word ‘doctor’ to you — in a medical, not academic, sense— you’ll probably think of someone in a white coat with a stethoscope who makes medical assessments and prescribes treatments and drugs to patients....
Feb. 12, 2024
Alison Taylor on Doing The Right Thing
How can businesses do the right thing? What does that even mean and why does or should it matter?
What is Business Ethics?
Business ethics used to be a case of dealing with things like bribery and fraud, which companies tried to — and often did —...
Feb. 3, 2024
Niall Downey on Mistakes
What happens when a surgeon decides to become an airline pilot? You get some amazing insights into mistakes, how they happen and what we can do to mitigate them.
That surgeon and now pilot is my guest Niall Downey. He’s also the author of a book...
Jan. 28, 2024
Solène Clément on Pragmatic Compliance
What happens when companies outside financial services are required to comply with regulations such as AML (Anti-Money Laundering)? As we all know from our personal experiences of banks that want to verify who we are and where money is coming from or...
Jan. 21, 2024
Carina Maggar on Coming Out
Authenticity is often praised, and inauthenticity is criticised. We want people to be themselves. But what happens if the society we’re in isn’t supportive or even hostile toward who we really are? Or we don’t yet know. That’s the challenge facing...
Jan. 15, 2024
Sarah Armstrong-Smith on The Cyber Attacker Mindset
What’s the most effective way to manage cyber risk? The obvious answer is to have more sophisticated security systems. My guest on this episode thinks the answer is humans.
That’s because behind every cyber attack, there is a human, and the biggest...
Jan. 8, 2024
Melina Palmer on The Truth About Pricing
What determines the price of an item or service? How can we price things so that people want to buy them but also so that we feel it’s fair? Whether (like me) you’re in business and have to sell, or you’re negotiating a salary or looking to buy or...
Dec. 31, 2023
Richard Shotton on Choice
What drives the choices we make, and how can we influence the choices that others make?
On this episode, I’m speaking to an expert in human decision-making. Richard Shotton is a behavioural science practitioner who has written two best-selling books,...
Dec. 16, 2023
David Meikle on Creative Control
How can we manage people who are doing creative work? On the one hand, letting someone do what they want feels incredibly risky. On the other hand, creativity requires a degree of freedom, experimentation and agency.
That’s a particular problem in...
Dec. 4, 2023
Vishal George on Money Mindsets
Why do we sometimes make bad decisions in relation to money and what can we do about it?
My guest, Vishal George, is a Behavioural Scientist who has recently published a book called ‘Money Mindsets: Science-Based Stories to Rewire your Money Beliefs,...
Nov. 27, 2023
Dr Jake Mazulewicz on Human Reliability
What do you think of when you hear the word 'error'? It's highly likely you'll think of it negatively as a defect. The obvious way to manage defects, particularly in safety-critical industries, is to have detailed procedures, strict compliance, and...
Nov. 20, 2023
Dr Freddie Mason on the Future of Museums
What are museums, and what purpose do they serve? As a regular museum-goer — both when I’m travelling and also at home when I need distraction or creative inspiration — I’m always intrigued, both by what they show and how they show it.
If you’ve...
Nov. 12, 2023
Katja Hoyer on Beyond The Wall
What is it like to grow up in a country that no longer exists?
That's the challenge faced by my guest Katja Hoyer. She grew up in the GDR, the German Democratic Republic. Or as most of us think of it, East Germany.
While most histories of the...
Oct. 31, 2023
David Mansfield on The Monday Revolution
What is the Monday Revolution, and why do we need it?
On this episode, I'm speaking to someone who used to run a company that grabbed a lot of my attention during my teenage and younger years. That company was Capital Radio — at the time, London's...
Oct. 21, 2023
Robert Kerbeck on making a career out of lying
How can lying earn you millions? If you’re an actor and good at impersonating people, then the answer is that you become a corporate spy.
That’s the unexpected career path followed by my guest Robert Kerbeck, whose memoir ‘Ruse: Lying the American...
Oct. 13, 2023
Dr Constance Dierickx on Meta Leadership
Why can senior leaders — usually in post as a result of experience and expertise — often make mistakes? The answer might seem counterintuitive; it’s precisely because of their experience and expertise that this can happen. How that happens and what we...
Oct. 7, 2023
Sebastian Lees on Humanizing Technology
Why is some software a real pain to use? How does it happen, and what can we do to make it not happen?
On this episode, I’m speaking with Sebastian Lees, an experienced software developer with a keen interest in making things more human-centric. We...
Oct. 1, 2023
James MacPherson and Elisa Lynch on Trickle Down Safety
What is trickle-down safety? On this episode, I’m finding out with two safety specialists who help me to explroe what it means and why it’s relevant to other fields. By safety, I mean the kind that saves people’s lives on building sites,not the cyber...
Sept. 24, 2023
David Wales on Risk Communication & Customer Service
What we can learn about customer service and being more human from the fire service?
On this episode, I’m speaking with David Wales, who used to work in the fire and rescue service and has now switched to focus on product design and customer service....
Sept. 13, 2023
Ros Atkins on The Art of Explaining
How can we be better at explaining things? On the 250th episode of the podcast, I’m joined by a very special guest who has made explaining an art form and has just published a book called ‘The Art of Explanation’.
That guest is Ros Atkins. He’s a BBC...