The Human Risk Podcast

We all understand the idea of Confidence and that having it can help us succeed. Equally, not having it can also paralyse us into inaction. So what is the optimal level of confidence?That's what my guest on this episode, Professor Don Moore, is here to help me understand. He's a professor at the Berkeley Haas School of Business, formerly at Carnegie Mellon. Don is an expert in psychology with his main research focus on overconfidence. And he's recently written a book on the subject called Perfectly Confident. In our discussion, we explore what the optimal balance of confidence is and how you can find it.To find out more about Don and his book visit his website: https://perfectlyconfident.com/.

We all instinctively know the impact negative reviews have on individuals and organizations; whether TripAdvisor ratings or publicly administered regulatory sanctions. It's not good. Yet there are many people and organisations thriving on precisely that. Sometimes, negative social evaluations, might actually not be a bad thing.My guest, Dr Thomas Roulet of Cambridge University, has just written a book called 'The Power of Being Divisive; Understanding Negative Social Evaluations'. In our discussion, we explore why divisive politicians can benefit from negative perceptions and why banks who are publicly admonished for bad behaviour, can actually make more money. It's fascinating, often counter-intuitive stuff. In a world where all of us can rate others and be rated ourselves, understanding how we perceive ratings, is highly valuable.For more on Thomas visit his website: https://www.thomasroulet.com/Thomas_Roulet.htmlYou'll also find him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thomrouletHis book The Power Of Being Divisive: https://bit.ly/34BEY1V

What is Human Risk? What does 'Bringing Behavioural Science to Ethics & Compliance' mean in practice? On this episode, I'm cross-casting an episode of the Ethical Experts podcast that explores Human Risk.The Ethics Experts (https://compliancepodcastnetwork.net/category/the-ethics-experts/) is hosted by Nick Gallo of Compliance Line (https://complianceline.com/).As I'm often asked about Human Risk and what I mean by "bringing Behavioural Science to Ethics & Compliance", I thought I'd share this episode with my own listeners. Hopefully, it'll bring the genesis of the Human Risk concept to life & spark further conversations and ideas.

How can organizations ensure they are ethical? We all understand the principle, but what does it mean in practice? As Ethics becomes a more significant factor in how employees, customers and regulators view companies, there is an increasing need to have a program to manage it. On this episode, I'm joined by Rob Chesnut, the former Chief Ethics Officer for AirBnB. Rob has just written a book about his experiences at AirBnb and eBay among other companies. In our wide-ranging discussion, we explore why ethics is such a challenging topic and what organizations can do to respond to it. Not only does Rob have some great stories to share, but he's also got some innovative ideas about managing the challenge.For more on Rob and his book, Intentional Integrity visit his website: https://www.intentionalintegrity.com/

What, if anything, have we learned about human behaviour from COVID? That's what I'm exploring in this episode. Six months ago, my friend Mark Heywood invited me onto the first episode of Behind The Spine (BTS); a brand new podcast for writers that looks at genre & narrative. He wanted my thoughts about what impact COVID would have on human behaviour. You'll find that episode as a crosscast on this show. Recently, Mark kindly invited me back for a "six months later" review to see whether my predictions had turned out to be correct. Fortunately, I didn't do too badly. So on this cross-cast episode, join me as Mark's guest, to explore 6 months of COVID from a behavioural perspective.For more on Behind The Spine visit the podcast website: https://behindthespine.podbean.com/On the show, Mark & I refer to a number of UK TV series. If you're not familiar with them, they're all well worth checking out:Alan Partridge - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_PartridgeSpitting Image - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitting_ImageThe Thick Of It - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thick_of_ItThe Room Next Door - https://www.michaelspicer.co.uk/Dr Evil from Austin Powers - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Evil

Why are there so many entirely preventable financial disasters? And why don't the people behind the companies that suffer them, prevent them from happening?That's what my guest Jérôme Tagger and I explore on this episode. He's the CEO of Preventable Surprises, a think-tank that seeks to prevent or at least mitigate corporate and market implosions. What he's dealing with is Human Risk on an epic scale.Jérôme is also the co-founder and co-host of Breaking The Fever, a podcast and speaker series I've featured on the podcast before. His co-founder and co-host Alison Taylor, has also been on the show before talking about Ethics.For more on:Preventable Surprises: https://preventablesurprises.com/Breaking The Fever: https://preventablesurprises.com/issues/covid-19-breaking-the-fever/The episode of this podcast featuring Alison Taylor: https://www.podpage.com/the-human-risk-podcast/alison-taylor-on-ethics/For more on Human Risk:Twitter account: https://twitter.com/humanriskblogNewsletter: https://human-risk.com/newsletter-archive/Video Channel: https://human-risk.com/videoblogs/

When we think of risk, it is usually in the context of 'risk-taking'; in other words, an active decision to do something. But it is equally possible to take risk by doing nothing; passive risk. What differentiates the two and is passive risk really a risk?That's what my guest this time Dr Johannes Lohse has been researching. In our discussion, we explore a recent paper he published with Dr Christian König-Kersting & Dr Anna Louisa Merkel on this very topic. You can find that here: https://ideas.repec.org/p/inn/wpaper/2020-04.htmlThis subject is highly relevant to Human Risk, which I define as "the risk of people doing things they shouldn't, or not doing things they should". In other words, both active and passive risk-taking by people. You can find out more about Johannes' work here: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/staff/profiles/business/lohse-johannes.aspx

As academic establishments continue to adjust from face to face teaching to being primarily online experiences, how are academics adjusting? That's the start point for my discussion in this episode with Dr Andrew Ishak. Having seen this article: https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-to-curate-your-zoom-backdrop-and-why-you-shouldhe responded with this video to help his academic colleagues seem more 'professorial' during their online sessions:https://vimeo.com/447645552That forms the start point of my wide-ranging discussion with Andrew covering both his specialism of Communication and his area of research into how teams perform in high-pressure situations. We explore everything from how sports talk radio deliberately confects debates, to how we can train firefighters to be able to deal with situations that it would be too dangerous to allow them to rehearse in. We cover sport, risk management under COVID and the importance of Communication. As regular listeners will know, the podcast doesn't follow a strict format, and this episode is no exception.For more on Andrew and his research, visit his faculty page: https://www.scu.edu/cas/communication/faculty/andrew-ishak/ and personal website: http://www.andrewishak.com/I also refer to the Compliance Communications Toolkit & the Human Risk Newsletter. More details on those are here: www.human-risk.com

What do you think of when you read the phrase 'Compliance Training'? Something dull that you're either forced to give (if you're in Compliance) or endure (if you're not)? If so, you're not alone. But it doesn't have to be like that. As my guest this time, Travis Waugh, explores in his book Fully Compliant.Travis is a Learning & Development expert who came to Compliance Training and thought there was a better way to do things. Which is what we explore in this episode of the podcast. So whether you're responsible for Compiance Training, or simply have to go along to it and don't get much out of it, this is the episode for you. Find out why and then help change things in your organization.For more on Travis' book visit: https://www.td.org/books/fully-compliant

Why do even the smartest and most savvy business people make mistakes? It's not because they're stupid. Instead, it's because of the way our brains work. That's what Professor Olivier Sibony, my guest on this episode, explores in his latest book "You're About To Make A Terrible Mistake". In that book, he highlights how cognitive biases that underpin our thinking, can lead us to make terrible mistakes. Using fascinating case studies, he explores how we can fall into what he calls decision-making traps and how we can mitigate those. Not by re-programming ourselves, but rather by using collective thinking.In our discussion, we explore the ideas in his book, and we look ahead to his next book 'Noise' which he's writing with Daniel Kahneman and Cass Sunstein.For more on Olivier see his website: https://www.hec.edu/en/faculty-research/faculty-directory/faculty-member/sibony-olivierYou'll find details of his book here in English: https://oliviersibony.com/books/youre-about-to-make-a-terrible-mistake/For articles, presentations and videos, see here: https://oliviersibony.com/articles-presentations/