The Human Risk Podcast

The Human Risk Podcast

People are often described as the largest asset in most organisations. They are also the biggest single cause of risk. This podcast explores the topic of 'human risk', or "the risk of people doing things they shouldn't or not doing things they should", and examines how behavioural science can help us mitigate it. It also looks at 'human reward', or "how to get the most out of people". When we manage human risk, we often stifle human reward. Equally, when we unleash human reward, we often inadvertently increase human risk. To pitch guests please email guest@humanriskpodcast.com

Episodes

September 13, 2026 61 mins
What can financial markets teach us about human behaviour? Why might the size of a CEO’s signature tell us something useful about the company they run? And why, even when smart investors know something is probably a bubble, might they keep investing anyway?

Episode Summary
My guest on this episode is Professor Alex Edmans, who returns to the show to discuss his new book, The Madness of Markets: Why Smart Investors M...
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What if understanding regulation could help us spot when politicians are promising the impossible? Regulation sounds simple in theory. Something poses a risk, so we create rules and a regulator to control it. In practice, things get complicated very quickly. It's something we all benefit from, but equally can experience as redtape that prevents us from doing what we think we ought to be able to.

On this episode, I'm explori...
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September 1, 2026 59 mins
What if AI could help us understand people better, rather than simply replacing what humans do?

Episode summary
How can we use AI to become better at persuasion, communication and understanding human behaviour? My guest on this episode is Roger Dooley, author of The Persuasion Engine, a new book exploring what happens when behavioural science meets rapidly evolving technology.

Roger argues that tools once available...
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August 23, 2026 60 mins
What’s the last thing you learned simply because you wanted to know?

Episode summary
Why do we feel the need to justify what we learn? My guest on this episode is Annie Wagstaff, a musician and composer whose career has taken her around the world touring with Take That and into writing music for advertising. But alongside her work in music, Annie has developed another passion: learning about whatever happens to make...
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August 15, 2026 51 mins
What happens when someone who spends his life thinking about risk, decision-making and human behaviour is confronted with an uncertainty he simply can’t control?

Episode summary
My guest is Paul Craven, a behavioural scientist, former investment professional, magician and keynote speaker, and one of my favourite people to talk to. When we sat down to record this episode, I noticed that Paul’s voice sounded dif...
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August 8, 2026 64 mins
Why do we rate everything and why do we do so on a scale of one to five stars? What happens when systems designed to help us make better choices start influencing our behaviour in ways we don’t necessarily notice?

Episode Summary
My guest is Benji Wilson, a journalist, TV critic and author of Rate This Book. Benji’s day job involves rating other people’s work, but when his children pointed out that Rotte...
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What parts of yourself have you learned to hide in order to be taken seriously? My guest on this episode is Mark Heywood,a friend of the show, returning guest and someone I've collaborated with on a number of projects.

Episode Summary & Guest Profile
Mark has spent more than twenty years working in crisis management and operational resilience, while simultaneously building a successful career as a bestselling no...
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    When something goes badly wrong, we investigate it. Reports are written. Recommendations are made. Lessons are identified. But do we actually learn them?

    Episode Summary
    Returning to the show, Gill Kernick joins me to discuss the substantially revised second edition of her book about the Grenfell Tower disaster, following the publication of the Grenfell Inquiry's final report. Gill has a unique perspective on Grenfell. Sh...
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    What does jazz singing have to do with LinkedIn? More than you might think.

    This week's guest, Anna Rössler, has built a career helping senior leaders find their voice online while simultaneously developing her own as a singer-songwriter. Rather than separating her professional and creative identities, Anna has found a way to bring them together, and in doing so offers some valuable lessons about authenticity, confidence an...
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    June 25, 2026 48 mins
    What happens when two people who spend their careers thinking about human behaviour meet in a London pub and start complaining about conferences? Apparently, they decide to organise one.

    Episode Summary
    In this episode I'm joined by David Grosse, founder of behavioural risk advisory firm Behavor, to talk about The Unconvention, an event we're creating together that aims to rethink how conversations about risk, cultur...
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    Why is it so hard to stop people playing vides, music or phone calls out loud on public transport — and what does that tell us about changing human behaviour?

    Show Summary
    This episode of The Human Risk Podcast is a little different. It is a cross-cast from The Freewheeling Podcast, hosted by Thomas Ableman, in which I join Thomas to tackle a problem raised by the show's most important listener: his mum.

    Th...
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    What if the best way to improve cybersecurity — or any other form of human risk — wasn't another policy, training course, or piece of technology, but a board game?  That's the kind of question my guest, Jill Wick, loves asking.

    Episode Summary 
    Jill is a cybersecurity awareness consultant, business psychologist, podcaster, and author. Her work sits at the intersection of psychology, marketing, behavi...
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    What can businesses learn from cults?
    It might sound like an uncomfortable comparison: one involves strategy meetings, values statements and quarterly targets; the other manipulation, charismatic leaders and extreme behaviour. But perhaps the distinction isn't as clear as we'd like to think. Both create identities and shared beliefs. Both shape how people think and behave. And both can evolve gradually in ways that are hard to r...
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    What makes great service? It’s one of those things we instantly recognise when we experience it, but struggle to define. And while organisations spend huge amounts of time trying to design seamless customer experiences, the reality is that service doesn’t happen in strategy documents or training manuals. It happens in real time, between real people, in messy and unpredictable situations where eventually the playbook run...
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    April 25, 2026 62 mins
    What if prediction isn’t about knowing the future, but controlling it?  On this episode, I'm joined by a leading thinker on digital ethics, privacy and technology to explore the idea of prophecy.

    Episode Summary
    My guest is Dr Carissa Véliz and in our discussion, we talk about humanity’s long-standing obsession with predicting what comes next, and why today’s algorithms may be the most powerful (and...
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    We like to think we choose what matters. But what if the goals we’re chasing… aren’t actually ours?

    Episode Summary
    My guest on this episode is Dr. C. Thi Nguyen, philosopher and author of The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else’s Game, a book about how metrics, scoring systems, and “games” shape our behaviour—often without us realising it. Thi explains how his work on game...
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    April 4, 2026 69 mins
    We tend to assume that if we’re working hard, we’re working well. But what if that isn’t true?

    Episode Summary
    My guest on this episode is Phil Dobson, author of The Brain Book and founder of Brain Workshops, about what he calls 'cognitive leadership': using neuroscience and psychology to help people sustain performance, think more clearly, and navigate uncertainty. Phil explains how a broken ankle ...
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    What lessons does a religious protest that led to an uprising  in 1549 have to do with human risk?

    At first glance, not very much. It’s easy to see it as a distant historical event — something about religion, kings, and a very different world. But as my guest, Professor Mark Stoyle explains, the Western Rising of 1549 is far more than that. It’s a powerful example of what happens when authority imposes...
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    March 14, 2026 64 mins
    What exactly is a sign?  At first glance, that might sound like a strange question. Signs are everywhere: telling us where to go, what to do, what not to do, and sometimes what might happen if we ignore instructions. But as my guest, Jeffrey Ludlow Saentz explains, signs are much more than bits of information on walls or beside roads.

    Episode Summary
    Jeffrey is a signage designer who works on complex buildings and e...
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    March 7, 2026 45 mins
    What Can a Cocktail Teach Us About Curiosity and Creativity? At first glance, documenting Negronis around the world might sound like a frivolous hobby. But could a simple cocktail become a vehicle for curiosity, experimentation and creative thinking?
     
    On this episode, I speaks with geopolitical strategist Marc A Ross about an unusual passion project: ordering and documenting Negronis wherever he travels. What began as a...
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