A LOAD OF BS ON SPORT

Alex is Head of Behavioural Risk at NatWest Group  where she and her team develop innovative data-led ways to reduce the risk of poor outcomes for the bank, and customers, resulting from behavioural root causes. She has also just regained her student card; as of September she started a part-time PhD at The London School of Economics! She is also the author of the highly acclaimed ‘Poles Apart: Why...

Name one thing that we all think about or discuss every single day… money. We carry so many unconscious biases when it comes to looking after our finances. You probably think you’re the exception… Michelle Hilscher leads the financial services practice at BEworks and, armed with a PhD in cognitive psychology from the University of Toronto, is particularly interested in applying behavioural science...

Preeti KS set up and leads the BS team at Grab in Singapore. Grab is the super app which provides users with transportation, food delivery and digital payments. Think the Uber of SE Asia, approximately! It is Southeast Asia's first decacorn and the biggest technology startup in the region. Show notes Grab’s motivation for getting into behavioural science How Preeti set up a BS practice from s...

This week we’re diving into healthcare; what could be more critical? To help me understand how behavioural science is impacting this field, I’m joined by Dr. Ada Le , healthcare expert at BEworks and Dr. Mousumi Sannigrahi , newly installed as Head of Commercial for Innovative Medicines at Fosun Pharma US, having spent the last 8 years at Novartis Pharma. Show notes What’s happening at the interse...

Introducing Zeina Afif, Renos Vakis and Ana Maria Muñoz Boudet I’m privileged to welcome to A Load of BS the core team at eMBeD , the Mind, Development and Behaviour Unit at the World Bank. Zeina, Ana Maria and Renos are working on the front lines, alongside governments and policy makers, challenging standard policy design and trying to change behaviour in complex, unpredictable environments and s...

Clémence is Director and co-founder at Magenta Consulting where she and her team use behavioural insights to make sustainable and scalable change in some of the poorest, war torn and least developed parts of the world, seeking to to maximise the effectiveness and efficiency of communications interventions in support of social impact; in places like Nigeria, Tunisia, Afghanistan and Lebanon. The fo...

It's a cracker this week on A Load of BS as I welcome my partner BEworks' co-founder, behavioural science leading light, writer, practitioner and speaker, Dan Ariely . Beyond his numerous entrepreneurial ventures, Dan is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioural Economics at Duke University and has written seminal books like Predictably Irrational and Irrationally Yours ....

In partnership with BEworks , one of the very best behavioural science consultancies globally. Cerita Bethea is Director of behavioural science at The Coca-Cola Company, and a practitioner of over 30 years standing, having also worked at Kimberley-Clark, Toyota and Ford. Listen in for a lovely case study about washing hands; a nostalgic trip down Covid memory lane. We also project towards the next...

I’m thrilled to be launching my partnership with BEworks today. Co-founded by Dan Ariely and Nina Mazar ( previous guest on the show alongside Dilip Soman ), BEworks is a multidisciplinary team of behavioural scientists and psychologists working on complex challenges across financial services to healthcare to sustainability, helping businesses reimagine a future in which individuals flourish and p...

My guest today is sports nut, almost pro golfer but primarily Professor at the University of Chicago and Chief Economist at Walmart John List . Just when you thought we were about to dive into the politics of diverging golf tours, instead we're going to turn our attention to ride hailing companies Uber and Lyft, where John was also Chief Economist. What was Travis Kalanick really like to work...

Steve Martin is a behaviorial science practitioner and a leading member of Dr Robert Cialdini's consultancy Influence at Work, where he heads up the UK practice.  Steve is a Royal Society nominated author and a co-author with Bob Cialdini on a number of books, including their most recent tome, alongside Dr Noah Goldstein, Messengers, Who We Listen to, Who We Don’t and Why. This is a timely ex...

Returning from the Summer, this week I'm talking to Sir Michael Barber , the man who Tony Blair appointed to create and then run his Delivery Unit at No. 10. While not overt, there's lots of behavioural science going on here: creating repeatable routines, fear of and resistance to change, influencing and persuading intransigent individuals. A great part of Michael's work after all i...

Bri Williams is one of the foremost behavioural scientists in Australia. She’s obsessed with application rather than theory, and I buy that approach 100%. She majored in accounting and psychology (a rare but actually quite sensible combination), built a corporate career in product design and marketing, the BS switch was flicked in 2008 when she read Dan Ariely’s ‘Predictably Irrational’; a book th...

Scientist and writer David Robson has written the definitive book on expectation effects. We're going to talk about his fascinating book The Expectation Effect and how our brain plays clever games with us. David graduated with a degree in maths from Cambridge University then worked as a features editor at New Scientist before moving to the BBC. His writing has also appeared in the Guardian ,...

Jenny Kleeman is a broadcaster, journalist and author of the book Sex Robots & Vegan Meat: Adventures at the frontier of Birth, Sex and Death . She is an award winning narrator of true stories across print, audio and TV and writes regularly in the Guardian, the Times, the New Statesman and Tortoise. She's reported for BBC One's Panorama , HBO's Vice News Tonight and Channel 4&ap...

Today I'm talking with Paul Dolan, Head of BS at the LSE. Paul knows what makes us feel good. It's all about what we pay attention to. He wants us to choose to spend our time doing things that bring us pleasure or give us purpose… and ideally both. He will tell us how we can redesign our lives to be happier. He will also explain why we care so much about what other people do, and how we...

Today I'm talking with another titan, the inspiring Bill Browder . If all Bill had achieved was hedge fund success, he would be regarded, as the most significant foreign private investor in Russia, as standout. But it's Bill work as a human rights activist over the last decade that marks him out as a man of great courage and conviction; for he has fought Russian corruption, and by proxy...

I like to take the odd risk with my guests. I like to stretch beyond the realms of the beh sci academics and veer into business, sport, perhaps politics. This pod is a little different in its genre is that it is striving to get to the heart of human motivation. Why do we do the things that we do? Martin Sorrell is one of the titan's of global capitalism over the last 40 years and that's...

We're revisiting what creativity is, how to express it and find it, with a legend of the advertising industry Dave Trott . Just as John Cleese wrote brilliant sitcom and sketches, Dave created brilliant advertising over a career in which he founded five agencies including Gold Greenlees Trott, Bainsfair Sharkey Trott and Chick Smith Trott. What I think you're going to love about this con...

I'm excited to welcome Dilip Soman and Nina Mažar to the podcast to talk about their new book 'Behavioural Science in the Wild' which is hitting the virtual and physical shelves on May 15th. Dilip Soman is a Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Science and Economics, and serves as a Director of the Behavioural Economics in Action Research Centre at Rotman [ BEAR ]. As well as his im...

In this episode I talk with Chris Rawlinson about his online education company 42 Courses and how behavioural science has influenced its formation and growth. Show notes What is 42 Courses and the BS principles behind it Chris’s unusual background: vineyard owner, commercial pilot, then at Ogilvy revamping digital training programmes Weaknesses of most e-learning platforms Chris’s dyslexia & l...

Since launching this podcast, it's been my ambition to interview John Cleese, in part because he has plenty of no BS clear thinking on what it means to be creative and in part because he is my comedy hero. But instead of just interviewing John, I thought I'd add an extra shot of brandy to the conversation and invite behavioural science's very own flame throwing alchemist Rory Suther...

A personal story in which Christian Hunt, host of the excellent Human Risk podcast, interviews me about: - My interest in and understanding of BS - Why I started A Load of BS - My goals and ambitions - Where next? I hope you enjoy it! Do check out Christian's other pods as well. Human Risk brings behavioural science to ethics and compliance and there are some fascinating conversations in the...

I'm talking football and psychology with Guillem Balague , someone whose work I admire and whose commentary on the game of football is eloquent, thoughtful and profound. Like me, Guillem is endlessly curious about what makes people tick, the psychology of sport, how players and coaches become successful, and also why they go wrong. Guillem has written superb biographies of some of the most ic...

I f you’re wondering why you constantly make flawed, emotional decisions and what’s going on in that jelly in your head, please subscribe or follow A Load of BS  wherever you listen to podcasts, and leave me a 5 star review. Your support is always appreciated! Introducing Jeff Kreisler When it comes to money, we make absurd decisions about how to spend it all the time. Whether this is buying a £3....