On the 2nd and 3rd of Sept 2015, I attended The International Behavioural Insights Conference in London. Hosted by the UK government’s ‘Nudge Unit’ (Behavioural Insights Team), the event included world renowned speakers such as Steve Pinker, Dan Ariely, Max Bazerman, Richard Thaler and Daniel Kahneman. I attended because in [...]
Corporate wrongdoing, political scandals, abuse and more are featured regularly and prominently in news reports. Despite the many publications on ethics research there is still much to be done to acquire a body of knowledge that will impact real-world behaviour. Because most of us are influenced by those around us [...]
'Just as the whistleblower defies so many - not only the rest of the company, but the auditors and everyone who accepted the firm while it apparently did well - the whistleblower presents a challenge to us all.' Read the full article here: SpeakOut SpeakUp Whistleblowing as Doing the Right Thing [...]
Why do people assume that truth lies in numbers leading them to default to believing that the majority is probably correct? Majorities benefit from an assumption that they are correct and minorities are motivated to assume that majorities are correct because it permits them to move from ‘deviant’ to ‘belonging’. Minorities [...]
In the 1987 Oliver Stone film Wall Street, Michael Douglas delivered an Oscar-winning performance as master-of-the-universe Gordon Gekko. An unabashedly greedy corporate raider, Gekko delivered a frequently quoted monologue in which he eloquently describes the culture that has become a caricature of the financial industry Despite the notoriety of this [...]
“Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked” – Warren Buffett In 2008, whilst analysing patterns of ‘bad behaviour’ among bankers caught up in an epic financial crisis, I suggested that financial markets might benefit from a more behaviour-based approach to regulation: More focus on [...]
Nietzsche wrote, “arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit, for merit itself is offensive” (1878, Aphorism 332) While societies may differ on what it means to be moral, they agree that it is good to be [...]
To date, a lot of focus has been placed on analysing the messengers of ‘bad’ news; often those whose quest to be heard results in them having to blow the whistle, often externally. In this blog, I’d like to flip the focus onto the recipients of ‘bad’ news, most often [...]
The BARRIERS and LEVERS through which HUMAN BEHAVIOUR is able to EFFECT CHANGE in the WHISTLEBLOWING ARENA Click on the link below to read my full working paper: Goodbye Whistleblowing, Hello Courageous Conversations