Why do people who work in banks engage in bad behaviour? That's the question my guest on this episode, Professor Elizabeth Sheedy of Macquarie University in Sydney, specialises in researching. She is a risk management expert based in the Department of Applied Finance and since 2012 her research focus has been on Risk Governance, Culture and Remuneration in Financial Institutions. So she's ideally placed to explore why there appears to be such an issue with behaviour in Financial Services. In our discussion, we talk about why bad behaviour occurs and what we can do to mitigate it. What are the factors that drive people to engage in it? Would it make a difference if the industry were more diverse?


You'll find links to her research below.

For more on Human Risk, including the Newsletter and Video Channel. visit www.human-risk.com.

This major study of risk culture in Australian and Canadian banks, highlights the issue of ‘avoidance’ culture in predicting poor behaviour: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/corg.12200


How both remuneration and culture predict compliance behaviour: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378426619301864

What is the potential of compensation deferrals to temper bad behaviour? Will people gravitate towards the pay structures they prefer? Will the nature of the workforce change if deferrals are introduced? https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3535347


This research explores the "Lehman Sisters" hypothesis, which posited that had Lehman Brothers been run by women, that things might have turned out differently. The research suggests the opposite; it turns out senior females in banks are pretty similar to their male counterparts.: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/MF-11-2017-0465/full/html?casa_token=Sw-pGQTHpz4AAAAA:fu38Nld8uqZWES3N5koN1byos6t44SKVRrURunfUD9DWgLIHZlZpBqVDSMfR7eGbS1_-dpG3jmim_gVGRYuyo7qI1r1MQw1b0YoHvloXIVh4eZVllUvp

On this episode, I speak to David Enrich, the New York Times Financial Editor. He's the author of a new book called Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction.
We discuss the Human Risk aspects of the story and explore some of the dynamics that led to an extraordinary story.

For more on Dark Towers: https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062878816/dark-towers/

This episode is the audio recording from a webinar I co-hosted with Tom Hardin on "Decision-Making under Uncertainty". The video version is available for viewing on the Human Risk YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/SS8GuNSErrA

Details of future Human Risk webinars will be released on Social Media and via the Human Risk Newsletter: https://human-risk.com/newsletter-archive/

For more about Tom, who also featured in Episode 2 of this podcast, visit https://tipperx.com/

To discuss any of the issues raised in the episode, do get in touch.

On this episode, I speak to Professor Robert Frank, the H. J. Louis Professor of Management and Professor of Economics at Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management. In his new book Under The Influence, he explores how our environments encourage smoking, bullying, tax cheating, sexual predation, problem drinking, and wasteful energy use. By understanding how our behaviour is contagious, we can find ways to solve some of the biggest issues facing our society. For more on Robert's book: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691193083/under-the-influence

Robert on Twitter: https://twitter.com/econnaturalist
Robert's Faculty Page: https://www.johnson.cornell.edu/faculty-research/faculty/rhf3/

How can Behavioural Science help museums to encourage more visitors?

In this episode, I speak to Professor Tom Schössler who is the Managing Director of the Weserburg Museum of International Contemporary Art. For links to references I made during the show see the end of these notes.

Tom was responsible for conducting an interesting Behavioural Science experiment to see how a change in the pricing structure, impacted visitor numbers and perception of his museum. For more on that: https://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/article/what-weve-learned-car-parks-about-boosting-attendance

What Tom had to say about the experiment was really interesting and it highlights a real challenge of Behavioural Science; to work out whether something works, you need to experiment. And that takes courage. The lessons from this are fascinating.

What the experiment illustrates is the power of behavioural interventions; if we want to change behaviour, then changing people's perceptions is a powerful tool to do that. The lessons we can learn from this don't just apply to Museums. They also apply to other fields like Risk, Compliance and HR.


We recorded this before the Coronavirus lockdown, but obviously the challenge of getting visitors through the door once the crisis is over is going to be even more acute than before.

As this series progresses, I’m looking to bring you different voices you won’t have heard before, alongside academics and Behavioural Science practitioners. A museum director fits that bill perfectly.

For more on the Museum visit their website: https://weserburg.de/en/visit/
The local items I mentioned in my introduction are:
Werder Bremen football club: https://www.werder.de/en
Brauerei Beck: https://becks.de/
The Town Musicians of Bremen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_Musicians_of_Bremen

How will companies be held to account for their actions under COVID?
On this episode, I speak with Pooj Morjaria, the founder of www.didtheyhelp.com, a website that tracks the good and bad things that companies and public figures are doing during the Coronavirus.

We talk about the genesis of the website, how it is populated and some of the challenges he faces in running it. We also explore what the Ethical challenges of recording other people's ethical decision-making.

For more on "Did They Help" visit the website at www.didtheyhelp.com

You can also find them on Twitter: https://twitter.com/didtheyhelp

On this episode, I speak with Steve Martin and Joe Marks, the authors of a book called Messengers: Who We Listen To, Who We Don't and Why.

For more on the book, to see videos of key concepts it contains and to take a test to see what kind of Messenger you are, visit the website: https://www.messengersthebook.com/

On the show, we talk about Robert Cialdini. You can find out more about him here: https://www.influenceatwork.com/

This episode is the audio recording from a webinar I co-hosted with Ruth Steinholtz on "Managing Ethics in a Disrupted World".

Our aim in hosting it was to highlight the fact that in the current environment, ethical issues are more likely to arise. Many decisions currently being made, can have ethical consequences that are not immediately obvious in the short-term. We explore why this is the case and what individuals and organisations can do about improving the likelihood of making better ethical decisions.

For more about Ruth, who also featured in Episode 7 of this podcast, visit https://aretework.com/

To discuss any of the issues raised in the episode, do get in touch.

What do you do when you think your government isn't doing enough to protect you from the risk of COVID-19?

On this episode, I speak to Eggsy, a 22-year-old graphic design student. She noticed that her friends weren't following the UK Government advice on Social Distancing to prevent the spread of Coronavirus and wanted to do something. That something was the creation of a cartoon that explained the rationale behind the advice. The cartoon went viral.

You can see it for yourself here: https://youtu.be/6BhA9Kxd0mE

The techniques she deploys in the video are extremely engaging and illustrate an intuitive understanding of Behavioural Science. I wanted to understand what inspired Eggsy to produce the video, what the ideas behind the content were and to find out about what happened after she released it. We discussed all of those things...and a host of other things I wasn't expecting to talk about, but which were equally inspiring.

You can see more of Eggsy's work on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfLYB890iZh-0ECMMZ0y56A) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/itsjusteggsy/).

For more on The Adulthood Academy, Eggsy's new project, which we discuss on the episode, visit https://www.instagram.com/theadulthoodacademy/ or http://www.theadulthoodacademy.com/

This episode of the Human Risk podcast isn't really an episode of the Human Risk podcast. It's the very first episode of a new podcast called "Behind The Spine". But it is about Human Risk. Mark Heywood, who featured on episode 19 of the Human Risk podcast, is the host of a show targeted at writers and helps them find learning opportunities in the most unlikely of places.

One of the main ways we make sense of the world around us is through stories. Whether that’s children’s fairytales that help shape our perspective on the world or the stories we tell ourselves and others to justify the decisions we make. We’re not short of examples of politicians and others using creative storytelling to justify their actions.

So if we can better understand stories, we can better understand behaviour. On this first episode, you'll be able to hear a familiar voice talking about Human Risk.

For more on Behind The Spine, visit the podcast website: https://bit.ly/2XB9as5.

You can subscribe to Behind The Spine on all the usual podcast platforms.