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I found myself watching 'Wham! 10 Days in China,' a documentary about their extraordinary 1985 trip to become the first major Western pop group to perform in — you'll never guess where?! — China. I started watching because I like Wham!, but it’s actually full of insights about influencing human behaviour. Touring China made no sense whatsoever from a commercial perspective. But Wham!’s manager realised that doing something no one else had done would generate media attention t

By which I don’t mean more bullshit bureaucracy, tedious training or pointless policies. I mean spending more of its own time doing things that might turn out to be a complete waste of time. Unlike functions with a more obviously creative remit, such as R&D, Sales or Marketing, Compliance is rarely given much room to play; it is somehow expected to get things right first time. Which may explain why so many of its solutions feel familiar. The 'new' e-learning module that feels

I was talking to someone this week who told me they have a ‘𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘪𝘯, 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵’ policy; introduce a new rule, control or piece of mandatory training, and something else has to go. I like the principle. It recognises that compliance isn't cost-free and that organisations can't keep adding requirements indefinitely. But it also got me thinking. People don't experience the number of rules; they experience the weight of them. One rule might be almost effortless to follow

I'm spending a lot of time getting AI to do my admin. Not the things in my work that require the human touch, but the things that absolutely don't. I don't, for example, want to scour my emails for receipts and upload them into my accounting software. It needs doing, but I add little value by doing it myself and learn nothing from the experience. So I'm investing time now to avoid spending a lot more of it in future doing stuff that bores me. Which raises the interesting ques

This week I'm running client workshops, and one of the ideas we've been exploring is Compliance In The Wild; looking beyond compliance itself for lessons about influencing behaviour. I've led 𝘊𝘐𝘛𝘞 walks before, where I curate the examples. But yesterday, as everyone headed off for the evening, it suddenly struck me: they're all going out into the wild anyway. So I set them a challenge; bring back 𝗼𝗻𝗲 example of something you came across that made you think about compli

No one hires me to get their people thinking the way they already do. They hire me to provoke, challenge assumptions and give people permission to think differently. So, if we want to improve something, I see far less value in asking, '𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘸𝘦 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘦?' and far more in '𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘸𝘦 𝘧*𝘤𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘶𝘱?' Often, particularly with risk and compliance groups, that can feel counter-intuitive. But once people start exploring the extremes, things start to

As regular readers will know, I’ve recently fallen back in love with vinyl. And it’s been teaching me a lot of unintended lessons. I discovered records were surprisingly good at getting me through work I didn't want to start. Then record shops reminded me of the value of wandering around without knowing what I was looking for. Now I have a more practical problem: my shelves are filling up. A physical music collection forces a decision that Spotify never does: what belongs on

I wrote recently about falling back in love with vinyl, and using a record player to get myself started on tasks I'd rather avoid (link below). One unexpected side effect is that I've started wanting new albums to listen to. And 'new' turns out to mean all sorts of things: something released last week, a reissue of an old classic, a pre-loved copy of something I haven't heard in 30 years, or an album from 1974 I've never heard at all. It’s got me back into an old habit. When

I've recently fallen back in love with vinyl, and I've realised the appeal has very little to do with nostalgia. While Spotify offers convenience, vinyl forces me to commit. I love the physical ritual of choosing an album, taking it out of its sleeve and lowering the needle. I also like knowing I own the music; no algorithm is deciding what comes next, and no licensing deal can suddenly make one of my favourite albums disappear. And yes — Ikea effect in action — I think it so

As AI-generated images become more realistic, laws such as the EU AI Act are introducing disclosure requirements intended to make it clear when content has been generated or manipulated by AI. But I’ve got the opposite problem. You don’t need to have followed me for long to know that I love using images of minifigures from my favourite toy to illustrate my posts. In the spirit of 'what you see here is what you get when you hire me', they’re also a key feature of my keynotes.

He’s right. I’m posting less, but I’m also more relaxed about what I post or comment on. Partly because I’ve stopped trying to play a bullshit game I don’t (care to) truly understand. We've all seen the ‘gurus’ out there telling us how to master the LinkedIn algorithm; they know what it likes, what it suppresses, when to post, how often, what format to use and where to put the link. Maybe they do, and maybe some of it is useful. But I don’t think I’ve ever gone out of my way

This week, my travel insurance is due for auto-renewal, but my insurer has been unable to take payment because the card on file has expired. An email told me to log into the portal to update it. I did, but there was nowhere to enter my new card details. I messaged the provider and, five days later, received an email explaining that they’re very busy and the functionality has temporarily been removed. So now I need to phone them, where, joy of joys, '𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘢𝘨�

‘𝘋𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘥𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘶𝘯’ is about as clear a safety message as you can get. A known risk, with serious potential consequences, communicated via simple advice. And yet, judging by videos on social media and news reports from eye hospitals, plenty of people seem to have ignored it. What intrigues me is why. As ever, there are probably a variety of explanations. Here are a few: 𝗙𝗿𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: For some, the effort — and maybe even the cost — of

'I'm sorry about that', my client said after a keynote this week. Someone had just asked me a 'question'. You’ll know the kind: a critique, not very cunningly disguised as a question mark. I’d heard the criticism before, so I was ready for it. But even when I haven’t, I don’t mind being challenged. Like anyone, I can get things wrong, and there’s no point having a mind if you’re not willing to change it. But I’m also not there to win over every single person in the room. I've

Earlier this year, I spoke at the Devon & Somerset Law Society 𝗔𝗻𝗻𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲, and afterwards, four different people asked me a version of the same question: '𝘚𝘰 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴?' I love that question. Not because I’m desperate to talk about myself, but because I don’t usually start there. When I first started doing keynotes, I’d open with my CV, because I thought credibility mattered. After a while, I r

My favourite slide from my LegalGeek keynote? The one that 'proved' the average person isn't interested in Compliance. By showing not telling. When you've only got 8 minutes to get your message across, it's time to get creative. So, rather than assert that people don't care about Compliance — which is different to deliberately wanting to break rules — I thought I'd demonstrate it. The event had a 𝗖𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁, which we were told to read before attending. My gu

I’ve just realised I might be missing some of the most useful feedback I get. Not deliberately, but because I’m not recording it. I’ve always felt that one of the most important parts of my keynotes is the Q&A and the discussions afterwards. They tell me what I didn’t explain clearly enough and what I hadn’t thought of. But I’ve realised I don’t actually take notes of what people ask and I’m probably losing more than I capture. So, on today's train ride from Berlin to Cologne

Speaking at Freelance Unlocked earlier this year made me realise something really interesting. I was talking about how freelancers can — and should — feel free to break the rules of how you’re supposed to run a business. Because there’s no point in being self-employed if you just behave as if you’re employed. And then, on a train — where else?! — I realised that part of my business has been behaving like a renegade function. For years, I’ve thought of the Human Risk podcast a

My favourite slide from yesterday's keynote — the topic was 𝗛𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝗥𝗶𝘀𝗸 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗜 — was this one. Not just because I love the visual, but because I think it sums up something I'm hearing a lot from clients. It's also something I'm acutely aware of in my own work. In a world when AI provides fast answers, there's a real temptation to hand everything over to it. And that can make a lot of sense. I'm all for getting it to complete dull admin tasks and

Yesterday was a very rewarding day; thanks to a revelation and some hard work by my interns. No, I’ve not suddenly turned Human Risk from a company of one into a company of some. My interns are GenAI tools. Because I’m now spending a noticeable amount each month on AI subscriptions, I had a simple thought: 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘧 𝘮𝘺 𝘈𝘐 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘱𝘢𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘵𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧? Not through some vague promise of productivity or by helping me write slop. I mean actuall