Christian Hunt on bringing behavioural science to risk management

[00:00:00] Sarah: Welcome to Speak to The Human, a podcast hosted by me, Sarah Abramson. Speak to the Human is a podcast that explores how we build connections with people in their professional work. It's about the human experience at work and about how to foster that connection and belonging to support people and their organizations to flourish.

[00:00:27] Through conversations with leaders, creatives, and researchers, this podcast covers a wide range of topics from psychological safety, to risk, belonging, creativity, storytelling, leading change, behavioral science, and much more. I'm your host, Sarah Abramson, and I'm looking forward to you joining me in hearing from our brilliant guests.

[00:00:50] Hello. In this episode, I am chatting with Christian Hunt, who I'll introduce to you properly at the top of the show. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did, [00:01:00] not least for Christian's boundless enthusiasm and energy, as well as his depth of experience and his insightful, often hilarious examples.

[00:01:09] He really shines a human light on what. He himself describes as the poorly branded world of compliance with stories that somehow encompass rogue traders, chemical weapons inspectors. How to avoid getting your phone nicked in a German train station, and what a sexologist can teach us about encouraging people to wear masks during a pandemic.

[00:01:30] Later on, we talk about the topic of trust and we dig into public speaking at the experience of speakers, uh, Christian's own experience, and how event speakers are likely to thrive when they're trusted instead of controlled by, uh, the event organizers. I. Please do rate and share the show. As always, I welcome your feedback and thoughts and your suggestions for future guests.

[00:01:55] For now, buckle up for a fast-paced packed interview with Christian.[00:02:00]

[00:02:06] I am joined today by Christian Hunt from Human Risk. I met Christian last year when I invited him to be the keynote speaker at our Speak to the Human Event in Cambridge, and it was fantastic having him open the day for us. He's an energetic speaker full of insightful examples about human behavior. Is of course what lies behind anything that goes wrong or right in an organization.

[00:02:29] Fair to say, Christian and I really connected and enjoyed our planning calls and had to stop ourselves going down lots of rabbit holes with stories about human behavior. Um, by then I'd already been listening. To his podcast, human Risk, which I'm sure we'll talk about in this conversation. And through that, Christian brings to life these dry sounding but critical risk factors for organizations around compliance control, regulation, by thinking about the humans that make or break, whether these things actually work.

[00:02:59] [00:03:00] Christian has deep experience in executive roles. He was managing director and head of behavioral science at UBS and Global Head of Compliance and Operational Risk Control for UBS Asset Management. Before that, he was the Chief Operating Officer of the UK Prudential Regulation Authority, which is a subsidiary of the Bank of England, responsible for regulating financial services.

[00:03:21] Pretty serious stuff. Uh, he now runs Human Risk, which is a behavioral science led consulting and training firm. And if all this isn't enough, he's also an accomplished author with a recent book called Humanizing Rules. Welcome Christian. I'm really excited to have you joining us. How are you today?

[00:03:40] Christian: I'm very well.

[00:03:40] It's an absolute thrill to be here. Thank you for having me.

[00:03:43] Sarah: Brilliant. So there was a lot there in that intro, a really fascinating area that, that you are working in. And how on earth did you get into that line of work? Well, tell us a bit about your background and how it led you to this point.

[00:03:57] Christian: So I, I think my career has [00:04:00] always been.

[00:04:01] Slightly opportunistic, and I always love this idea when we talk about what we've done, we always, we always have this sort of with hindsight story and then logically, I did this and then I did that. But I've always just been curious and interested in things. And so whenever I've made a, a career move, it's always been because something's piqued my interest or I've just sort of found myself.

[00:04:18] What Basically, so, so there's never really been any great strategy to it, but I found myself after the, the 2008 banking crisis and I'd started my career as an accountant. Let's not talk about that. And then moved into banking, let's be honest. 'cause it paid really well. Um, and, and it was kind of interesting and I, I found myself through a very serious of moves as, as an accidental regulator.

[00:04:39] In that after the 2008 crisis, they were looking for people that were not natural, who hadn't sort of naturally de towards regulation in order to shake things up a bit. 'cause they'd recognized that part of the reason things had gone wrong was that they didn't necessarily have the right people in the, in the organization.

[00:04:54] And so I joined the regulator in 2011 as it was going through all sorts of changes to try and really get a [00:05:00] handle on the industry and stop it doing the things that, that we all saw the the outcome of in 2008. And, uh, and I joined that in supervision, which is the bit, the regulator that faces off against the outside world.

[00:05:09] So that's, those are the bits. It's those are the, the people that go into banks to have a look at what they're up to and to, to keep an eye on them. And, uh, about seven days after I started that role, uh, UBS, which is one of the firms I was responsible for looking at, had a rogue trader who almost took the firm down.

[00:05:25] And so my regulatory career was very much shaped, uh, by that incident as I looked to respond to that and happened in London. So whenever something happens on your patch and you are responsible for international banks, you uh, you sort of have to take charge of it. And so I was responsible for leading the international regulatory response to this thing that had almost crashed this massive institution.

[00:05:43] Um, and so I spent a lot of time looking at, at UBS, um, I joined the Bank of England when they broke the regulator up. I became COO at the regulator. 'cause I was fascinated by how the regulator worked inside and then realized I didn't wanna be a central banker. Uh, and so I looked, well, where can I logically go next?

[00:05:58] And I'd spent so much time looking at [00:06:00] UBS and they'd come so close to crashing the car on so many occasions that they had to try and do the right thing. I. And so I thought, well, I'll go and join them. And in the, in many countries you can't go from the regulator to the regulators and vice versa. But the UK you can, because it's deemed to be a good thing to allow flow between the industry and the, and the regulators.

[00:06:15] So I joined UBS and I ended up eating my own regulatory cooking, which literally meant I was responsible for implementing many of the rules and things that I had imposed on the firm as a regulator. And this is quite an unusual experience. And what I realized was that my cooking didn't taste that good all of the time.

[00:06:33] And, and that was in part because regulators often don't have an appreciation of how things land with the firms that they're regulating. But the second thing was I was responsible for the one bit of of UBS covering the one bit of UBS that hadn't really had any issues. And so all of the things that I as a regulator would impose on the firm as a whole, um.

[00:06:50] Were things that hadn't thought about the business I was responsible for. They thinking about things like the investment bank or the wealth management business as opposed to the asset management business, which was the [00:07:00] bit I was covering. And so suddenly I'm in this world where, um, I'm having to implement things that I understand the logic of because I've been part of that process, but I recognize aren't landing in the way that I thought.

[00:07:10] And I'm trying to work out why this is because I know where they've come from and it suddenly dawns on me that people is the thing that's missing here. Because what was happening to me was I was receiving emails from myself saying things like invitation to mandatory training. Now let's ignore whether invitation to mandatory training is a logical sentence.

[00:07:28] It's either an invitation or it's, it's mandatory. It can't be both. Um, and, and I still think this training's awful. But I knew where it was coming from, and I would own policies that made no sense. And I suddenly thought, I'm old enough now to have to take responsibility. And I'm like, how do I square the circle?

[00:07:42] And suddenly this light bulb moment of behavioral science was something I'd always been interested in, fascinated by people, what made them tick. I suddenly thought, oh, hold on a minute. If we wanna get this right, if we want to get the organization in the right place, then we need to influence the people within it in the right way.

[00:07:56] And we are not doing that, not a criticism of UBS or the [00:08:00] financial services. I, I suddenly realized this was happening all over the place. And so I started to explore, well, could we find a way to, to, to start to be more effective at managing risk, ensuring compliance, if we thought about the humans at the end of this.

[00:08:13] And so this, you know, beautifully rhymes as well, bringing behavioral science to compliance Suddenly. Came as an idea and I, because I was senior enough, I started to play and think, well, how can I influence this? And to cut a long story short, I got really interested in how we could do this more effectively.

[00:08:27] Started to play a bit, played quite effectively. My boss said to me, how'd you fancy do this full time? And so that came. And then in 2019, just before the pandemic, brilliant timing by me. Uh, I decided to step out into the wide world and take what I've been doing internally within UBS of, of. Bringing behavioral science into all the fields where we were trying to get people to follow rules or be ethical or follow principles, um, to the outside world.

[00:08:51] And so that, that took me on a journey where I now work with a broad range of organizations. Everybody from chemical weapons inspectors, uh, through financial services obviously, but, [00:09:00] um, re retail, pharmaceuticals, auction houses, all kinds of eclectic mix of clients where they have this one common challenge of we employ people and we need those people to do certain things.

[00:09:10] And not do other things. How can we get manage that process effectively?

[00:09:14] Sarah: That's brilliant. And I, I wonder as well if there's a particular, um, aspect of it with the types of organizations that you started with there in, in banking and financial services where, you know, in my mind, having not worked in those sectors, it's very quantitative.

[00:09:31] It's very much about numbers and of course you're in an area that's about rules and those things kind of just intuitively feel a bit different from the kind of. Um, emotional side of humans and the messy side of humans and the, the stuff where people don't. Do the things that you necessarily can predict or control.

[00:09:52] So what, how did that play out for you?

[00:09:55] Christian: It's, well, it's very interesting when you, when you talk in those terms actually, because when, if we look at [00:10:00] banking, you probably think of it in terms of numbers as you say, and sort of calculations. And, and I do, I dunno if that's, obviously in the old days it would've been ledgers and then we moved through spreadsheets and now we're into sort of, you know, other forms of technology that are there and, and.

[00:10:12] Trading screens and, and cryptocurrencies and all those kinds of things. And so it feels like a very, sort of quant, a quantifiable business. But actually, if you look at what banking also is, it's very heavily relationship based. Let's go back to an era that some of us are old enough to remember where you knew who your bank manager was and you couldn't get married without your bank manager's Permission is the story my dad always tells me.

[00:10:34] Amazing. A D world. Um, you know, and, and so it's a, but it is a, it's a relationship driven business historically. And so there are lots of people in there who are hard for their ability to connect with clients. Um, might not feel like that if you're the average customer of a, of a, of a digital bank. But, but certainly at the, at the, you know, at the sort of wealthier end of the spectrum or when the relationship is with the business, there is a lot of personal relationship building.

[00:10:56] And so you've got people operating in that very technical environment [00:11:00] that, that are required to use those people skills to think creatively. And of course, even if you are a a, a sort of quant type person, someone who loves algorithms and programming things, even there you are going to be creative in your skills.

[00:11:12] And, and of course the rewards in financial services are such that people are incentivized to to, to try interesting things and to push limits and to test things out, and to develop products that, that perhaps without thinking necessarily about the impacts those products will have. And that's what we saw in the, in, in the crisis.

[00:11:28] So, so what's fascinating is you're absolutely right, but. There is also this, this sort of human creativity that's present in that sort of environment. And so the challenge that I, the banking industry's had is it, it it's always managed to control those financial risks, those quantifiable risks relatively well.

[00:11:46] We can pick examples of banks collapsing, but broadly speaking though are on top of it. The best they haven't managed to control is what is what's known as operational risks. It's all the non-financial stuff. There's always been when things go wrong in that sector. Typically in recent years, it's. Been the, the [00:12:00] operation or the non-financial risks that have been the problem.

[00:12:02] And of course, what's the key driver of that is people. And so one of the things, my second responsibility alongside compliance was operational risk. So all the non-financial stuff that might go wrong, how do we keep an eye on that and stop it from happening? And what I realized was that whenever something goes wrong.

[00:12:16] There's always a human involved in that either causing the problem in the first place or making it worse by the way they react or don't react to a particular situation. And so you are right. You've got, you're coming in and you're trying to impose the sort of disciplines that you can have when it's, when you can quantify it, when you can monitor it, when you can put a number on it to only bring that into the realms of what humans might do.

[00:12:37] And of course, you've hired those humans to be creative and do those things is, is, is a whole different challenge. And so the approach to locking down that risk. Um, is exactly, you know, is, is let's codify it and let's treat the humans as if they are programmable machines. So we will put things in policies and they will comply with it.

[00:12:55] We will tell them about this regulation and they will understand it, care about it, and recognize [00:13:00] it in, in, you know, and wants to do the right thing. And of course, that's wishful thinking. And so, you know, how does one, how does one manage that? And so you are absolutely right. It's bringing in a totally different way of thinking rather than a theoretical program and algorithm type logic.

[00:13:13] It's actually how do we influence people and recognize that humans aren't always rational, logical individuals. They will do interesting things if given the opportunity.

[00:13:21] Sarah: Absolutely. I think we spend a lot of time in, in projects like that with a, a whole range of different clients. But you know, it's so interesting, I love this strap line that you have, how to get people to do what you want without pissing them off and it just captures exactly that, doesn't it?

[00:13:37] So. Maybe tell me a little bit more about the types of projects you work on and how you might do that.

[00:13:42] Christian: Yeah, so my publisher is gonna hate that. I, I actually wanted to have that on the cover of my book. Oh, you? But they said, they said, we can't publish that to, I put that on there

[00:13:49] Sarah: for you. And I said, and

[00:13:50] Christian: I said, I said, well, actually, this is how I talk about what I do.

[00:13:53] Yeah. Um, because what I'm, what I'm really looking at is to move away from a logic that says we. [00:14:00] Because we employ you, we can tell you what to do. Now, that's, that's what I call the employment contract fallacy, right? Lawyers hate this, right? Because you, you are, you, when you, when you sign up to work somewhere, you do sign an employment contract, and that does give the employer certain rights over you.

[00:14:14] And so, you know, they can tell you where to, to show up to work. Maybe there's a dress code, maybe there's certain things they can impose on you. But what that fails to recognize is that you are, IM, you are, you're telling humans what to do and humans have feelings. And as sentient. And so a lot of the times when I think things go wrong, it is because we are pissing people off.

[00:14:31] We are pushing it too far. So we all have a degree of tolerance for process and bureaucracy and these sorts of things. But actually, ultimately, once we're tipped over the edge, and you can think about this in customer service context, you know, a very small thing can make us really irritated with a particular thing.

[00:14:46] And we've all, I, I have a. Theory that we all have businesses whose services we no longer use, even though they would be convenient or cheaper for us, because at some point they've pissed us off. You know, I'm not giving those people my money ever again. And so we, we [00:15:00] literally, we, we spend more money and time and effort to go to go somewhere else.

[00:15:02] And that thinking, I think also applies in organization. So what I, you know, the core of my business is helping organizations to think in those terms. Now, if they were already thinking in those terms, they wouldn't need my help. But often they're not. They do it in the, often in the customer context, but not in the employee context.

[00:15:18] And so I'm helping compliance people to think about where their programs aren't landing as effectively. So how can you do training better? How can you design controls that do better? How can you, in many cases, make compliance invisible rather than visible? Um, in other words, it feels clunky and bureaucratic.

[00:15:34] So how can we simplify it so it's easier for people? Because the easier something is for people, the more likely they are to do it. Uh, the less we piss them off, the more likely they are to respect us. We've all come across government bodies. Where you, you, you, you kind of, you, you get into this kafkaesque hell.

[00:15:51] And we hate it. Now we have to deal with the government on some level. So, so we sort of begrudgingly accept that. We'll complain about it, we'll accept it. If it's your employer, there's a strong, [00:16:00] strong risk that if they've pissed you off, you might find an alternative. You know, you might get back at them somehow.

[00:16:04] You might, if they, if they make you go through tedious processes, you might do malicious compliance. Uh, you might just decide to follow that process to the, to the extremity. You might ignore it, you might find other rules. You wanna break you, you might, you know, find other ways of taking the piss in simple terms.

[00:16:18] And so I'm helping people who have this challenge if we've hired smart people and if they're not smart, why have you hired them? But we've hired smart people and they're not doing the things that we want them to do in the way that we want them to do it. So it's recognizing what are we asking 'em to do?

[00:16:32] And that might be in the health and safety context. So we've got a problem with people breaking this particular rule. Why? Why is that? What can we do about it? Or our, they don't like our program. We're getting negative feedback. We're told that, you know, compliance functions are often told that they're the business prevention unit or blockers.

[00:16:48] How can they put the, how can they do what they need to do and build trust with the business whose activities they are seeking on some level to control. Or it might be just a line manager who. Uh, is, is struggling to get [00:17:00] through to their people who can't motivate or influence them in the right way. So I start from the simple premise of we are trying to get the best outta the people we've hired and mitigate the worst of the risks that they pose to us.

[00:17:11] How can we do that? And so that's a, a combination of imposing rules, principles, ethics, but also looking at at, at sort of, you know, general motivational pieces as well. Takes me into the HR zone as well.

[00:17:22] Sarah: What's, what really strikes me in what you're saying is, um, there's human behavior on both sides, so you're trying to enable people that are in the organization to do the things that you need them to do.

[00:17:34] But there's a really interesting aspect of human behavior that comes from the leadership and the management, which is. If you feel a little out of control, then there's a human tendency to try to impose rules. Structures, you know? So I guess part of, well, a huge part of what you're doing is trying to help those people to think differently, and I.

[00:17:57] Perhaps step into the unknown. What, [00:18:00]

[00:18:00] Christian: yeah.

[00:18:00] Sarah: How do they experience that? What's the friction? What's the, how do you help them to think about it differently?

[00:18:06] Christian: It's, it's, it's really, really interesting. I think, you know, a good example of what you're talking about would be the, the sort of post pandemic you must return to the office Egypt Absolutely.

[00:18:15] That are out there. And how do you know, how do people respond? And, and you can sort of see that, that everybody recog. So even if you are the most forward thinking boss, you kind of go, well, we have got an office. We have an office for a reason. How do we get people to come into that? But we also need to give them some freedoms.

[00:18:28] How do I balance those two things out? Or you might be someone that's totally like, the pandemic was an awful experience because you had, you couldn't see what your team were up to. And the way you manage them is by seeing what they're doing and, and being there. And, and so we see these, these interesting, you know, there are companies that are kind of going.

[00:18:42] Fully remote. There are others that, and there's some that are doing the, you must come back to the office 20 or 24 7. I don't say that, but that's kind of where, you know, that's what they like, ideally full control. And so I, I think, you know, the fascinating thing is, is we often don't think about how this lands with the people that we are trying to [00:19:00] influence.

[00:19:00] And so, you know, one of the, one of the challenges and, and this, this also exists, you know, companies sometimes struggle to understand their. Customers properly if they don't spend the time and effort to appreciate, what is it like to go through senior management struggle to see what's it like on the factory floor?

[00:19:14] You know, we get these TV shows where it's, you know, it's all around, let's take someone from the boardroom to the factory floor, we'll put them in disguise and they can see what actually goes on. And they're all, you know, the drama is that there was horrified at, gosh, this is not what we intended at all.

[00:19:26] Which is, you know, and we see this, we, there's lots of history around this battles. You've got generals sitting in their armchairs miles away from the front, and then there's the realities of what's going on on the, on the ground and. Bring closing that gap. And so what I'm trying to do in some respects is to get people to show empathy for the people who are subject to rules.

[00:19:43] Now, the challenges you have with that is that of course, often people have grown up in a particular system. If you are an analog manager in a digital age, that can be quite challenging. Didn't, didn't do me any harm to have blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, experience. That's quite difficult. Um, and so I, I'm having [00:20:00] to deal on two levels because I've got to, I've got to help people to think about their audience, the, the, the employees that they're trying to influence.

[00:20:08] But I've gotta think about how I try and influence those people myself. And so I'm spending a lot of time thinking about the behavioral science in what I do. And how I communicate with 'em. And one of the things that I have, you know, very clear to me early on is if I come into a company, I am never gonna know more about that company than the people operating within it.

[00:20:26] So I can bring a degree of independence and, and, and, and a different perspective, but I have to be really careful that I don't hold myself out to be an expert. And, you know, when I'm working, for example, with chemical weapons inspectors, now that is a, that is a client I would never have gone after on the basis that, I dunno anything about that.

[00:20:39] I've never been one. I have a rough idea of what they do. You know, I've watched the TV dramas, but I dunno what the reality is. But they came to me. And so I work in tandem with them. And what I'm trying to do is to help them think about the problems and help them to solve the problems, because I'm never gonna be the expert in the, you know, I've never been, even if I go to their offices in The Hague, I dunno what it's like out in the field where some of these compliance type issues occur.[00:21:00]

[00:21:00] And so one of the things I found really powerful is to find parallels. Rather than me going in and saying, this is what you should do, which is, which kind of is not behaviorally smart, is to think about, well, how can I help them think about solving the problem by shamelessly borrowing from other contexts?

[00:21:16] And so looking at the rest of the world and saying, well, how do we as humans engage with other situations? Where there might be comparable dynamics, and I'm not saying that just because we experienced something outside the office that automatically we should copy what we see there. We might wanna do the exact opposite, but it can inform what we do.

[00:21:35] And so a lot of the stories that I tell people, a lot of the examples I come up with are nothing to do with the industry they're in. So I will look at, for example, how Starbucks sells us coffee as a means of influencing our decision. Uh, you know, McDonald's sells us food. All of these advertising's a great case study for how humans are influenced or look at bureaucratic processes, you know, other situations where I'm really pissed off with the way that they've, they've treated me in that particular situation.

[00:21:59] Well, why [00:22:00] is that? And often you can find that some of the things that we do that we think are logical to solve problems in the work environment are stuff that we would never in a million years do either to our customers or that we would enjoy being on the receiving end of. And so what I'm trying to do is to get people, I'm trying to elicit emotions and so the reason to come back to that strap line that I talk about, you know, how to get people to do what you want without pissing them off is I think being pissed off at something or someone is a visceral reaction that we all have.

[00:22:27] We all understand. And so if we can minimize that sense amongst our employees, recognizing there are gonna be times where we have to piss them off, then we are more likely to get. Things in the position that we want those things to be in. People do the things we want not do the things that we don't want.

[00:22:42] And so what I'm looking for is parallels I can find. So trying to find examples of things that are out there, what I call compliance in the wild. So stuff that might seem nothing to do with work, but actually can tell us something about the way humans think. And if I can get people fired up and interested in those, they can help me to [00:23:00] do the thinking of what might be relevant in their organization.

[00:23:02] Sarah: I know you had some like. Brilliant examples of that. Um, in, in the talk that you gave, it speaks to the human last year. Um, but just unpack that. For us, for a, for a bit. Um, and, and actually, wow. I mean, chemical weapons inspectors are taking, you know, uh, risks to a different level. So, uh, yeah, that's a kind of slightly terrifying area to be talking about, but how might you use stories from, or examples from Starbucks or McDonald's that you talked on?

[00:23:31] Just unpack that a little bit and how much of that is about the kind of. Default behaviors that you are trying to help organizations to put into the environmental context, um, as much as about the sort of conscious decisions that, that you are encouraging people to make.

[00:23:49] Christian: Yeah. What, what I'm trying to do is to get people to potentially change the way that they are thinking about a particular problem.

[00:23:59] Um, now [00:24:00] sometimes the analysis that they've done is spot on, right? They've understood what it is that they obviously know. They know the objective that they have. They know what it is they want their people to do or not do. Um, and they might have diagnosed the factors of that, but maybe the thing that they've implemented is missing something.

[00:24:15] Maybe they've done something that's, that, that feels logical, but actually doesn't work on a human level. I'll give you some examples in a second. Um, and, and so what I'm trying to do is to get 'em to think differently about the problem they're solving. Maybe they're solving the wrong problem. Mm. Maybe they're looking at the problem they're trying to solve in the wrong way.

[00:24:30] Mm-hmm. Or maybe there's a, an illustration of a, of a, of a, of an alternative way to get to the, the, the solution they're looking for. So what I do is pull things that I've come across and that people, people are now sending me stuff, which is, which is awesome. Examples of things they have seen that I've of, of, you know, so, so I'll give you an example from, uh, I, I, I spend half of my time in Munich.

[00:24:49] In Germany, half my time in London, I travel between the two by train. So trains are a, a, a a rich environment. Transport in general is a rich environment for looking at how people are trying to influence our behavior and, and [00:25:00] having opportunity know I can spend a lot of time in a train carriage or train station people watching and seeing how people react to environment that, that they're in.

[00:25:06] So I'll give you one example, which is one of the, the, the train stations in Germany, they've got a problem with pickpockets. And so what the police have done very logically and sensibly is put on the station floor, massive. I think it's a big sticker, but huge thing, um, that, that basically warns you that this is a location where there are lots of thieves about, and, and it says, you know, take care of your valuables.

[00:25:28] So very helpful, useful, community minded thing. The problem with that. Is that when people see that, the first reaction we all have to that particular thing is to check our valuables, right? So I'm going to put my hands on my pockets to check. I still have my wallet. I'm gonna check. I still have my watch.

[00:25:45] Now, that's a smart thing for us to do in response to that particular message, but I. It's also incredibly helpful information for thieves. Yes, who will want to, because I can then see which pocket is I need to pick. And so we are creating potentially a honey pot for thieves. Now, I would hope the police [00:26:00] know this and maybe it's really, really clever, but I doubt it.

[00:26:02] We're creating a honey pot thing and they've done something even more bizarre, which is on this massive sticker that's on the floor of the building. They have put a QR code. Now, what is it we need to scan QR codes? Answer is your mobile device. What is an attractive thing for a thief to have answer your phone?

[00:26:15] So they're literally encouraging people at a location where they are warning you about thiefs to get out a device that a thief might want to steal.

[00:26:21] Sarah: You'd know where you'd hang out if you were the people. Right? Right. And so it

[00:26:24] Christian: doesn't, unless it's really, really, really clever, which I just have my doubts, I don't think it's as well thought through as it might be.

[00:26:31] Mm-hmm. And so there's a really good illustration of the police are trying to do the right thing. They're trying to warn people. It, it's sensible on some level, but I would argue from a behavior perspective, it's driving the wrong behaviors. Now, if you thought logically in the way that I've just explained it.

[00:26:42] About, well, what might people do when they come across this? You might think, is there a better way that we can solve this problem? And so organizations will often adopt logical approaches if we tell them they will do this without thinking about, well, do they do employees like this? Do they understand what it's about?

[00:26:59] Do they care about it? And so [00:27:00] you see, you know, lots of situations where you'll have widespread rule. It looks like you've got a bunch of employees who are breaking rules. Will, you know, this is awful. All these people are breaking rules. And so we say to ourselves, well, why are they breaking a rule? Maybe they don't know that that rule exists.

[00:27:14] They should know, but maybe they don't for some reason. Um, you know, if you train people on a travel policy that you have and you do that at a point at which travel isn't even in their contemplation, so maybe you do it when they first join the company, that's not helpful to them. What's helpful to them is training them just before they go traveling.

[00:27:31] Don't train people who are not traveling or will never travel on the travel rules. It's, it's a waste of space. And to say, oh, okay, well it doesn't, we'll we'll just train everybody is super convenient for the organization. But actually what that does, and I had this when I was, when I was working at UBS, and this is not a criticism of them.

[00:27:49] This happens. You know, my, it was really interesting. My assistant would have to do training on things. She worked in my department, it was deemed a compliance. You have to do all the compliance training, right? So we are [00:28:00] the, any, anybody who hates compliance training, listen to this. Just spare thought for the compliance people who, yes, I know often are responsible for the training, right?

[00:28:06] So therefore they're eating their own cooking in the way I talked about before. But I used to have to a ton of training that was completely irrelevant to my job because I sat in compliance and it was deemed that that was necessary. But at least I sort of understood what was happening. My assistant, whose job did not involve the technical stuff that my job involved would have to do the same training.

[00:28:22] And I remember her saying to me once, I've got another one of those boring trainings. And I was, I was in my behavioral zone, I thought, this is interesting. And I said, well, what is it? And so she showed me and I looked at it. I thought, I'm not surprised. She doesn't understand this. And so she was going through the training and it was multiple choice questions at the end, she was guessing.

[00:28:37] Getting through this damn thing and ignoring it. But the danger wasn't the, the risk of the organization wasn't the time she spent doing that so much, but it was that any time she got something that looked similar, she had a similar, she was like, oh, here's another thing from those idiots that don't understand me.

[00:28:52] Another thing where I just clicked to get through this particular process. And so the things that were relevant to her where she could pose a risk to the organization. So for example, [00:29:00] you know, inbound phishing emails and calls. You know, as a managing director of a bank, I'm not answering the phone to external calls.

[00:29:06] She's taking my calls for me. So the risk that she poses to the organization was exactly in this space of people trying to get information out of her. Um, and so we weren't looking at that as a major thing. I would've said, scrap all the technical compliance training that's not relevant to her job and give her more training on the stuff that's super relevant.

[00:29:24] And if you cloud her perspective on things, if you make her think that anything that comes outta this training machine is by default, irrelevant, she's gonna have switched off when the really relevant, important stuff comes in.

[00:29:35] Sarah: That's great. Thank you. I am interested in what you. See as being the organizational motivation behind compliance programs sometimes.

[00:29:45] So I guess what I'm getting at is that I think sometimes we see. Um, compliance being thought about as a kind of ask covering measure. So you have to have the stuff in place. Have we got the stuff in place? Have we got the policies? Can we [00:30:00] tick the box? Can we say, yeah, we've done it. If a regulator comes in, or if we have to explain why something went wrong, we're not gonna be held responsible perhaps in a legal capacity, in a regulatory capacity.

[00:30:12] It it, we have done the things we were supposed to do versus. What's the actual impact? What's the organizational benefit of helping people to do something that is actually more helpful to the outcome? How do we think about whether people are getting the message that their role in this matters? That they're important in this, that what they're doing is not only.

[00:30:34] Helping the organization to tick boxes, but it's also about helping them, or it's helping, you know, do something more effectively that ultimately is, is better for their situation or for the outcomes. I think that is, that's a space that we are often talking about and um, it's difficult to get hold of because the motivation isn't always the same.

[00:30:56] And frankly, some people. Probably are motivated to [00:31:00] do the tick the box stuff. Do you see that? And how do you Yes. Kind of engage with it?

[00:31:04] Christian: Yeah. I mean, look, the, the, the, if, if, if there are regulations that apply to your business and so, you know, every, every business has on some level to comply with.

[00:31:14] Regulations of some kind. But imagine you've got a specific regulator that's focusing on you. There is a reason that regulator exists. And, and to put it very, very simply, it means that whatever you are doing is of significance, uh, such significance that we need to somehow influence and control it. And the nature of that regulation probably points towards the history of what's happened with that industry.

[00:31:36] So industries that have demonstrated themselves to be high risk to society. Banking would be a good example, but you can think about the airline industry, think you know things where the consequences of people being seriously injured or dying or having other adverse consequences. We deploy regulation to be able to mitigate that risk to society.

[00:31:54] And the nature of that regulation often comes from the past experience of how, you know, how much can we [00:32:00] trust that industry to self-regulate? And you know, we know that all humans struggle with self-regulate. We all need help on some level. We're all a little bit, we're all naughty children on some level pushing limits.

[00:32:11] So I think in many cases we've got regulators that are approaching this saying, you pose a massive risk. And they impose regulations on firms that don't think about what this will, you know, how will this feel for the organization, the people that are on the receiving end of it. And so there, there's been historically this natural tension between regulator and regulate it.

[00:32:30] Regulators impose rules to try and stop things from happening. Crude analysis and firms try and find ways to get round that rule. It's the parent's child model where there is no, you know, and unlike the parent child model where there is at least something that binds 'em together, there's often not a sense of trust between the regulator and the regulatee.

[00:32:47] And so the regulatee doesn't come forward to the regulator 'cause it's not what you know. Let's try and hide things. If the regulator doesn't trust, there's this total lack of trust and that plays itself out then within firms where if compliance functions behave in the same way, then you have a lack of [00:33:00] trust and it becomes a game of how do I get this, you know, how do I get past these al rules?

[00:33:04] And so I, I think what we're starting to see is a shift. And there are some industries where they have got this pretty much right, at least in. The, the core bit of their activities, the airline industry is a good example where there is much more trust between regulator and regulator. So you get into more trouble as an airline if you don't come forward to the regulator and report something or something that almost went wrong than if you do.

[00:33:26] And they've recognized those incentives to do that, and that then plays out within the industry itself, where air crews, you know, if you report something to your employer, you'll get in much less trouble than if you try to hide it. And so they're recognizing those human dynamics and it operates much more on a basis of trust.

[00:33:41] There's this thing called just culture, which is where regulators basically treat their regulators. Let's start from the presumption that you're trying to do the right thing, and it's only when we have evidence that you are not, that we're gonna come down and need like a ton of bricks. And I, you know, I tend to work with organizations that are closer to getting it than not getting it.

[00:33:57] If you just view compliance as a box ticking [00:34:00] exercise and you just want to, you just wanna do that, and your job is to keep the regulator happy and you are prepared to run an unethical, risky business and kind of treat compliance and regulation as a sort of game to be played. Probably not gonna harm me in the first place, but in order to be credible in all of that, you also have to recognize when regulations don't go far enough, because often people look at regulations that's, you know, that world will do that.

[00:34:22] There are certain times when you know that a regulation actually that's not mitigating the risk properly, and you should, as a responsible business, be going beyond it. I think you can only have credibility to say to your employees or to not to say it 'cause you would never say this, but to sort of send a wink in the way that you process it and the way you impose it on them that you don't really care about.

[00:34:40] This didn't really matter, but you also need to demonstrate to 'em that sometimes the rules aren't enough. That you as a business want to go beyond that. And so I think you can have the credibility to have a slightly light touch approach to things internally if you also have things where you go beyond what the basic rules require.

[00:34:54] Sarah: Well, and that goes to what I was saying earlier. I think about, um, do, does the people do, the people on the receiving end of [00:35:00] the rules regulation, the compliance program, whatever it is. Are we thinking about the actual impact? Like what's the meaning of what we're trying to do here? It's not about the rules.

[00:35:09] It's about are we doing things in the right way? Is this set up, you know, is, is, is this having a meaningful effect? And, um, that shift in thinking and, and. Bringing people in, bringing employees into that way of thinking, I think is incredibly helpful and I hope that we can see more of it. I just wanna bring you back to that concept of trust.

[00:35:31] Mm-hmm. Which I'm fascinated in and I think I'm particularly fascinated in it as a marketer. Um, and I think sometimes the contract between, uh, organizations and. Customers is changing because of trust and in the internet age, you know, think of examples like Airbnb, companies like Uber and this, where they, these companies.

[00:35:52] Airbnb is a, a review driven organization where the power is dissolve devolved to people [00:36:00] based on whether you trust them on both sides of the, of the purchase. And I think that's fascinating. Um, so yeah, no, I, I, I, I think this whole area of trust relates so closely to risk, to human behavior. Um, and it's a much more, I guess, positive way for organizations to think about how you empower employees, how you do trust them, and how you think about that.

[00:36:23] I wanna ask you though, we talked earlier before we started recording about, you'd written a blog recently about trust, uh, in the context of you giving presentations. And I think as an event organizer, you know, that's really interesting to me. When I ask somebody to come and talk at, at our event or at other events, I've, I've organized, of course, I trust them because why else would I ask them?

[00:36:46] I'm fascinated to hear. What they've got to say. I want to give them the space and the creativity to um, you know, bring their thinking in. And I trust them to have that conversation with [00:37:00] the room. Um, I'm also comfortable with things going wrong, so if things go a little bit off, guilt. That's okay because we're together.

[00:37:08] We are thinking there, there needs to be space for, you know, for that kind of thing to, to happen. And, and I think keeping things spontaneous and um, fresh is, is really helpful. But you talk about this when you're giving presentations that that matters to you, that you want that kind of spontaneity. And tell me a bit about that.

[00:37:27] How do you, how do you manage that? How do you approach different talks that you're doing? Each time differently. And what's your ideal or your worst case scenario? Yeah,

[00:37:36] Christian: so, so, so what I realized through experimenting, and I think one of the things that's interesting about the difference between being self-employed or working for a smaller organization or a startup versus a larger, more established one is that you are given.

[00:37:49] Lot more responsibility and a lot more opportunity to screw things up in a, in a kind of more experimental startup environment. In a, in a large corporate environment, everything is controlled. And so that's, if we think about presentations, that's everything [00:38:00] from what you're allowed to talk about in public.

[00:38:02] Uh, you've got to use our slide format. You probably need to have it pre-approved, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I've always been somebody that, that. Sort of has, has been inspired by people that aren't necessarily predictable. I, I always look back to teachers at school and I think I like the teachers that didn't just teach the syllabus, but genuinely wanted to inspire us.

[00:38:22] Sarah: Oh, a hundred

[00:38:23] Christian: percent. Who cared about the subject and cared way beyond just the exam? They wanted you to come away with a passion for the subject. Yes. And so we had teachers that were brilliant at taking really boring subjects and making 'em interesting. Or what I think is the worst case of all, and you should not be in teaching if you do this, is taking something like history that's so exciting and so interesting, so much potential and you still don't manage to make it interesting.

[00:38:43] Negligent, in my opinion. Totally. And so, so you know, as I looked at that, I, my style is to try and engage. Gauge the audience and it's taken me a, a a period of time of, of really working out well, what are the ingredients that make that happen? And trust was something I, I recently realized was absolutely critical.

[00:38:59] [00:39:00] And, and you are a prime example of, of, of a sort of, you know, somebody that's, that's, that's hired me to come in that just gets it. I don't even have to talk about it with you, but there are other people who kind of, they, they want. Me to come in and do a presentation, talk about what I do, or talk about the way I think about the world, to try and inspire an audience.

[00:39:14] And they might try and steer that and they might try and steer that by, uh, wanting to pre-approve what I'm going to say. So wanting my slides ages in advance, and it'll be couched sometimes in the sort of technical, well, we need it in advance to give to the AV people. No, you don't. That's just the tail wagging the dog.

[00:39:29] Right? We should, um, so they want to pre-approve those things. 'cause that's, that's what they're used to doing internally. They want to, and if I'm working with compliance people, of course they are used to pre-approving things because, and, and my line is to say, look, if you want somebody that's, that's who's.

[00:39:43] Content can be pre-approved 'cause they know what they're gonna say. Age is in advance of the session, then that's not me. Right? Go hire somebody that will do that. In fact, one of your employees might be a better person to do that because that's how you operate. What I try to do is to create a, a, a, a a moment that we can [00:40:00] all share that that is filled with things that we, that we can all appreciate in common.

[00:40:05] And so in the same way that I don't talk about, you know, specific companies when I go and see those companies, 'cause I don't know what goes on, but I do know. Things I have observed in the environment that we're in. So if we're in a conference, uh, in a hotel, we will all have probably checked into that hotel.

[00:40:19] We will all have walked down the corridors. We may all, you know, we will all have experienced what the weather's like outside. We may have all heard something that's just happened in the news. And I think if you can bring those things in. Make it a unique event that's relevant to the people in that room as much as it can be.

[00:40:35] And therefore that requires content that's not prepared months in advance, but it's literally responding to the environment. Or if I've been sitting there at a, you know, if I'm opening the event, then I need to have a different energy potentially to, if I'm at a different point in the in the day, but I'm looking at really responding to the environments that are there and making it a live experience that will never be repeated because it's that one-off.

[00:40:55] Thing. And what I'm trying to do is engagement. Now that is highly stressful for me because it means [00:41:00] I don't, I come along, I have a rough idea what I wanna talk about. I'm gonna be editing things at the last minute, and I may even be editing on the fly as I'm presenting. If I'm getting feedback from the audience, they, they're loving something or they don't understand something I may need to tweak as I'm going what I do, because I think this is little bit like a teacher.

[00:41:16] You have to read the room. And you have to engage with people. Now, the only way I can do that is if the people who have hired me trust me to be able to do that. They need to recognize that I may do things that are, I may not even know what I am going to do. Now that sounds like, why would you hire someone who doesn't know what they, it's not, I dunno.

[00:41:34] I, I know how I'm gonna tackle it. I've got an idea about what I wanna cover, but I'm gonna respond to what's going on. I'm gonna be human about this. Exactly. And so that trust piece was something that, I was talking to a client of mine the other day after I'd done a presentation. She said, thank you. So that was brilliant.

[00:41:48] And without thinking about it, I just want more. Thank you for trusting me. And the light bulb just came on. I thought that's what this is about. It's about trusting me. So if you don't want to have faith in what I'm doing, if you, if, if that's too risky for you, just don't hire [00:42:00] me because you're not gonna like the show.

[00:42:02] If on the other hand, you, like we said, and that's why, you know, I, my response to that is also to put a load of content out on social media. Because I want people to see what I'm about. Mm-hmm. So that you are not, you're not blindly trusting. You're saying this is, if you don't like what I do on social media, do not come anywhere near me.

[00:42:16] Right. I'm not for you. And that's absolutely fine. There will be other people that can do what you want. If you like it, then know that I've done the same inspirational thinking and creativity in what I put on social media. As I will bring to the table for you, but that's not a pre-planned 12 months in advance.

[00:42:31] That's something that happens in the spur of the moment. And I do think, you know, I get really frustrated when I go to conferences and you know when somebody's phoning it in.

[00:42:38] Sarah: Yeah. Oh, oh. Totally Done it 500 times

[00:42:40] Christian: before and it's kind of like, it's, it's, I remind Britney Spears did a, this is what, you know, this is where I get inspiration from.

[00:42:46] Britney Spears did a, I remember she did a concert series when she was in her sort of being highly mini and having, by the way, her autobiography Phenomenal. Read in terms of the experiences. Oh really? She's been through, yeah. Incredible read and I, and. Uh, just fascinating talk about exploiting young women, [00:43:00] awful things.

[00:43:00] Really, really interesting. But when she was in her phase of being highly controlled by her father, probably under the influence of all sorts of sedatives and various other things to control her, you know, I went to see one of her shows and, and it was the most sort of going through the motions thing. It was really disappointing.

[00:43:15] Uh, 'cause I was expecting something quite sassy and interesting and it, and, and it was all, I think it was something like a, she got the city, you know, there, there's a line about Good Evening Wembley or Good Evening London, or whatever it is, right? And she got that wrong. And it was literally, it was like a performance of phoning in.

[00:43:28] And, and having read her book, I know why that was, because she was, she wasn't enjoying herself. She was going through the motions of thing. I don't ever wanna be in a position where I'm doing that. And I think if you come with a pre-canned thing and you are rolling out the same thing time and time again.

[00:43:40] People will know. Absolutely. And I think in particularly now, post the pandemic, if we are grabbing people's attention, either virtually or even worse in person, we owe it to them to be present in the room and to deliver something that is special to those people that you've thought about for those people.

[00:43:56] And, and that for me is the job of a presenter. And I think anybody that's on the speaking or presenting [00:44:00] circuit. That is not thinking in those terms. I think he's not doing their job properly. And I, but, but that requires trust on the part of the people booking to say that's what we want. And

[00:44:09] Sarah: you know that Well, and you said a really interesting word in there, which was enjoy.

[00:44:12] And I think being given an opportunity to enjoy speaking to the room and, and bringing out emotion in what you're doing and being authentic and in the moment, and. Having an opportunity to be a bit creative and have a bit of sparring, you know, have a little bit of response to how people are reacting. I think that's one of the things that, I dunno about you, but I have found giving webinars on Zoom when you can't see the audience kind of, well, it, it's hard because you're not getting the energy, you're not seeing the responses and the, and it's.

[00:44:44] Inhibiting in that it's, it's harder, you feel like you're just speaking to a, a blank wall in a way. Um, but I think that that is so important to give that space. I mean, for me, if I'm looking for a speaker, I'm, I'm thinking about who they are, [00:45:00] what can I. Ascertain about their values, their thinking, their personality, is that somebody that I think would be great in front of a room full of people and bring that energy, but also the ideas that connect with the theme that I'm trying to convey.

[00:45:14] And, and I am absolutely open to different perspectives on that theme. You know, perhaps people having, um, not disagreeing as such, but absolutely having different ways of thinking about it. I don't want people to be. Pre-planned. Pre-programmed and rolling out a line, it's a kind of dead behind the eyes kind of way of presenting, and I think that's, that is losing what we're trying to do, which is the human element.

[00:45:39] It's bringing your personality to it.

[00:45:42] Christian: Well, it floats

[00:45:43] Sarah: to unpack that. It's

[00:45:44] Christian: also an, it's also an on demand product. If, if what you are delivering is a pre-canned thing that is pitch perfect and you've done it a hundred times before, right? There are some people that will book speaker. They love that, right?

[00:45:56] It's, I know what they're gonna deliver. It's gonna be great. It's gonna be. But [00:46:00] I think that's an on demand product. Yeah. Right. That's a video. Yes. That is not a live performance. And so that should be, and there's absolute room for people to be crisp and clear and whatever. Then that's a, that's a different product.

[00:46:11] If you are delivering something live to engage an audience, then that needs to reflect. You know, you need to take advantage of that. Needs to be being live to. Yeah.

[00:46:18] Sarah: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I am aware of time. Uh, I guess there's, um, there's a couple of things that I just wanna ask you before I let you go 'cause you've been extremely generous with your time.

[00:46:29] Thank you. Um, the first is, I, I, we can't go without talking about your podcast, human risk, um, which I really enjoyed listening to. I would highly recommend it to people listening to this. Um, you've had a whole range, what did you say? Over 200 episodes. Which is, yeah,

[00:46:45] Christian: we're in there. We're we, we, we we're nudging towards 300 now.

[00:46:48] Yeah.

[00:46:48] Sarah: Um, g give a couple of highlights. What, where's it taken you? Yeah,

[00:46:53] Christian: so I'll tell you, I'd tell you what's funny is I, when I started it in 2019, and I think, and I know that, uh, [00:47:00] in app parallel univers, I've gone into radio 'cause that was always interested in that. And my university didn't have a radio station and I genuinely think that.

[00:47:06] Had had it had one. I might well have found myself in a, in a, in a, in a different kind of career. But I've always loved that format. And so I thought in 20, when I started, when I, when I left UBS, 'cause I was always a bit worried. Again, this is about, you know, constrained in the corporate world. There was no rule that says you can't have a podcast.

[00:47:19] But I was a bit, well, like, they, they're not gonna like it. And I was so, I felt, I, I was it compliant. Well, yeah, yeah. Again, there's no reason not to do it, but I just had nothing done and then I was just like, I will do it. And in fact, I'd recorded a, I'd got the jingle for my show, or the intro tape, whatever it's called, recorded in 2017.

[00:47:35] But I never got round to doing anything with it until I was free, until I felt free to do it. So 2019, I launched this podcast and I'm like, I will have a podcast. And I had not really thought about it. It was just an experiment to see what happens. And so I started with the kind of idea that, well, I'll just interview people I think are interesting.

[00:47:49] And I kept. You know, lots of, lots of ideas. Like, well, oh, someone's got a book out that's on a relevant subject. I should have them on the show and the, and then I started to experiment with the rest. And I've got to a stage now with the show [00:48:00] where I just go out and I try and find people, I think will be interesting that, that have something to tell.

[00:48:05] And it's not about chasing necessarily every single person that's released a book in my space, and I think very carefully about. Is this some, can I add something different? If I'm just gonna do a little bit like the presentation thing, if, if my interview with someone is just gonna be the same as something they've done on another show, then send 'em to that show.

[00:48:20] There's no point in me doing a discussion with them. I need to bring something different. So I spend time working out, can I get something outta this guest that will be different and unusual and quirky and, and, and whatever. And so it's, it's titled Human Risk, which gives me huge amounts of latitude to invite whoever I want.

[00:48:34] Um, I'd say flag. Flag, you know, I mean, I've had some famous people on it, so I've had Roz Atkins, the BBC newscaster, who does his explainer videos. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, we got some fascinating stuff there around his music taste and various other things. Um, I'd say my, my sort of biggest flagship guest, uh, is, is a sexologist.

[00:48:50] That I invited on, uh, and, and of course this slightly clickbait, but I invited her on during the pandemic because she posted something on social media and said, if you want to get people to wear [00:49:00] masks, talk to a sexologist. It's not our first rodeo. And I was like, that sounds a bit kinky. This is kind of interesting.

[00:49:05] And what she'd done is she'd analyzed what they did to get people to wear condoms to prevent the spread of HIV and transpose that into the world of how do we get people to wear masks and, and it's, they sound like different activities and of course they are to an extent, but. Actually what you're doing is you're interrupting something that is a natural process.

[00:49:22] So if we can get people to wear condoms, maybe the techniques that we use to make that feel normal, acceptable, blah blah, blah blah, could also wear mask wearing. And so it's things like making them freely available, uh, telling people how to do it, making it socially acceptable to do that, and all those kinds of things.

[00:49:37] Oh, interesting. Um. And so I had her on the show and she talked about her experience as, as in working, you know, in preventing spread of HIV and, and then what she thought about March. And then I unpicked the behavioral science behind it and said, well, this is I thing why? So fascinating thing. One of the most terrifying conversations I've ever had because as you will know and keep Discovery Centers, one of the risk podcasts is that guests can sometimes turn around and ask you questions.[00:50:00]

[00:50:00] Sarah: Oh, on doing that. No, no, I'm not planning on do that at all. 'cause I know

[00:50:02] Christian: what, I know what it feels like when it comes outta the blue, but I was, I was, I've never been more terrified in my life that she might start asking me questions. And so I was like, let's keep the conversation flowing. I don't wanna talk about my interesting experiences now, but yeah, so I, I just have a full range of people, everything from academics to, to kind of practitioners, people doing interesting jobs, interesting quirky things.

[00:50:19] Uh, a couple of the people that you invite to speak to the human Yeah. Uh, have been on the show before so we can, um, that, that, and, and so it's, you know, it's, it's just eclectic mix of people and it's just, it's me really trying to unpick. Interest. Things that I think have an interesting thread where we can learn something about why we make decisions, how we can influence other people's decisions, just, you know, what makes us human.

[00:50:38] Sarah: So interesting. Okay. And then a final question for you is speaking to you as a human, having just said, should I make you uncomfortable with asking questions? Tell me about what you are enjoying, what you're looking forward to, what motivates you personally, I guess, in a, in a work capacity. Although feel free to expand.

[00:50:57] Christian: Yeah. So I, I think what, what I'm doing at the [00:51:00] moment is making the most of the freedoms that I have, because working for yourself is one of those things that's very stressful and, you know, it comes with all sorts of risks and is unconventional. Uh, but it gives you opportunities. And in the same way that I have the opportunity to speak freely, I have the opportunity to do interesting things that stimulate and motivate me.

[00:51:18] And so at the moment, I'm working out what those are. That sounds really silly because I jumped at, you know, I'm doing a business, I've always been passionate about people. I, I remember thinking back to me as a kid pointing at literally on the street with my parents pointing at people going, why is he wearing that funny hat?

[00:51:32] What's she doing? Or what does that, you know, really embarrassed and my parents indulged that and I thank God for that because that's driven me to where I am today. But I think there's more to, I've got more to give, more to do. So I feel like at the moment I'm just exploring. And you know, I'm not massively excited about compliance as a thing.

[00:51:47] I think it's an appalling bit of branding, but I am intrigued about. What pisses us off? What influences people? So I'm looking to say, where can I take this and where can I be useful to society? Because, you know, what motivates me behind all this stuff is, is if things piss us [00:52:00] off, then that's, is that necessary?

[00:52:03] Do we need to piss people off to get better outcomes for society? Mm-hmm. Now, sometimes we do. But I think we do it far too often. And so I wanna take this theme a bit more broadly. So the moment I'm just, just playing a little bit to see where that takes me, and that's involves playing on social media with content, talking to clients, having interesting conversations, reaching out, you know, working with people in different parts of the world.

[00:52:22] I'm a huge fan of getting, you know, I, I think one of the biggest problems we have is groupthink. And so getting exposed to different people, different industries, different countries, massively important. So I feel like I'm on a little bit of an adventure. And, uh, that's so cool. Cool. And just sort of exploring and seeing and seeing what happens and seeing where I can, where can I bring my talents to bear and that, that means doubling down a bit more on, on me and who I am and what I'm about.

[00:52:43] And, and you know, if you don't like what I put out there, if you don't agree with my thinking, that's cool. Right? There'll be other, there'll be other people out there that you can, you can turn to. But I will have hopefully people that I can influence, inspire, and, you know, I'm excited about working with younger people because I think a lot of the things that.

[00:52:57] I've put the processes I've been through, I'm look back and think [00:53:00] they're not fit for purpose. You know, we have the, we are still operating in a patriarchal society. We have far too much privilege out there. We have ways of doing things that are not, I don't think they would necessarily ever fit for purpose.

[00:53:11] Lots of structures that are there, frankly, to oppress people. And I think we can do so much better at getting more outta the human species, making it a fairer, more enjoyable, more fruitful thing. And the only way we're gonna solve stuff like the climate crisis. Is if we start to bring the best out of people.

[00:53:25] And so, absolutely. I wanna play a small part in doing that. Oh, I dunno exactly what that means, but I'm on an adventure to find out.

[00:53:31] Sarah: That is so cool. What a great answer. Thank you. And, um, I'm certainly looking forward to following you. You have really interesting social posts. I definitely recommend that people follow you on social media.

[00:53:42] We'll, um, we'll share your, uh, your different channels on in the show notes and, um, also your book, um, and definitely your podcast. I'd really recommend that people. Have a listen. There's some brilliant episodes in there. Thank you so much, Christian. This has been such an interesting conversation. [00:54:00] So much to unpack.

[00:54:01] I feel like we've talked for nearly an hour here, but there's, you know, we are skimming the surface on this. Yeah. Well obviously human behavior goes so deep, but, um, there's questions that I had that I haven't even had a chance to ask you, but thank you. Uh, it is been brilliant and I really appreciate your time.

[00:54:16] Christian: Thank you so much for indulging me and listening. It's been a pleasure.