Ep. 115: Christian Hunt - How to Understand Human Risk

Let’s talk about “human risk” – the risk of people doing things they shouldn’t or not doing things they should. That definition comes from this episode’s guest, Christian Hunt. Christian is the founder of Human Risk, his company which embodies his mission to bring behavioural science to organisations so they they, and their people can do the right things.

The whole area is incredibly important – and often mis-managed. Many organisations do the exact opposite of what would be the most effective way of helping their people do the right things. They often set rules and policies without an understanding of what it feels like for the people who try to follow them. Getting this right involves a lot of counter-intuitive thinking. We are complex and sometimes irrational.

What’s more and as you’ll hear, as technology advances, so does exposure to human risk. That’s why Christian is disrupting the way organisations manage this fascinating area. Christian is brilliant. He was the Head of Compliance at a large international bank and through his work, saw how things weren’t working – for instance, why sending an authoritative email to get people to follow a policy often backfires.

We get into some interesting stuff which I am sure you will find highly engaging – that is, if you have to obey any rules – and that’s all of us. We cover:

Christian’s background and how he got into behavioural science;
The types of things organisations get wrong about setting policies, rules, and trying to comply with regulations;
Cognitive biases and how to overcome these;
Christian’s excellent “5 Rules of Human Risk” – massive knowledge and wisdom drop!;
Christian’s own approach to uncertainty and his vision for Human Risk;
much more!