042: Bri Williams on being predictably irrational

A Load of BS on Sport: The Behavioural Science Podcast with Daniel Ross and Dan Biggar

Bri Williams is one of the foremost behavioural scientists in Australia. She’s obsessed with application rather than theory, and I buy that approach 100%. She majored in accounting and psychology (a rare but actually quite sensible combination), built a corporate career in product design and marketing, the BS switch was flicked in 2008 when she read Dan Ariely’s ‘Predictably Irrational’; a book that would change her life.

It crystallised why she had been experiencing a nagging irritation throughout her 15 year corporate career. And it started to address questions like why people get frustrated with their colleagues, why campaigns fail and why products flop.

She realised ‘we've been doing it wrong’. Our assumptions about why and how to influence behaviour had been wrong.

That book inspired Bri to start People Patterns, one of Australia's first consultancies to apply behavioural economics to everyday business and personal effectiveness, to write books on the topic and work with businesses to make their lives easier.

Show notes

• Bri’s funny hats, visual devices and other beh sci props
• How do I use beh sci in my podcast to get the most out of my guests?
• The story of my podcast theme tune and the tone it sets
• Bri’s background: precision and creativity
• Influence of Dan Ariely’s writing
• The 3 barriers to action: Bri’s BS model
• Marginal gains and the problems Bri loves solving
• What the best communicators do? Feelings rather than facts, audience vs. ego
• The simplicity paradox
• Escaping an elephant in Botswana

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• Podcast music: Tamsin Waley-Cohen's Mendelssohn's violin concerto