Public speaker on behavioural science and founding member of the Cialdini Institute. Historian, golfer and member of The Magic Circle. Ex-Schroders, PIMCO & GS.
Joined January 2014
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“There are, it seems to me, four main pathways to the truth: science, reason, intuition and imagination.”
(Dr. Iain McGilchrist)
"Trust grows at the speed of a coconut tree, and falls at the speed of a coconut."
@rorysutherland at @Nudgestock
#nudgestock2026
#trust
Paul Craven retweeted
An apt day to remember that Dolly Parton once recorded a cover of Stairway to Heaven - and, in defiance of every moral law in the universe, she absolutely owned it.
The @spectator Diary once included the story when @richardm56 interviewed the wonderful, witty @DollyParton. Richard Madeley commented on Parton’s tiny feet. She nodded, adjusting her embonpoint with both hands, saying “Nothing grows in the shade, honey.”
RIP Dolly Parton 🙏
I regularly get sent pareidolia pictures from all over the world, but today’s was particularly good!
Paul Craven retweeted
Paul Craven @CravenPartners is a good friend, so I am hardly unbiased, but this podcast is brilliant.
Paul has spent his career thinking about risk, uncertainty and how humans make decisions. Then a recent cancer diagnosis gave him a more serious encounter with all three.
A behavioural expert inspects his own behaviour.
Highly recommended.
humanriskpodcast.com/paul-cr…
Paul Craven retweeted
Thanks to @HodderFaith & @RhodaPR2013 for copy of this wonderful book. I, Julian is a fantastic achievement, bringing the reader into the life & mind of one of medieval Europe’s most important religious writers. In her new novel, Claire Gilbert brings Julian of Norwich to life,…
"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
(From Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. 1796)
Most people optimise for the deal.
The best optimise for the relationship.
Looks slower. Feels inefficient.
But often wins…and better for both sides based on trust.
Victor Frankl had it right: “Man is pushed by drives but pulled by values.”
youtu.be/1HpQhVyY0Qg
Fantastic Saturday at the @Chartered_Accts UK annual conference! Thrilled to present ‘Ethical Persuasion in a Noisy World’ - weaving @RobertCialdini’s principles with @arthurbrooks’ résumé vs. eulogy virtues.
Huge thanks to the engaged audience & top #CAANZUKConf team.
📸 @Toby_P_Photo
Two monks come to a river. A woman can’t cross.
The older monk carries her over and sets her down.
Hours later, the younger monk protests: “We’re not supposed to touch women.”
“I put her down hours ago,” the older monk says. “Why are YOU still carrying her?”
“Complex institutions often benefit from a little randomness.
The irony is that hereditary peers are aristocratic in origin yet cognitively closer to a random slice of humanity than peers selected by political parties.”
Labour celebrates removing hereditary peers on the principle that birth should not give you a vote in Parliament. Sounds fair enough.
But hereditary peers arrive through a strange historical lottery. Within a narrow social class the selection is largely random. Nobody filters them for ideological reliability or party loyalty.
Party appointed peers pass through multiple gates. Patronage. donor networks. Think tanks. Political reputation.
Filtered systems produce competence but also consensus.
Unfiltered systems produce eccentrics but also intellectual outliers.
Complex institutions often benefit from a little randomness.
The irony is that hereditary peers are aristocratic in origin yet cognitively closer to a random slice of humanity than peers selected by political parties.
“I’d like to admit my curiosity…”
👏👏👏
spectator.com/article/the-pl…
Paul Craven retweeted
An Oxford student magazine asked me this week:
What do you wish you had known as a student that you know now?
My answer started with a conversation at a Morgan Stanley CIO event that has stayed with me ever since.
During the global financial crisis, @nfergus told me he wished more central bankers and financiers had studied history rather than economics.
He was right.
Reading economic history, including from emerging markets, has often more helpful than talking to conventional policymakers hooked on their fair-weather economic models.
🧵
