The blog

We’ve just had results back from a trial with a company that helps people get back into work. The sales team cold calls people who’ve been made redundant to offer a get-back-into-work package. We split the team into two groups: Team Brown (after Derren) and Team Beige. We gave Team Brown some behavioural tricks to […]

So, that’s Eurovision done for another year. We managed to escape the dreaded ‘nul points’ and SuRie heroically sung through, in spite of the stage invasion. But what we’ve all been debating in the office is whether she should have sung again. As it was, she left the stage to roaring applause and we expect […]

For the last six months I’ve spent my Tuesday evenings singing in a choir. When we start a new song, our musical director’s first move is to break down each song into its component parts. I’m a baritone, so I’ll learn that line while the sopranos and altos learn theirs. We’ll work through the song […]

We hate to break the bad news so close to Learning at Work Week. But, as much as  people want to learn, they’re also incredibly good at forgetting or resisting new information. With that in mind, here are three reasons we think most training programmes fail. And three ways to make yours stick.   1. […]

Ah, the Grand National. The one time a year when people who know nothing about horse racing feel compelled to have a flutter. And if you know nothing about it, how do you know where to put your money? It turns out almost half of us just go on the horse’s name. A lot of […]

Like most normal people, I like oranges more than bananas. But when I’m faced with the office fruit bowl I’ll inevitably go for the banana. It’s a phenomenon you’ll see in homes and offices around the world, and there’s a simple explanation: friction. Oranges are just too much hard work. In fact, if you look […]

It’s not as creepy as it sounds. According to this study from Stanford, changes in a new starter’s emails over their first six months could help you tell whether they’ll make the grade. Okay, it is a bit creepy. Specifically, the study measures how quickly new hires start using the same language as their colleagues […]

We’ve been chuckling at this story in the New Scientist. Some journalists (and a large number of optimistic balding people) have misinterpreted a piece of Japanese research, which seemed to suggest eating fries could cure baldness. Spoiler alert: it can’t. But, from a nudge perspective, we can totally see why this story took off. After […]