Would you take a pay cut for the career you want? Would you even take two? And what if the world's default position is actually chaos? How do we make decisions then? Arjun Raghavan is CEO of Partners Capital, making million-dollar decisions every day. He took some big decisions to get himself on the career path he wanted and to achieve his ambitions. Find out how he makes his choices in the last episode before our summer or winter break (depending on the hemisphere you're in!). 00:00 – The Asymm...
Jun 25, 2025•26 min•Season 1Ep. 20
How do you steer one of the world's most prestigious business schools through a global pandemic? What is a "leadership script"? And what happens when Bruce is introduced to "success squared"? François Ortalo Magné was Dean of the London Business School between 2017 and 2024. He successfully led the organisation through COVID's near catastrophic consequences. He has some very clear advice about how he makes decisions, how to tap into 'good luck', how to take the future into account ... and how to...
Jun 11, 2025•26 min•Season 1Ep. 19
Can one word change your life? Bruce thinks so. In this solo episode he unpacks a deceptively simple but transformative idea. Drawing from personal insight, academic influence, and examples from previous episodes, Bruce challenges listeners to step away from the comfort of binary choices and embrace the complexity of the real world. Key Takeaways "And" vs. "But": The word “but” often shuts down possibilities. Replacing it with “and” fosters openness, creativity, and more constructive dialogue. T...
May 28, 2025•16 min•Season 1Ep. 18
ACAST NOTES Money doesn’t exist. Economics isn’t about equations, it’s about us. Irish economist, David McWilliams, talks about the invention of money, how it drives our choices and how to make better decisions about it - our greatest, yet most divisive, invention so far. Why does traditional economics miss the mark? How can humour democratise economic literacy? Why is investing in yourself the most liberating financial decision you can make? David is talking about his book Money: A story of Hum...
May 14, 2025•25 min•Season 1Ep. 17
Warren Buffet’s current net worth is around $165 billion. Have you ever wondered what makes him the most successful investment decision-maker in the world? This time every year, thousands of finance professionals flock to his company, Berkshire Hathaway’s AGM in Omaha, desperate to find some answers to that question. Two of the people who went last year - experienced investors, Hywel George and Terence Moll - let us in on what really goes on at what’s been called the ‘Woodstock for capitalists’....
Apr 30, 2025•31 min•Season 1Ep. 16
Jeremy Vine is one the UK's most popular presenters. Millions of people tune in to hear him – and talk to him - on Channel 5 and BBC Radio 2 every day. He opens up about some of the many decisions he’s made during a nearly 40-year broadcasting career. What should he have done when John Prescott gave him an off-camera scoop at the 1995 Labour Conference (and what did he do)? How do he and his team decide what goes into his shows? Why did he decide that the next thing for him was writing a crime n...
Apr 17, 2025•30 min•Season 1Ep. 15
“The more successful you are the more vulnerable you are to bias”. Nuala Walsh has identified 200 biases that affect all our decisions! In her book Tune In: How to Make Smarter Decisions in a Noisy World she explores how biases cloud judgment and why even smart, successful people make bad decisions. Drawing from her 30-year career in the corporate world and her behavioural science expertise, she’s created the Perimeters Framework —a practical tool to help individuals and organizations mitigate d...
Apr 03, 2025•28 min•Season 1Ep. 14
US President, Donald Trump, took office exactly two months ago on the day this goes live. His decisions have got some people seriously worried – including Harvard Law Professor, Cass Sunstein. He recently warned about their possible consequences in his New York Times piece "This theory is behind Trump's Power Grab". Prof Sunstein is also the co-author of Nudge , the global best-seller that has influenced the way governments around the globe think about policy. Bruce met Cass at a conference and ...
Mar 20, 2025•27 min•Season 1Ep. 13
The Booker Prize is the biggest literary award in the world. It can change lives and make careers. But who decides which is the best book? How do you take a collection of subjective opinions and choose a winner? Sara Collins is a prize-winning author, broadcaster, podcaster, former lawyer and, in 2024, was a Booker judge. She takes us inside the process – which starts with reading 156 books! – and reveals her own thoughts on Samantha Harvey’s Orbital , the eventual winner. Chapters: [02:10] Who ...
Mar 06, 2025•26 min•Season 1Ep. 12
Have you stopped remembering routes because you’ve got Google maps? Would you rely on Chat GPT for advice on how to split up with your partner? Should you say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to Alexa? We have some suggestions. Mark Purdy, co-founder and director of Beacon Thought Leadership is also an economist and tech enthusiast. He shares his ideas on the impact of artificial intelligence on decision-making - in industry, in society and in our individual lives. Chapters: [00:00] Introduction: The ri...
Feb 20, 2025•28 min•Season 1Ep. 11
What is the ideal number of people to involve in a collective decision? What do we need to be happy - and effective - in a group? Why should more companies have pubs? Professor Robin Dunbar is Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Oxford. He’s famous for Dunbar’s number - the limit to the amount of meaningful relationships that we can have at any one time (listen to the podcast to find out what it is). Sam Rockey is an Associate Fellow at Saïd Business School - also at Oxford...
Feb 06, 2025•28 min•Season 1Ep. 10
“Be brilliant for ten minutes a day.” Is that enough? It’s worked for award-winning West End and Broadway producer, Colin Ingram who spends his life making multi-million-pound decisions about what audiences are going to like. Sometimes he’s right – his Back to the Future: The Musical is a smash hit. But sometimes he’s wrong – his Gone With The Wind crashed and burned. How does he get into people’s heads? What has he learned? What can we learn from him? "The only thing that doesn't lie is the box...
Jan 23, 2025•27 min•Season 1Ep. 9
New Year, new decisions to make? Here is a collection of the best pieces of decision-making advice from The Art of Deciding so far - all designed to make 2025 your year of making the right choices. More episodes coming soon. Bruce Whitfield is an award winning journalist, best-selling author and popular speaker. More here: www.brucewhitfield.com You can also follow him on Linkedin and get links to all his latest projects on Linktree The Art of Deciding has been featured in The Guardian Podcast N...
Jan 09, 2025•15 min•Season 1Ep. 8
The Art of Deciding is just six episodes old and already having an impact. As we wrap up 2024, here are just some of the life-changing lessons we've learned so far. The Art of Deciding is back mid-January with more fascinating decision-makers. Bruce Whitfield is an award winning journalist, best-selling author and popular speaker. More here: www.brucewhitfield.com You can also follow him on Linkedin and get links to all his latest projects on Linktree The Art of Deciding has been featured in The...
Dec 17, 2024•15 min•Season 1Ep. 7
On 22 July 2011, Anders Behring Breivik blew up Norway’s government buildings. He then travelled 23 miles to the island of Utoya where, posing as a policeman, he shot everyone he saw. By the end of the day 77 people were dead – 38 of them under the age of 20. Breivik was immediately taken into custody - but was threatening that this was just the beginning of an even bigger killing spree. Police Superintendent Asbjorn Raschlew was appointed to lead the interrogation of one of the deadliest indivi...
Nov 28, 2024•28 min•Season 1Ep. 6
Liv Boeree made the wrong decision in the grand finale of a TV poker game show and lost £100 000. But it didn’t put her off, and she went on to become one of the all-time most successful female players in the world. Not only did she win nearly $4 million, she also developed a decision-making philosophy that we can all use, however high the stakes. Plus, as the host of the Win Win podcast, her focus now is what happens when your choices are only made on the basis of beating the competition. You c...
Nov 21, 2024•27 min•Season 1Ep. 5
Karan Bilimoria was a Cambridge law student when he discovered that the UK just didn’t have the right beer for his favourite curry. Ignoring his degree and his family’s military background, he decided to solve the problem by setting up Cobra Beer when he was just 27. It went on to become one of the most awarded beers in the world. Since then, he’s applied his entrepreneurial mindset to a huge range of organisations, including as President of the Confederation of British Industry, working with go...
Nov 14, 2024•27 min•Season 1Ep. 4
When he was a young, bored accountant in Cape Town, Brad Fried decided to ring up Jim Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank to get some career advice. He figured - what’s the worst that could happen? Brad went on to chair the board of the Bank of England as well as Investec and Goldman Sachs. Hear how his 'art of deciding' is all about ‘the counterfactual’. Plus, discover his extraordinary insight into the power of silence when it comes to chairing committees - and how to avoid the deadening g...
Nov 07, 2024•28 min•Season 1Ep. 3
Sharmadean Reid was a talented design student who loved technology - and getting her nails done. Now she’s one of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs. What decisions took her from founding the smash hit brand WAH Nails at the age of 24 (clients included Serena Williams and Margot Robbie), to becoming the first black woman in the country to raise more than £1 million in venture capital? She tells us about her journey from art school into business, tech innovation and then towards her vision of...
Oct 31, 2024•27 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Some sources say a Jack Reacher book is sold every nine seconds, some say twenty. Either way, Lee Child is one of the most commercially successful authors ever. But he never intended to be a writer! What decisions led to his incredible achievements? In the first episode of The Art of Deciding , discover how Lee made the risky decision to solve a redundancy crisis by writing a best-seller. Find out what was behind the choices that brought to life one of the most popular action heroes of all time....
Oct 24, 2024•29 min•Season 1Ep. 1
The internet says we make more than 35 000 decisions every day - from whether to have toast or porridge for breakfast to when to change job. These decisions shape our lives but how much do we know about the process of ‘deciding’? And how do we do it successfully? In The Art of Deciding, award-winning journalist Bruce Whitfield asks people who make big decisions for a living to reveal a little of how they do it. What have been their most crucial decisions, do they focus on gut instinct or data, h...
Oct 10, 2024•2 min
