Rippling with Jez Groom and April Vellacott

Jez Groom and April Vellacott, our guests in this episode, are co-authors of “Ripple – The Big Effects of Small Behavior Changes in Business.” It’s a practical, application-focused romp that uses a behavioral science lens to solve all sorts of real-world problems.

Jez Groom is the founder of Cowry Consulting and has established himself as one of the world’s leading practitioners in the field. Jez has played instrumental roles in projects like Babies in the Borough – which we featured in Episode 167 – that used murals of babies faces to fight crime, to changing handwashing behavior in a slaughterhouse in Santiago, to using bright pink walls to reduce unsafe behavior on a high-rise construction site in London. He is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of Psychology at City University, London.

April Vellacott is the Behavioral Consulting Lead at Cowry. Aside from being a dedicated and experienced practitioner, she holds degrees in Psychology and Behavior Change. Owning the heavy lifting for the book, April stole the show with some of the best lines (see “you can’t make a bucket without bucketloads of money”). We urge you to check out their book as it’s more than just informative, it’s also a pleasure to read.

In our conversation with Jez and April, we discussed the salient points from the book, the case study format they used, the very international feel from those case studies, and some of the techniques they’ve used to get business professionals to adopt behavioral science.

We also covered a key pillar of their personal and professional missions: to demystify and democratize behavioral science. It’s a terrific conversation and we hope you’ll enjoy it as much as we did.