# ethics
20 moments across 16 episodes. Click any moment to jump straight to that part of the episode.
17:09Communicating things you don't personally believe inLeanne Elliott: Have you ever had to communicate something that you didn't personally believe in? Andrew Blotky: Oh yeah. And you know, this happens a lot, and I love this question because a lot of times we'll think abouEP 315 · 2 Jul 2026·interview· 17:09–21:0735:21Social influence vs. manipulationLeanne Elliott: I want to now look at an area on here that I wasn't as familiar with, and I'm hoping you can, you can enlighten me, Vince. It was around the kind of social influence And when I hear social influence, maybEP 307 · 4 Jun 2026·interview· 35:21–40:3815:58Jeffrey's biggest regret — claiming scientific backingAl Elliott: If I wanted to start some kind of HR tech, how much of this should I be bringing in psychologists to help? And how much do I just need to bring in nerds to write the code Jeffrey Fermin: I think my biggest reEP 285 · 19 Mar 2026·interview· 15:58–21:4244:41Workplace Surgery: When a career coach crosses a lineLeanne Elliott: I shall leave all the links in the show notes Al Elliott: Fabulous. Okay. Question number 2. My career coach crossed a line. How do I disengage properly? Oh dear. Right. Okay. So I hired a career coach toEP 270 · 27 Jan 2026·workplace surgery· 44:41–49:4229:30The Wells Fargo scandal and goal displacementLeanne Elliott: The Wells Fargo scandal is a textbook case of what psychologists call goal displacement. Employees were rewarded for hitting a single metric, opening more accounts without regard for how those targets werEP 239 · 9 Oct 2025·interview· 29:30–33:1315:30Fiduciary Responsibility: The Phrase We Hide BehindMeghan French Dunbar: So fiduciary responsibility, this is like this gorgeous little phrase that we hide behind so that we can do whatever we need to maximize profit and say, we have a fiduciary responsibility to our shaEP 229 · 4 Sept 2025·interview· 15:30–19:4519:45You Can Be the Richest Man and Treat Everyone Like GarbageAl Elliott: I want to talk more about the smaller companies. There's a fabulous book, well, I think it's a fabulous book, maybe you don't, by Bo Burlingham called Small Giants. Which talks about smaller businesses that wEP 229 · 4 Sept 2025·interview· 19:45–20:084:58Story 1: Soham Parekh's overemployment scamAl Elliott: I'll read it. So pulling it out of the hat, actually clicking on the tab on Google So, Soham Parekh working for startups. This is brilliant. Okay, so this is what happened, unless you haven't heard of him. AsEP 226 · 26 Aug 2025·other· 4:58–11:3520:49The ethics of building alternativesLeanne Elliott: What Richard's touching on there is something psychologists call authentic self-presentation. Basically being genuine about your interests rather than playing games. And there's research from the China EuEP 211 · 3 Jul 2025·interview· 20:49–24:5424:54Strategic misrepresentation — should you fake it?Richard Birke: I would encourage anybody who, uh, is— first, honor the feelings that you're having, but don't take a transient moment as reality. It's just a reality in that moment. So it wasn't like I had one day where EP 211 · 3 Jul 2025·interview· 24:54–28:2833:06The ethics of AI in businessLeanne Elliott: I want to ask you about ethics. That's what I hear as a psychologist. That's what my world is talking about. Do we need to, you know, what do we need to consider when it comes to the ethics of using AI arEP 169 · 6 Feb 2025·interview· 33:06–38:3813:45EY's cheating scandalLeanne Elliott: Well, these people might need it in their workplace. Have you heard about the, uh, the, um, EY cheating scandal? Al Elliott: No Leanne Elliott: No. So, um, this week The Times— I'm getting quite highbrow,EP 138 · 22 Oct 2024·news roundup· 13:45–20:4435:32Workplace Surgery: Should you report a colleague who automated their job?Leanne Elliott: Let's do it Al Elliott: So I'm a data analyst and I've recently discovered that my colleague Who has the same role and salary as me has automated most of their work. They're now actually only working abouEP 138 · 22 Oct 2024·workplace surgery· 35:32–41:3326:07Workplace Surgery: 'Am I stealing from my boss?'Al Elliott: So we are now at the part where it is the world-famous Weekly Workplace Surgery with Leanne Elliott, my co-host and wife Leanne Elliott: That's me Al Elliott: You should know by now she's a chartered psycholoEP 121 · 13 Aug 2024·workplace surgery· 26:07–31:2531:54Ethical considerations and transparency in data collectionAl Elliott: What is the smallest group that this is effectively working for? Peter Dorrington: Well, I think if you've got less than 500 employees, it's probably not economic to put the investment in to do the initial stEP 98 · 16 May 2024·interview· 31:54–36:3439:36How does this not turn into evil?Al Elliott: You used to worry about going into the office on Monday. So clearly there's something happened because you've now spoken for almost continually an hour on something with No loss of enthusiasm on it. What was EP 98 · 16 May 2024·interview· 39:36–48:4913:18The ethical dilemma of being over-employedAl Elliott: The last one is just one, something I saw on, it's a website called YourTango. I don't think it's the same as Oh, Tony! You know the advert from the, um, from the '80s, from the '90s? Only British people of aEP 86 · 2 Apr 2024·news roundup· 13:18–18:0513:40Persuasion vs. manipulation — where's the line?Al Elliott: So let's just back up for a second because I think a lot of people think that persuasion and manipulation are the same thing. Now, I wanted to know what the actual difference was from Phill, who's arguably onEP 75 · 25 Jan 2024·interview· 13:40–16:4621:19Why bother beyond 'doing the right thing?'Al Elliott: So this all kind of makes sense, but we— I have to ask this. We, businesses, are kind of struggling at the moment. A lot of people are struggling. We've got, you know, heading for potentially a recession, infEP 45 · 28 Jun 2023·panel interview· 21:19–27:4125:25The ethics: GDPR, voluntariness & never selecting out on personalityLeanne Elliott: Yeah, it can be. I mean, very clearly, is it legal to include psychometrics in your recruitment development? Yes, of course it is. Should these be voluntary for the people undertaking them? Absolutely. IfEP 06 · 2 Aug 2022·other· 25:25–29:40
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