Curious Business: The B2B Growth Podcast

Every business wants change, and most probably needs it. Technology, competition and the pressure to grow all demand it. But depending on where you sit, change can feel risky, frustrating or downright frightening. It can seem that good business strategy means planning out a new normal, but when people feel change done to them rather than with them, it tends not to work. How can organisations create change without triggering an 'allergic reaction'?
Amale Ghalbouni has spent nearly two decades helping organisations change. She started as a strategy consultant handing down answers, then moved into digital transformation and agencies, working in sectors as different as horse racing, financial services, retail and automotive. Her book, Experimental, argues that the process is rarely the problem. People are: their quirks and traits, their needs and anxieties, and the “allergic reaction” most of us have to being told to do things differently.
She’s candid about when it hasn’t worked, including her own badly handled restructure and a client sponsor who wouldn’t take no for an answer. She’s also clear that the patterns aren’t unique: “You’re not that special,” she says, kindly. Her book is built on five Cs, the conditions she believes teams need to change well: connection, clarity, curiosity, courage and celebration. On a show called Curious Business, it’s probably no surprise which one stood out for me.
Listen to this episode to find out…
What the “Big Freeze” is, and why long, private planning creates the conditions that stop change
What a SharePoint site, A3 paper and a magnifying glass reveal about what leaders don’t get to see
Why siloed teams are more likely to have a trust problem than a process problem
Why someone who leads change for a living isn’t a fan of big changes
How curiosity can turn something that didn’t work into something worth learning from
Links
More about Amale and her work: https://www.amale.co/
Connect with Amale on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/amaleghalbouni/
Buy Amale's book, Experimental: 
https://link.amazon/B04ShZ7GU (affiliate link)
Other episodes on related topics
#27: Matt Ballantine on randomness and how organisations adapt:https://podcast.curiousbusiness.co.uk/e/matt-ballantine-random-the-book/
Chapters
00:00 — Intro00:53 — Designing change at people, not with them02:19 — The Big Freeze: when silence breeds fear06:41 — “You’re not that special”08:19 — Months and months of strategy that never works09:15 — Strong leaders and saying “I don’t know”10:59 — The A3 sheet, the handbag and the magnifying glass14:04 — Silos are a trust problem15:17 — Innovation isn’t invention18:15 — Why Amale doesn’t believe in big changes19:59 — Nobody measures corporate anxiety22:54 — When the change consultant gets restructured24:40 — “Adopt AI. What is that? I have questions.”27:11 — Clarity: direction, priorities, guardrails28:01 — Allies, and when to walk away32:42 — “Can't you just work around it?”33:44 — Damn them pesky humans34:55 — Don’t mention the F word37:33 — Be the one who does it first
 
--Thanks for listening. Curious Business is here to bring you insights, experiences and ideas from founders, leaders and experts to help you think differently about your business and its marketing. Listen to more episode via https://pod.link/1783648578.My name is Stephen Morris and I help you start a fire in your marketing and pipeline. Need to know more? Book a discovery call:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/Or sign-up to 'The Prompt' my monthly newsletter:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/If you'd like to talk about how podcasts can build reach, enhance authority and fuel your pipeline, visitwww.curiousbusiness.co.uk. -- Shutterstock - Track 1246628 – Monetization ID TVH3URKVE2IP99AH

AI promises to do an ever-increasing and diversifying range of jobs for us. But MIT Sloan behavioural science professor Eric So says there’s a trade-off. Are people using AI to help them think, or instead of thinking? And, if so, what does that mean for the brain?
Eric's new book, The Collision: What AI Does to Us, isn't an anti-AI polemic. Instead, it explores the trade-off we might be making when we outsource to AI. Steve Jobs called the computer “a bicycle for the mind” – something that helps us to extend our range. Eric calls AI “a motorcycle for the mind” because, rather than elevating our thinking, it might send us racing headlong into losing our most valuable capabilities.
With vivid anecdotes and research Eric unpacks how dependence forms. He exposes the quieter dangers: sycophantic models that mirror our biases, echo chambers that harden disagreement, and an economic pressure he calls AI gravity that makes short-term advantage irresistible and long-term competence precarious.
Listen to this episode to find out:
Why human cognitive scores have been falling since before most of us were born – and what that has to do with AI
The behaviour that Eric observed that led him to writing the book and why it’s sometimes like taking a forklift to the gym
Is there an AI arms race: people use AI not because it helps, but because they suspect rivals might be
What a tragic real-world fire taught firefighters about trusting their tech too much
Why the people who benefit most from AI at work might not be who you'd expect
What happens when two people in an argument each go and consult their own AI
Links
Eric’s book ‘The Collision: What AI Does to Us’https://uk.bookshop.org/a/15792/9781324124627 (affiliate link)
Connect with Eric at https://ericso.pro or https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-so-87531768/
David Autor (MIT)’s research on how AI's benefits scale with a worker's prior experience:https://economics.mit.edu/sites/default/files/2025-06/Autor-Thompson-Expertise-22050620.pdf
 
Chapters
0:01:04 — Why cognitive scores have fallen since 1975
0:06:51 — Why Eric wrote The Collision
0:10:50 — The cognitive ladder and abundant intelligence
0:17:04 — De-Skilling Me Softly: the warning signs
0:20:29 — The firefighters who trusted the camera too much
0:25:53 — Short-termism, lawsuits, and autopilot pilots
0:32:55 — Sycophancy, echo chambers and AI companions
0:35:54 — Good or bad? The motorcycle for the mind
0:42:25 — Guardrails, policy, and the AI arms race
0:48:20 — Optimism, and where to find the book
--Thanks for listening. Curious Business is here to bring you insights, experiences and ideas from founders, leaders and experts to help you think differently about your business and its marketing. Listen to more episode via https://pod.link/1783648578.My name is Stephen Morris and I help you start a fire in your marketing and pipeline. Need to know more? Book a discovery call:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/Or sign-up to 'The Prompt' my monthly newsletter:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/If you'd like to talk about how podcasts can build reach, enhance authority and fuel your pipeline, visitwww.curiousbusiness.co.uk. -- Shutterstock - Track 1246628 – Monetization ID TVH3URKVE2IP99AH

What if the businesses that survive a crisis aren't the ones with the best plans but the ones who've already lived through the toughest days they could face? In this episode, Nick Drage tells me about business wargaming - rehearsal, role-play and the surprisingly serious business of play.
A toolbox borrowed from military history and modern games that create structured experiments. Teams step into scenarios, play out mergers from the target's point of view, or simulate cyberattacks to see how they might make decisions on the fly.
Listen to hear how the boardroom becomes a battlefield: leaders wrestle with the instinct to ‘pull the plug’ during an attack, internal teams are asked to play the hacker, and simulations demonstrate that real life rarely behaves like a textbook drill. Nick seeks to provoke hard conversations that prepare us to be better in the moment. From cyber red-team work to the simple, humane lesson of having a will, he explains why being prepared isn’t negative or morbid; it’s caring for the future.
Listen to this episode if you want to find out:
Why this kind of play is serious
What a preparing for cybersecurity is like a fire drill - but the fire fights back
Why the most useful thing leaders can do with an acquisition target is pretend to be them
How making it "safe-to-fail" lets people make catastrophic mistakes on purpose, before it matters
Why VCs almost never stress-test founders the way a good war game would — but they should
What making a will has to do with surviving a cyberattack
Links:
Nick Drage / Path Dependence:https://www.pathdependence.co.uk/about/
The Handbook of Cyber War Games by John Curry & Nick Dragehttps://amzn.to/4yYi0yS (Affiliate Link)
Random: How to Thrive in an Unpredictable World by Matt Ballentine & Nick Dragehttps://securityblendbooks.com/products/random
UK Resilience Academy white paper, "Wargaming in a Resilience Context"https://ukresilienceacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/UKRA-Wargaming-Insight-Paper.pdf
Stone Paper Scissors:https://www.stonepaperscissors.co.uk/
Chapters:
0:00:49 — What is a business war game (and why the name is wrong)
0:04:53 — The master question: how a session actually gets built
0:09:15 — The fire drill where the fire fights back
0:10:45 — Giving your own staff permission to be evil
0:12:08 — The pen-test that made him unpopular in the office
0:13:11 — What separates a real war game from a strategy away-day
0:17:06 — Playing the enemy: what happens when leaders role-play a takeover
0:19:32 — Designing for disagreement, on purpose
0:21:06 — What his father's death taught him about planning and preparation
0:25:21 — Should VCs war-game founders before they invest?
0:28:45 — How to try this yourself, on a small scale
--Thanks for listening. Curious Business is here to bring you insights, experiences and ideas from founders, leaders and experts to help you think differently about your business and its marketing. Listen to more episode via https://pod.link/1783648578.My name is Stephen Morris and I help you start a fire in your marketing and pipeline. Need to know more? Book a discovery call:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/Or sign-up to 'The Prompt' my monthly newsletter:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/If you'd like to talk about how podcasts can build reach, enhance authority and fuel your pipeline, visitwww.curiousbusiness.co.uk. -- Shutterstock - Track 1246628 – Monetization ID TVH3URKVE2IP99AH

Are you finding it harder and harder to cut through the marketing noise? More channels. More content. More options. How can businesses stand out and connect with people who need their help? What’s certain is that it’s no time to be timid when it comes to brand strategy.
Tara Cloak is Strategy Director at HB, a 25-year-old independent B2B marketing and creative agency working with clients including Microsoft, CBRE and Grant Thornton. She came to brand strategy through design, driven by a conviction that creative work without strategic intent doesn't have meaning. When a former marketing director colleague told her that design was just "colouring in", she set out to combine the magic and logic in everything she does.
In this conversation, Tara draws on HB's own recent rebrand - trying to escape the pigeonhole of their own success. She argues that the most important brand work happens long before and long after the guidelines are handed over. If you're a leader, marketer or entrepreneur rethinking your brand strategy and trying to stand out, this episode is for you.
Listen to this episode to learn:
Why "I need a new website" is almost never the real problem
What Veuve Clicquot reveals about the most dangerous decision in any rebrand
Why a ‘big reveal’ is usually the wrong approach to internal alignment
Brand results may take years to show up in tracking data, so what are the early signals to look for?
The one question to ask at your next board meeting that tells you whether your brand is in good health
Links:
HB: https://uk-hb.com/
Connect with Tara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taracloak/
Chapters:
0:00:59 - From ‘colouring in’ to brand strategy
0:07:07 - The Driving Idea: what guidelines can't do
0:09:01 - When your people are your brand - and why that's a risk
0:12:08 - Logic and magic: what the research process actually looks like
0:13:52 - Why you should talk to your client's clients
0:18:22 - Why clients rebrand - and whether they should
0:21:55 - Familiarity breeds contempt
0:23:47 - The hidden work: change management
0:26:14 - Limit the ta-da moments
0:29:03 - AI and the end of production value
0:31:37 - What makes a rebrand meaningful
0:32:08 - Rebranding the rebranders: did it work?
0:33:17 - The metric Tara actually trusts
0:35:36 - Brands live in brains
0:36:31 - The boardroom test
--Thanks for listening. Curious Business is here to bring you insights, experiences and ideas from founders, leaders and experts to help you think differently about your business and its marketing. Listen to more episode via https://pod.link/1783648578.My name is Stephen Morris and I help you start a fire in your marketing and pipeline. Need to know more? Book a discovery call:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/Or sign-up to 'The Prompt' my monthly newsletter:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/If you'd like to talk about how podcasts can build reach, enhance authority and fuel your pipeline, visitwww.curiousbusiness.co.uk. -- Shutterstock - Track 1246628 – Monetization ID TVH3URKVE2IP99AH

Is what you're building actually connected to who you are? And would you know if it wasn't? Nish Sharma knew. He had the banking career, the best car, the best house, four holidays a year - and a question he couldn't shake: what am I actually doing? 
The answer arrived at his grandmother's funeral. In the grief that followed, he found a 100-year-old family story nobody had ever finished: a bootlegger great-grandfather who started an alcohol enterprise with a Scottish army officer in 1940. Nish decided to finish it — in Edinburgh, with a Scottish gin and rum that carries both worlds in, and on, the bottle.
What followed was anything but straightforward. Near-bankruptcy. A wall of silence from UK retailers despite offering to pay for the shelf space himself. He survived a heart attack and put it in an email to a buyer who kept saying no. He chased one contract for five years and felt flat when it finally landed.The private jet he always dreamed of? There's a model one on his desk. Now he drives a van.
Listen to this episode to find out:
What he actually wrote in an email to a buyer who'd repeatedly rejected him
How a bootlegger, a Scottish army officer, Indian passport holograms and the Gaelic word for tea ended up encoded in his bottles
Why angel investors who demand revenue proof before investing have got it backwards
Why his philosophy is "it has not worked, it is working just now" and what it means if you're building for the long term
What shaking hands with seven or eight billionaires taught him about wealth, success and what you actually need
Connect with Nish:
Rutland Square: https://www.rutlandsquarespirits.com/
On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nishantsharma08/
Chapters:
00:55 — The business, the products, the team02:25 — "Who am I?" Assam, Punjab, Edinburgh04:59 — Banking: paid the bills, didn't serve a purpose07:13 — Four businesses that failed before this one08:44 — "It has not worked, it is working now"10:43 — What a decade in banking actually gave him14:15 — The global palate argument16:41 — The shelf space offer retailers turned down18:08 — The funeral and the 100-year legacy19:28 — "Stories live forever. Products don't."20:03 — The bottle: passports, tartan, 1940 and 202023:13 — Near-bankruptcy and the angel paradox25:14 — Why Scotch whisky is a generational business26:36 — How tech broke investor psychology27:07 — The bigger plan30:57 — "Elon Musk is going to Mars. I'm just building on Earth."31:31 — The van, the model jet, the payroll34:53 — The one thing he'd do differently
--Thanks for listening. Curious Business is here to bring you insights, experiences and ideas from founders, leaders and experts to help you think differently about your business and its marketing. Listen to more episode via https://pod.link/1783648578.My name is Stephen Morris and I help you start a fire in your marketing and pipeline. Need to know more? Book a discovery call:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/Or sign-up to 'The Prompt' my monthly newsletter:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/If you'd like to talk about how podcasts can build reach, enhance authority and fuel your pipeline, visitwww.curiousbusiness.co.uk. -- Shutterstock - Track 1246628 – Monetization ID TVH3URKVE2IP99AH

What exactly is an entrepreneur in residence, and why would one of the UK’s largest food distributors deliberately plant a founder inside its business? What experience do you need, what is the host looking to achieve, and what do you actually do day-to-day?
In this episode of Curious Business, Stephen Morris sits down with Andrew Allen, a founder who built, bootstrapped and burned out through two food startups, and now bridges the gap between founder insights and enterprise strategy. Discover how a single advocate inside a large distributor joins dots, shapes go-to-market decisions, and reveals what actually works in B2B relationships when you're embedded in the system.
Whether you’re a founder trying to find growth, a leader pondering how to keep your organisation curious and creative, or simply fascinated by how big food can be a force for change, this episode explores how entrepreneurial thinking can influence the levers of scale.
Listen to this episode to find out:
Why getting your margin structure right on day one guarantees your product never sells
What "low barriers and high hurdles" really costs a founder 
What an entrepreneur in residence actually does all day
Why "what's in it for me?" is a stupid question in a startup but a completely valid one inside a corporate
The one-seat-one-vote system that lets a risk-averse business place more bets on new products and suppliers 
The overlooked kind of waste that Andrew says is bleeding food startups dry — and the two-hours-a-week fix
Links:
Andrew Allen on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmichaelallen/
Bidfood's Open Doors accelerator:https://www.bidfood.co.uk/about-us/open-doors/
 
Related episode:Getting a Business Through the Messy Middle with Jane Hales: https://podcast.curiousbusiness.co.uk/e/co-founder-conflicts-jane-hales/
Chapters:
02:20 — First meal to last meal: the channel nobody thinks about
03:26 — "Start from stupid" (and why you need to)
04:39 — Am I done founding? The honest answer
06:20 — The margin paradox that kills good products
07:00 — Snuffling Pig, Biffs, and low barriers / high hurdles
08:21 — The Selfridges trap
12:08 — What an entrepreneur in residence actually does
17:47 — The supplement that almost died on the shelf
20:35 — Why the big players man-marking the shelf isn't winning
23:45 — The corporate question startups never ask
28:49 — One seat, one vote: how to bet 50:50 on purpose
30:05 — Reframing a failed launch as validated feedback
31:27 — Bold Bean, and the power of joining the dots
37:21 — The real waste in food isn't food waste
39:51 — Two hours a week that would change the game
40:49 — Should every company have one of me?
--Thanks for listening. Curious Business is here to bring you insights, experiences and ideas from founders, leaders and experts to help you think differently about your business and its marketing. Listen to more episode via https://pod.link/1783648578.My name is Stephen Morris and I help you start a fire in your marketing and pipeline. Need to know more? Book a discovery call:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/Or sign-up to 'The Prompt' my monthly newsletter:https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/If you'd like to talk about how podcasts can build reach, enhance authority and fuel your pipeline, visitwww.curiousbusiness.co.uk. -- Shutterstock - Track 1246628 – Monetization ID TVH3URKVE2IP99AH