Our guest on this edition of the Fair & Square podcast is Graham Ruddick, a leading business journalist and now author of Risk Roulette - The surprising reasons why some businesses work and others fail.

After a career in UK national newspapers, latterly as Deputy Business Editor of The Times, Graham founded newsletter venture Off to Lunch  which was bought by Business Leader magazine where he is now Editor-in-chief.

Graham tells our host Adam Batstone that while he thought there was something in the quote that every journalist has a good book inside them and that is where it should stay, he wanted to share his insight gleaned from his 15 years of experience researching and interviewing the founders and chief executives of some of the world’s biggest businesses.

He found there was a common and pivotal trait leaders had when it came to success: they thought about risk and going for it in a different way to other people. He coupled this insight with the increasing noise about the UK economy being held back because of the suggestion we were risk averse and should be more like the US where people took more risk – a suggestion he refutes.

Graham said he felt compelled to tell the story about the people who were taking risks and why. This included puncturing a few misconceptions, such as entrepreneurs being blind to risk and buccaneers who press on regardless.

‘That’s not the case at all, ‘ he says.

‘That’s not how these people operate. They are much more calculating than that, they realise the upsides and downsides and when they are successful they can often become risk averse. ‘If you are protecting what you have you think about risk very differently.’

In his book, Graham underlines his points with case studies of some of the UK’s business success stories including value retailer B&M, fast-growing travel specialist Travel Counsellors and sportswear company Castore.

Graham tells Adam that humans are fundamentally bad at understanding risk.

‘In our bones we are bad at risk. We underestimate the long term opportunity and we overestimate the short term threat, so we make bad decisions.’

While many factors can influence the success or failure of a business, Graham says: ‘Just going for it instantly puts you in a unique category.’